August 2014: A conversation with Searchers singer-guitarist Mike Pender

To be an American just awakening to music at the beginning of 1964 was to be swept away with the British Invasion. I was a Beatles fan first, of course, and did watch their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show that Feb. 9. But soon I was an avid listener of WLS in Chicago, listening to the Silver Dollar Survey countdown and catching the latest by Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Peter and Gordon and the Searchers.

The Searchers’ first hit here was “Needles and Pins,” and its catchy guitar part was one of the first things I tried to learn once I knew a few chords. I still crank up the volume when I hear it today. For that matter, the volume goes up for other Searchers hits such as “When You Walk in the Room,” “Don’t Throw Your Love Away” and “Someday We’re Gonna Love Again.”

When I saw Searchers singer-guitarist Mike Pender’s name on the guest list for this year’s Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans, I knew I’d want to interview him for my annual Fest preview in the Chicago Sun-Times. You can find the Sun-Times story here: http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/29243291-421/story.html#.U-9qr6NhfNU

As with other interviews in this blog, space limitations meant I could use only a couple of quotes from a longer interview. But Pender was a great interview, with a lifetime of musical experiences to talk about. Here’s the full interview:

John Grochowski: Mike, thanks for taking the time to talk. We’re looking forward to seeing you here.

Mike Pender: Actually, I’ll be back in America again in September with Mike Pender’s Searchers. We’re touring with some of the other ’60s bands.

JG: That’s great. When’s the last time you were in Chicago?

MP: My memory doesn’t go back that far!

JG: (Laughs) I figured it had probably been a long while …

MP: Early ’60s yeah. When we’ve been in America in the last 40 years, we would have gone to New York, and I was in Springfield, Massachusetts, last year,. I did the Big E Festival, which is the typical sort of American festival they have with lots of musical people around, I was the ’60s segment. So it’s a long time since I’ve been in Chicago.

JG: Have you done other Beatle fests? Were you in New York?

MP: To be honest I’ve not done a lot with Beatles shows or Beatles festivals. The only time I’ve done a gig with the Beatles was in the ’60s. It would have been very early, about 1964, and it would have been put on by Brian Epstein down in London at one of the theaters there. I cannot remember a lot of gigs with the Beatles. Maybe two.

JG: But in the early days, you were playing the same venues in Liverpool, the Cavern and the other clubs

MP: We all played the Cavern, the Iron Door, lots of other gigs like St. John’s Hall Bootle, which is where I come from, Litherland Town Hall. Yeah, we did all the gigs because nobody was famous then, we were all just hanging around playing for beer money if you like, enjoying ourselves.

In fact the first time I ever saw the Beatles was at St. John’s Hall Bootle. I still had my job, and I got home from work and washed and changed to go along to the gig, and when I got to the gig and went to the dressing room, or what we called a dressing room, there were no chairs in those days. There were five guys sitting around on the floor in leather gear and cowboy boots, and they were called the Silver Beatles then. That was the first time I ever saw them. It was their second gig in England after getting back from Hamburg, Germany. And the Searchers were top of the bill that night. When I got to the gig at St. John’s Hall, they had a poster, the Searchers, and underneath, from Hamburg, the Silver Beatles. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen them.

JG: Tell me about what you were playing in those days. I know as American fans, we heard “Some Other Guy” as an album track from you long before we saw the clip of the Beatles playing it at the Cavern. What were you playing in the clubs?

MP: Nearly all American music from Chuck Berry to Little Richard to Jerry Lee Lewis. Hardly any of the groups played English stuff in those days. They only time they did was some of the groups played instrumentals by the Shadows and later by the American group, the Ventures. But yeah, “Johnny B. Goode,” “Rock and Roll Music.” Most groups did all the same songs. We started off like that, and then we tried to be a little bit different. We actually got a lead singer, a guy called Johnny Sandon, and we brought him into the band. We were prompted to do that by a guy called Bob Wooler. Do you remember Bob Wooler?

JG: Yes, I actually met Bob Wooler in Liverpool.

