FAIRFIELD PARLOUR

Jason Barnard of Strange Brew continues to speak to Kaleidoscope/Fairfield Parlour lead singer Peter Daltrey to uncover the story of this truly legendary psychedelic group.

You changed your name to Fairfield Parlour and linked up with David Symonds.

We’d done so many radio sessions as Kaleidoscope and rubbed shoulders with Dave. He was a nice guy. We got on well with him and he liked us. It was clear that Fontana were losing patience with us and we didn’t have a hit which wasn’t our fault. One day Dave said “Have you thought of getting away from Fontana? Move on. Your music is progressing. Why don’t you move on?” We agreed and went to see him down at his place at Hampton Court. We hatched a plan. Ed and I started writing much more mature songs and lyrics, expanded instrumentation and became Fairfield Parlour.

The funny thing was that we re-signed with Phillips. That was the parent company of Fontana. The reason being that they were starting this progressive label Vertigo. They said “Please don’t go. We want you on Vertigo on the first batch of albums to be released.” Slightly flattered we decided to do that but rather cleverly we said “We will come back on a tape lease deal.” So we did the recordings. We paid for them and owned them. We leased them to the record company for a period of five years, after that all ownership reverted to the band. But, of course, with hindsight we must have been bloody mad to resign with a company that had screwed us so badly. Who knows what our story might have been if we had moved to a different label....with staff who actually knew what they were doing....

“Bordeaux Rose”, was that from those sessions as it wasn’t on the LP?

I always like to keep singles as singles. I know people like to take a track off an album so it promotes an album. But we were writing so much that we had enough material to release as singles and keep other stuff as albums. “Bordeaux Rose” was designed specifically as a single.

You were on Top of the Pops.

As we heard before with “Jenny Artichoke”, “Bordeaux Rose” was played to death on the radio. It was very highly rated, great predictions for it. We got on Top of the Pops. If you went on in those days the following week your record would go up at least five places on the chart. It was almost guaranteed as you had exposure on Britain’s only pop TV programme. Ours went down the following week. That shows you the distribution problems of Vertigo-Fontana-Philips.

My favourite track on “From Home to Home” is “Aires”. I like the world weariness on your vocals. It’s clearly a special track.

There are a few tracks scattered through my recording career that are autobiographical and “Aries” is one of them. Whitey was a friend of mine. We did find a motorbike and as far as I know he did die when he was riding it. It was a great opener for the album and encompasses the mood.

Other people say the same about “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh”. You’ve got those two songs bracketing the album. It is a melancholy mood. Unfortunately it’s somewhat negated by an old Kaleidoscope number called “In My Box”. It should never have been included on there. Ironically it`s a song I now feature in my live set after repeated requests to do so -- and it goes down a storm...!

Having said that it shouldn’t spoil someone’s enjoyment of the album as it had “Emily Brought Confetti” and “Soldier of the Flesh”. Songs like that -- plenty to get your teeth into.

How did you get involved with the Isle of Wight festival and record the single “Let the World Wash In?”

David Symonds as our manager was really motivated and energetic and worked 20 hour days on behalf of the band. He was tremendous. He got us the Vertigo contract and a deal to write a TV advert. Then we did the music to the film “Eyewitness”, the theme song and incidental music. Then he pulled the real prize out of the bag which was an appearance at the Isle of Wight festival that was clearly going to be huge. Dylan had played the year before. Dave had convinced the brothers Foulk into us writing the theme song for the festival in 1970. So we went away and did it. This was the third one of ours that everyone predicted would be absolutely gigantic. As somebody said in the paper “If everybody who goes to the festival buys it, it will be in the charts for 10 years.” Unfortunately when we got to the festival, Ricki Farr thought he was in charge as he had the microphone. Instead of playing it in between every acts as it said on the contract he played it once and said “I don’t like that.” He threw it in the audience. The reason being he wasn’t involved in the original negotiations for us to write it. There has an inter-office row with the Foulk brothers and he took it out on us. He frisbeed the disc into the crowd and it was never seen again. Of course after the festival was over no one was going to play it again. It was another sad day.