MP: Bob was they guy at all the venues in Liverpool in those days, and he said “Mike, you guys would be better with a lead vocalist,” and we got this guy Johnny Sandon. And he sounded a bit like Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash. And so we were a little bit different from the other groups we when went to Cavern and the Iron Door, where the Beatles and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and whoever were doing out and out rock and roll things. We were a little bit further afield and did those types of songs. We used to do lunchtime sessions at the Cavern. Everybody did. And I used to find that a lot of people from the local offices would come in their shirts and ties, and they’d come because we were a little bit different, and they could hear something different like maybe a Jim Reeves song. So we were a little bit different in those days.

JG: By the time “Needles and Pins” hit in the U.S., and other hits like “Love Potion No. 9,” Johnny Sandon was gone and you were singing. How did the change happen?

MP: It’s funny how it comes about. There were no meetings, no sort of thrashing out, “Mike you’re going to do this, Mike you’re going to do that.” It happened.

I didn’t sing “Love Potion No. 9.” Tony Jackson – the original band was Tony, Chris Curtis, John McNally and myself – Tony actually sang those types of songs. He had the Little Richard voice, he could get his voice way up high, and he sang “Love Potion No. 9,” and he sang our first record “Sweets for My Sweet.”

We had a bit of a confrontation with the record company after the first two big hits, which were “Sweets for My Sweet” and “Sugar and Spice.” And we felt that we had to change a little beit because the first two songs were very similar, if you recall those two songs.

JG: In Chicago, we heard covers of those first two. The Cryan Shames had a big hit here with “Sugar and Spice.”

MP: Right. The two (“Sweets for My Sweet” and “Sugar and Spice”) were in a very similar vein. And record companies do that, because when they have a big success with one record, they tend to want another record in a similar vein. So we did that in the first two, then we thought the next one has to be something different. We thought “Needles and Pins,” and the people at Pye records weren’t too keen. They said if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. You have to do another like the first two.

We got our way in the end, but we had to argue with the record company and they finally came around to our way of thinking and we did “Needles and Pins.” And it just so happened that I sang “Needles and Pins” on stage with the band. So it was just kind of Mike sings it on stage with the band, lets put it down and see what happens, and if it isn’t good we can change. But Tony Hatch, our recording manager said. “That’s it.” We even left my “pins-uh” in.

When we were recording that song, people from Liverpool have this knack of putting little things on the ends of words, and I just sang “pins-uh,” and Tony Hatch said, “Hey that sounds good, we’re going to leave it in.” So we left it in. That’s just one of those little quirks that you get now and then.

JG: Another distinctive part of your sound was that 12-string Rickenbacker. Was that you? How did that come about?

MP: That’s The Beatles connection there. We were in the TV studios in England for a show called “Thank Your Lucky Stars” in those early ’60s. “We were in the dressing room and we had the TV on, and the Beatles came on singing their latest No. 1 single, which was “A Hard Day’s Night,” because that movie that they made had just been released. They weren’t there in the studios, they recorded it somewhere.

“I noticed that the guitar in that song, in the solo, it sounded a little bit different. And when I looked up, I looked at the screen, I thought, hey I’d seen Rickenbackers before because John Lennon had one in the early days in the Cavern, that he bought in Hamburg. And I looked and I thought, wow, it’s a 12-string Rickenbacker.

We had a new single coming up. We hadn’t recorded it, but we had it in the grapevine, if you like, we had it planned. That’s the sound for “When You Walk in the Room.” And I went out and got a Rickenbacker 12, it was a 360-12, and that’s the sound you hear on “When You Walk In the Room.”

JG: It’s a great sound. I love that sound.

MP: Yeah, it is, and probably if on that day I hadn’t walked in the dressing room and seen George Harrison play his, who knows, I may never have got one, and we’d have gone some other way like double-tracking or something like that.

JG: When did you first have an inkling that this was going to take off, that the Searchers were going to become something bigger than the club circuit?

MP: To be honest with you, I didn’t have that feeling until we recorded “Sweets for My Sweet.” When we went to the Star Club in Hamburg, I had a very good job in Liverpool with a big printing firm, and they actually gave me a month’s leave. Can you believe that? They said “Mike, you go do that, we know you want to do it, but your job’s still here when you come back.”

“I couldn’t; believe it really. I thought I was going to be working at Birchall’s for the rst of my life. I had a girlfriend and I thought, “I have a good job, we’re going to save up. And I’m going to earn money working and playing in a band.” I didn’t have any inkling that we were going to be recording stars or anything like that. We came back from the Star Club, and we signed up to go again. We were there for two months that time.

And when we were in the Star Club, our manager in Liverpool at the time, a guy called Ed Napoli, we’d done an acetate of maybe 10 or 12 songs in the Iron Door, and we left it to Ed to sort of hawk around, if you like, and see what he could do with it. And while we were at the Star Club, he got in touch with record companies that turned him down, all except one, and that was Pye Records.

Tony Hatch, their producer, came up to Liverpool when we got back to Hamburg, came to the Iron Door,. We did a session, he liked it, Bam! Bingo. He said “I want to record that song ‘Sweets for My Sweet,’ I want the boys to come to London,” and we did. And then I thought, wow, I can’t believe it, we just made a record. So you could say from about summer 1963 I thought, “It’s going to happen. I had an inkling we may hit the big time.”

JG: You had so many hits, then time passed, you faded from the charts. But you had that great comeback album in 1979 (“The Searchers”) that was so well reviewed. How did that happen? 

MP: The Sire Records thing? That was the early ‘80s wasn’t it? We’d been obviously in and around the music scene since about 1968 when really our popularity had dwindled and the big record hits had gone. So we kept going to the studio and we kept trying to make a good record, but it just didn’t happen.

Seymour Stein had had groups like the Ramones on his record label, and the Ramones seemed to like our kind of music. I think they recorded “Needles and Pins,” and Seymour Stein said, “I wonder what the original Searchers are doing.” He came to England, although we weren’t still the originals because Tony and  Chris had gone. It was just John and myself and a guy called Frank Allen and a guy called Billy Adamson.

We were still performing, we had lots of gigs on the continent. Seymour Stein came to see us. And he actually said, “Mike, your voice still great, we’re going to put you guys back in the charts.” We did a couple of albums, one was released in America, and I think Rolling Stone magazine gave us a great review. Lots of people liked it. But it’s the old story. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, if nobody buys it, it’s no good. It’s a disappointment. After that of course, when they had success with the Pretenders and other groups, they more or less dropped us. We were left to go our own way again and we’ve been in and around music ever since.

In 1985 I decided, if I’m going to play Searchers hits the rest of my life, I think I’ll form my own band. And I formed Mike Pender’s Searchers,. And here I am today.

JG: When you tour, when you come back to America in September, what can we expect?

MP: Obviously we’re going to do all the early hits, because that’s what they booked us for. Nostalgia. Nostalgia is still pretty big around the world today. I find you go to all the continental countries, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and there’s lots of people who still want to hear those sounds of the ’60s. Certain songs stick in people’s memories. “When you Walk in the Room” has that certain hook line, “dah-DAH-dah-da-da-da,” and people cotton onto those sorts of things. They remember them and they remember the riff in “Needles and Pins” as well.

So two great songs for us there, plus “Sweets for My Sweet” is always remembered, “Sugar and Spice” is sometimes remembered. One of the great songs I thought we recorded was “Goodbye My Love.” It’s not remembered by a lot of people but I thought it was a really good record.

And even songs that were on the Sire album, like “Hearts in Her Eyes,” I thought was a great single. I always thought, when we started in this business, we had a manager called Peter Burns and he was a guy, he took us to America, he could do it. When you have somebody like that, when you’re trying to make it in the charts, if you haven’t; got somebody like that at the helm, you’re pretty much going to miss out. With songs like “Hearts in Her Eyes,”  it was a great song released on the Sire label, it should have been a hit, but it wasn’t.

We still do that song, so it’s going to be a mix of the old hits with newer songs like “Hearts in our Eyes,” “I Don’t Want to Be the One.” We had some great singles later on. I thought “I Don’t Want to Be the One” was a great song. But with no management, no publicity agent, you’re going to be up against it.

JG: At the Beatles fest, will you be singing with the house band, Liverpool?

MP: For the first time in my life, I’m going to do a Beatle song. Because the Beatles were there because they were superstars, a supergroup. I always concentrated on the Searchers and never got into (playing) the Beatles music at all. It was always there, and people would say “Hey Mike, are you going to play a Beatles song?” And I always said no, because byu the time we’d done the Searchers songs there’s no time left to do anyone else’s song. So really it’s going to be the first time doing a Beatles song in my life, and it’s going to be because I got the connection from George Harrison’s Rickenbacker from seeing him play “A Hard Day’s Night.” That’s the song I’m going to do with the house band, because I think it’s a good story.