I might be wrong but wasn’t it “Ride a White Swan” that got massive out of Isle of Wight?

You might be right. A lot of it was down to the DJs Ricky Farr and, I think it was a guy called Jeff Dexter. They played what they wanted. It’s a shame as “Let The World Wash In” I’m very proud of. We were told to write the theme song to a festival. I’d never been to one. We had to come up with something that was suitable for an open air festival, in the sun, by the sea with hundreds of thousands of people listening to it, perhaps singing along. I think what we achieved was right for it. I love it. I’m very proud of that song. That’s one I can stand listening to still and get enjoyment out of. It’s very accomplished and it’s a shame very few people have heard it.

It was a similar story with your next album “White Faced Lady”, an ambitious record. “Epitaph-Angel” is a beautiful track.

What happened was that Ed and I had so many songs accumulating I said to Ed “These songs we’re writing. There’s a mood, a sort of connection with them". We said why don’t we link them and create more of a story. I will write a book to go with it and put it out as a so-called concept album.” We spoke to Dave and he was over the moon with it. So Ed and I for the next six months sat down and wrote the songs. I wrote the story to go with them and we had linking bits and pieces. We went off and recorded it with the blessing of the guy that was in charge from Vertigo at the time, a Dutchman called Olav Wyper. Dave went to see him and Olav said “Fantastic, great. Go away and record it. When you’ve finished come back and we’ll sort out the deal. We went away and recorded it.

Dave took the tapes back to Vertigo to see Olav who said “I can’t do it.” Dave said “What do you mean, you can’t do it. We’ve just gone away and paid for the recording.” Olav said “I’m leaving Vertigo.” Dave said “What are we going to do.” Olav said “There’s no one here who’ll do it, because as I’m leaving no one else wants to undertake my projects. So you won’t get anywhere here.” Dave said “Where are you going?” Olav said “Well I’m going to RCA. Bring the album to RCA when I’ve settled in. Give me a couple of months. We’ll do the deal there.” So Dave went to see Olav at RCA who then said “I’m sorry. I can’t do it.” Dave said “You’re kidding. What do you mean you can’t do it?” Olav said “The RCA bosses won’t let me do anything that I was involved with at Vertigo.”

We were out in the cold -- or up that creek without that mucky paddle -- and we struggled to find a home for it. We went to Island, Warner Brothers. The time for that type of album was just waning. Unfortunately it didn’t find a home. Because of that the band broke up.

You all had to get day jobs?

We split up and the band went their separate ways. I was convinced we’d been forgotten. So much so I had some tapes of original material in my desk here at home. One day I came across them and I thought no one is going to be in the slightest bit interested in those and put them in the dustbin. There were 13 tracks we’d recording in a demo studio that had never been released. Gold dust.....today.

You seem more popular now than ever and strangely, over the other side of the Atlantic.

It’s actually a worldwide thing. There’s a lot of Japanese and German fans, Norwegian. It is amazing. It is very rewarding. I love it. It’s great to think that something we did 50 years ago is highly regarded now.

I’ve benefited from it because since the band broke up I’ve released 19 albums I think it is now. Because of the interest in the band, it’s growing in some way.

A lot of people write to me and say “Please, will the band get back together and come over and do a short show please.” I put it to the other guys, Steve died in ‘99. Of the other two Dan wasn’t well and Ed wasn’t interested at that time. . People would say to me “You come on your own.” I said “Don’t be ridiculous! No one will come to see me on my own. I’d need a band anyway.” They said “We’ll give you a band.” I said “No, no. I can’t do it.” But then last year, 2011, Neil Martinson approached me and said “Look. I understand the band can’t come but I’m asking you again. Will you come over and do a gig. I’ve got a group of musicians who love Kaleidoscope, love your music.” In the end I gave in because it was so tempting. I went over and we did a tour of California. It was absolutely wonderful.