  

August 2014: An interview with Beatles author Mark Lewisohn

It’s that time of year again, with The Fest for Beatles Fans rolling into the Chicago area, Aug. 15-17 in Rosemont, Ill. Every year – well, almost every year – I preview for the Chicago Sun-Times.

This year I spoke with Searchers singer-guitarist Mike Pender and author Mark Lewisohn, whose “Tune In: The Beatles After All These Years” might be the most amazing Beatle book I’ve ever read. So much has been said and written about the Fab Four that you wouldn’t think there was much we didn’t already know. Yet Lewisohn, through meticulous research and hundreds of new interviews, has come up with a book that’s packed with surprises and revelations – and it takes us only through 1962. Volumes 2 and 3 are coming, but will be years in the making. Lewisohn takes no shortcuts.

 I’d actually met Lewisohn in Liverpool in 1983. I was with a tour group that was spending a day on a mystery tour. We had two buses, I was with the group that rushed straight for the Magical Mystery Tour bus – just had to have that experience. The other bus was bigger, more comfortable and had Lewisohn for a tour guide. After a while, the guides changed places, and he came to our bus. Everyone was just amazed with his knowledge and passion --- and believe me, if you’re impressing a group of knowledgeable, passionate Beatlemaniacs who spent their vacation money on 10 days in the footsteps of the Fabs, you’ve done more than a good day’s work.

I was able to use only one quote from our interview due to space restraints in the Sun-Times, but in this blog I can stretch out. Here is the full transcript of my 15-minute talk with Mark Lewisohn:


John Grochowski: Mark, it’s going to be great to have you in Chicago, and I love your book. Have you done many Fests?

Mark Lewisohn: The one I’ve done the most is the New York Metro one, but I have been to Chicago before, 1990 I was there. Possibly one other time right after, 1992 or 3, but I haven’t been for 20 years or more to the Chicago one.

JG: You would have been talking about “Recording Sessions” then, right? (Reference is to an earlier Lewisohn book that detailed who played, did what and was in what place and when for the recording fo their music.)

ML: Recording Sessions in 1990 I would have been, absolutely, it was in 1988, Possibly I might have come after the Chronicle was published in 1993, but I don’t recall. That’s all a long time ago

JG: “Tune In” is an amazing piece of research, and when it ends, we haven’t even reached Beatlemania. I’ve read that you’re looking at 14 more years to finish the project …

ML: It really is hard to say. People keep asking me if I can come up with an approximation of how long it might take, but until I start writing them, it’s going to be very hard to know. I’m researching volumes 2 and 3 at the moment, but then I’ll write Volume 2, publish it, do some more research for 3 and write that one. But they can’t be done quickly by the nature of what they are.

JG: I’m reading about Stu Sutcliffe and the aftermath of his death, and you mention that on one ever asked John Lennon about Stu. To be able to say that, you have to hav gone through everything written and broadcast about them.

ML: I have. As far as I know I have. That’s my job, to make sure that I do so. I can do these books any way I like, but I choose to be as thorough as possible, and I would be remiss in my professional duties if I didn’t endeavor to look for and see and hear everything and I am aware of no interviews when John was explicitly asked about Stuart, which is why there are no quotes. The absence of quotes may indicate he was callous about it, but simply he wasn’t asked. He answered questions candidly, and I’m sure he would have spoken about Stuart, of course he would have done if he asked, but he wasn’t

JG: Besides the review of earlier material, how much original interviewing did you do?

ML: I’m not actually sure of the number but several hundred, maybe 300 new interviews done for Tune In, with a great many people who have not been interviewed before. It’s like anything in life, you know, there are witnesses to events and there are some people who witness events who put their hand up immediately when anybody asks if they were there. And they get themselves interviewed many times over as time goes by. But then there are others who are more reluctant to stick their hand up, and you have to go and find them and persuade them that now is the time. Quite often I was tracking people who had never been interviewed before and who told stories much more convincing and more colorful and more authentic than the stories that have been told too many times by the same people.

JG: Can you name a few who haven’t been interviewed before?

ML: Quite a few of the people who went to art school with John, including this guy called Derek Hodkin, who actually managed John, Paul and George when they were a trio, the Japage 3. He was a good one. Many of the girls who used to go and hang around the Beatles in the Cavern and at their houses and so on. Like the two girls Lou Steen and Lindy Ness, who had a particularly good relationshop with John and Paul in ’62. John and Paul took care of them, and made sure they got to gigs and let them hang around them, so they were there when John and Paul were working on “Please Please Me” on the piano in Paul’s house in Liverpool, and they kept diaries.

Knowing when it was and how they described it, and because they haven’t told it before, it was fresh. It wasn’t something they told too often which they’d embroidered, which happens a lot. And it enabled me to tale the reader right into that private moment with John and Paul in Paul’s house,.writing a song, which would become their first No. 1.

And then there was the girl Bobby Brown, who was their first fan club secretary before Freda Kelly, who went to the “Please Please Me” session, and John asked her to play on it. No one has ever mentioned that there was a girl at that session alone, the fact that John wanted this girl to play piano on the track. These people had a lot of close proximity to the Beatles at a time when they were not yet famous but were clearly going to become so because of the talent that they had. It was great to find these people.

Two girls who actually really started the fan club in ’61 who for a brief while actually managed them before Brian Epstein. It never really got off the ground, but there was this brief period when these two girls were actually managing the Beatles. I tracked down people knowing they quite likely could have something to tell me, but very often I wouldn’t know exactly what. So I’d be sitting here floored by what I was hearing

JG: What’s the one biggest surprise, something that really shocked you as someone who has lived with the Beatles story for decades?

ML: The book is actually full of them, it’s hard to pin down, because it’s a combination of new material that no one has ever discovered before, and information that if you’d read all the books that were written before AND you retained all the information you read, maybe you might know bits of this, but you won’t know it in context, you won’t see how it all weaves together to form this complete picture.

As far as I’m concerned, as people who’ve read the book all tell me unanimously it’s just like reading like you’ve never read about them before. It’s hard to pick out these particular bits. I wrote an entire chapter, short chapter, about John and Paul’s trip to Paris in 1961 which was a real turning point in all their lives. To actually look at what happened there, and to make it real, to actually put the reader on the streets of Paris, so they can almost smell it is strong.

The fact that John and Paul went to Paris is know to some people, but they won’t really have known what happened there. The fact that John and Paul tried to play there, for example, and were rebuffed by this club owner, and that they got their hair cut on the little hotel by the Left Banke in Paris, which I went to visit because I always go and look at places I write about.

One of the things that has surprised many people is the true story of how the Beatles got their recording contract and how incredibly lucky they were they way that it happened. And the way that it happened is thanks to the efforts of a many whose name is not written in any books. A man who called himself Kim Bennett, without whom we wouldn’t be talking about the Beatles. They had the talent, but he had the tenacity to push for something on their behalf that actually got them their recording contract with George Martin in a roundabout way,

JG: The music publisher? (Bennett pushed for EMI to sign the Beatles because he thought he could do something with the publishing for “Like Dreamers Do,” and later pushed for “Love Me Do” to be the Beatles’ first A-side rather than “How Do You Do It?” because he wanted to maximize publishing value of a Lennon-McCartney song.)

ML: That’s right.

What it’s mostly about is putting flesh on the bones of who these people are. Not so much a Beatles biography, but a complete biography of John Lennon, of Paul McCartney, of George Harrison, of Ringo Starr, of Pete Best, of Brian Epstein, of George Martin, of all of these people, all woven together so you get a much, much greater sense of the characters and the drive particularly of the four Beatles. How tenacious they were, how they would say no to things very readily, as well as yes. The tough job that Brian Epstein had managring them but the brilliant job he had getting them out of Liverpool and before the nation and before the world. That much is known, but how he did it and what it says about him as a person is what’s new. So you end up feeling like you know these people and that you were there while it was happening. And that is possible through the research

JG: One thing that really hit me, which maybe as Americans we knew but never internalized, was what a tough environment Liverpool was, that Ringo couldn’t always carry a full drum kit because it made him too much of a target.

ML: It was tough, no doubt about it. Liverpool wasn’t the only tough place in Britain and Britain wasn’t the only tough place in the world. But nevertheless on a day to day basis, this is what they had to deal with. But in a sense, such experiences weeded out who really wanted to do it from those who quite wanted to do it. Because the Beatles -- all four of them – were very, very determined young men.