I was watching the YouTube clips. They seem to have been really well received.

They were. It was good – we had a really good time. The band I was with were tremendous musicians and were absolutely note perfect to the Kaleidoscope originals. I was very pleased, it went down very well.

There was a cover of “Music” by an American band in the early Nineties.

Cerebral Corps. They do a good job on it. It is interesting that you say we are highly valued as there haven’t been many covers. Somebody said that was because they can’t better the original but I’m still surprised there haven’t been more. We had a song called “Bless The Executioner” which was covered by Marc Ellington -- and Claude Francois in France did “Bordeaux Rose”. As well as the Spanish band doing “Jenny Artichoke” and “Cerebral Corps” doing "Music" that was it. A great US band called Ex Norwegian do a stunning version of `Baby, Stay for Tonight.` Well worth checking out. I am now working with Roger Houdaille from the band on future US releases.

You started making music in the early nineties?

I was literally learning my craft. In the band I was writing the lyrics. When I realised that the band weren’t getting back together I had to do both, the lyrics, music and learn to play. “Dream On” my first album was rather tentative.

My albums are on the Bandcamp site. Some of music videos are on Vimeo like “Tambourine Days”. “Tattoo” is my work with Damien Youth. Damien wrote to me and said “I really love your music can I send you a song. He did. I loved it so much I said “Well I’d like to do a vocal on it”. From there we started writing together and we’ve written three albums, “Tattoo”, “Nevergreen” (another concept album), “The Morning Set” which is like a band album. We’re working on a fourth.

“Tattoo”, the album is actually one of my favourites. Working with other people is wonderful and writing with Damien was good. He’s a tremendous singer-songwriter musician. “Tattoo” I’m really proud of.

You did a cover version with Ayreon “Nature’s Dance”.

Ayreon is Arjen Lucassen, a Dutch heavy metal guitarist. He is a genius. He loves Kaleidoscope. He was doing an album called “Into the Electric Castle” and he said would I be interested in collaborating on it. Writing the narration on it and recording it. I said “Of course I would.” So I wrote the narration and went over to his studio in Holland. While we were there we recorded “Nature’s Dance” and “In the Room of Percussion” which is out on my album “King Of Thieves, The Best of Peter Daltrey vol.2” on GRA records.

Tambourine Days, your book, is a great record of the era. The interesting thing about it was that the band was quite insular in that you did your own thing.

We were very insular. We were four ordinary quiet guys. We weren’t musos. It would be pointless talking to me about sixties music in any great depth. I simply don’t know. We weren’t into many other bands. I didn’t buy a lot of albums myself. We were absolutely focused and dedicated to Kaleidoscope-Fairfield Parlour. We lived and breathed it 24 hours a day. We were very close, it was a wonderful time. We were like brothers and concentrated on our own road, nothing would deviate us from it until fate conspired to thwart that journey and we had to stop and break up. Up until that point it was just focused on going forward.

In terms of new tracks, what’s also in store?

Karl Anderson the boss of GRA records is compiling a tribute to Sky Saxon, the lead singer of The Seeds and he asked me to do a track called “Wild Roses” and that’s on the album as well. It’s fun because it’s got my son on guitar and another guy I work with, Derek Head on saxophone. It’s a good track.

And finally, I’ve really enjoyed the material I’ve heard from you from “Dream On” onwards. It’s very credible.

I’m pleased to hear that, thank you. Somebody said that my voice hasn’t changed in that time and to be honest I’m still writing about the same stuff I was writing then. I’m trying to make a similar music. Obviously hoping people who enjoyed Fairfield Parlour certainly and Kaleidoscope would find a lot to like in my newer music as well. The song “Tambourine Days” could almost have come from a Fairfield Parlour album. That’s my ambition to make music that runs alongside quite happily with the Kaleidoscope and Fairfield Parlour canon.

It’s rewarding that people like you are interested. Thank you for asking.

It’s a pleasure and honour Peter. Thank you.

Many thanks to Peter Daltrey for his time and support.

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