 All four of them, ambitious, determined and intent on disregarding all the advice they were getting from parents and other adults about this stupid thing they’re doing, this playing the guitar, this rock and roll and all of that, and why did they stick at it? Because of the personalities of who they were, rather like because the kind of music they liked was not everywhere around them like it is these days. You can’t move from hearing rock and roll music, you hear it everywhere, on television, on the radio, while you’re out shopping, wherever you might be, it’s around. But this was greatly frowned upon in the later 1950s. If you wanted it, you really had to go looking for it. And that eliminated the casually interested and kept only the passionate involved, and that is a very good process for making sure the people who are in it are in it for the right reasons.

JG: One of the other Fest guests is Mike Pender of the Searchers. At different points in the book, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes are the top band in Liverpool, and later the Beatles look at Gerry and the Pacemakers as their main competition. Where do the Searchers fit in all this?

ML: I always preface this kind of answer with I wasn’t there, but having done the deep level research, and particularly reading contemporaneous news items, letters, contracts, and all of that,. It’s clear that the Searchers were always a good band, or group, to use the correct word. Always a good group, but they somehow … in those days they were the backing group for a lead singer. Johnny Sandon and the Searchers is what they were through most of the period in “Tune In.” Johnny Sandon by all accounts was a good singer, and I’ve heard recordings that were made, but somehow or other they gelled better without him.

So really the Searchers story will rise in my trilogy in book 2 rather than in book 1, They’re around the scene in book 1, but not tearing up any trees. It’s in book 2 I will write about the Searchers becoming a No. 1 group on the charts. Never the biggest group from Liverpool, of course, but they were very well liked and respected. The Beatles liked and respected them, Brian Epstein would express the wish that he was their manager but it was too late, they had signed with somebody else. Brian clearly reckoned they were good and indeed they were.

A November, 2013, interview with Peter Davison

Every Thanksgiving weekend but one since 1983, there has been a Doctor Who fan convention in the Chicago area. With 2013 being the 50th anniversary since the science fiction classic debuted on the BBC, Chicago Tardis was one of the biggest of the Chicago conventions in many years. Three Doctors were on hand: No. 5 Peter Davison, No. 6 Colin Baker and No. 8 Paul McGann.

I pitched a story previewing the convention to the Chicago Sun-Times, and was given the go-ahead. A couple of weeks before the event, I interviewed Davison by phone at his U.K. home. You can find the story here: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/24036603-421/story.html

Just as with other interviews posted on this blog, far too much came out of the conversation to include in one 500-word newspaper story. I really had been looking forward to interviewing Davison. My wife and I have long been big fans of “All Creatures Great and Small,” where he played the young veterinarian Tristan Farnon and we love his more recent series, “The Last Detective.”

If I made a list of my favorite “Doctor Who stories,” the Fifth Doctor would rank high with “The Caves of Androzzani,” “Castrovalva,” “Kinda,” “Snakedance” and “Frontios.” And Davison’s “Doctor Who” ties remain strong. His daughter, Georgia Moffett, played the title role in “The Doctor’s Daughter,” where she met her future husband, Tenth Doctor David Tennant. So the Doctor became the Doctor’s father-in-law.

In the interview that follows, you’ll see a reference to a special Davison had been working on involving older Doctors. It had not been released at the point of interview, and we got into no details. By the time the Chicago Tardis convention rolled around it was available online. It’s a 30-minute comedy called “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot,” with Davison, Colin Baker, McGann and Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out --- it’s very funny, and filled with Doctor Who spirit.

What follows is the transcript of the complete interview I did with Davison a couple of weeks before Chicago Tardis. I had a good time doing it, and I hope “Doctor Who” fans enjoy.

Peter Davison: Perfect timing! You’ve got me out of washing the dog.

(laughter). JG: Glad to help! (more laughter) We need to talk about “Doctor Who,” of course, but before we get going, my wife insisted that I had to tell you how much we both liked Dangerous Davies (Davison’s role in “The Last Detective”).

PD: (Sounding surprised.) Oh, good!

JG: The DVD set arrived at the office and my editor asked if I’d like to take a look. My wife and I both loved them.

PD: How nice! Thank you very much.

JG: On to Doctor Who, and the big 50th anniversary year. Have you been doing extra stuff for the celebration?

PD: I have been doing extra stuff yes. When is this going out, your article?

JG: The first day of the convention, last Friday in November.

PD: Oh, good. If you can keep still about this. I have been working on something that I have written and ended up directing as well. A feature with three of the classic Doctors in it. But it’s kind of a secret at the moment. It’s not being broadcast on the TV proper. It will be available on various websites and YouTube and things like that. It’s been part funded by the BBC, and we’ve had very good access to the BBC and all things Doctor Who. I felt a gap because we’re not being in the 50^th anniversary as such.

Somebody asked, funnily enough, at the convention, if we were going to be in the 50^th anniversary. And I kind of jokingly said if I’m not, I’m damn well going to make my own 50^th anniversary special. Then I was asked again at another convention and I thought I’d better get down to this. It’s really taken up, to be honest with you, quite a lot of this year.

That banging in the background is probably them trying to catch the dog. Don’t worry about that.

Yes, I have been working on this, and I hope the fans enjoy it.

JG: Going back in time a bit, is there anything you’re particularly proud of in your time as the Doctor?

PD: It’s odd that when I became Doctor Who, I was the first who grew up watching. Of course they were older Doctors then. I felt I was a bit young when I was offered it. I was used to the sort of older Doctors, and for a long time I think probably I felt like that. When the new series came and we’ve had a succession of younger Doctors, now looking at the viewpoint of today, I don’t see myself as out of place at all. In fact, it seems almost like I started a trend. I think if anything, the idea of young Doctors was not a bad idea.

With Doctor who in the old days, because it wasn’t at that time a prestigious program --- it was very popular, it sold to 39 countries and made the BBC  a lot of money --- but it wasn’t considered by the BBC at that time to be a prestigious program. So we didn’t have a great budget or anything like that, but it was immensely popular. I think my final story (“The Caves of Androzzani”), I think it was recently a couple of years ago voted the best Doctor Who story ever, so I’m kind of proud of that. Because it was a good way to leave the program,. I did turn into Colin Baker at the end, which wasn’t quite so hot. (laughs).

JG: “Caves of Androzzani,” --- I’m a fan as well as being a journalist …

PD: OK.

JG: … it reminds me in some ways of a Hartnell story structure, in that the Doctor spends the story just trying to get out of a dangerous situation instead of trying to provide a solution.

PD: That’s in part, I think, because we had Robert Holmes writing it. He was a classic “Doctor Who" writer. Probably we had too few solid “Doctor Who” people writing. They tended to put them out to sort of writers who one day would write a cop show, the next day a hospital drama or a country house mystery. They weren’t hugely devoted to the genre or the program in particular. That was a case where everything seemed to come right. We had Bob Holmes write it, and we had a very different sort of director in Graham Harper and we had a great cast.

JG: You’ve had such a busy career, always in demand. Did you learn anything from “Doctor Who” that you took away into your later career?

PD: Hmmm … I don’t know how much. There simply isn’t time to learn any details. I suppose you learn patience, actually, if anything. Even when you have great scenes, you’re doing them either at a hectic pace or to a green screen, which is the only kind of special effect we had in those days, and the person you’re talking to is not actually there.

You just learn really how to cope with adversity. The things that take the time are things that have nothing to do with you, especially when they’re getting a special effect right or lining up a particular shot. I’d done “All Creatures Great and Small” before, and really, I learned more about the craft of acting on television on that and on subsequent shows than on Doctor Who, if I’m honest. You use very useful technical things. You learn very quickly where the camera is, what the camera’s trying to do, if you’re blocking anyone, if you found your light. So things like that I think learned, yeah,.

JG: How much of the new series have you watched?

PD:  Pretty much all of it, because I have two sons, who are 12 and 14 now, and they are “Doctor Who” fans, We watch it, nearly every episode. I’m about a half an hour short of the last episode. It’s not TIVO, it’s our equivalent of TIVO, and we haven’t finished it. Generally speaking I sit and watch it with them.

JG : Billie Piper [who played Rose Tyler opposite the Ninth and Tenth Doctors] once said that at its heart, “Doctor Who” is a love story in time and space. That’s very different from your day.

PD: Very, very different, yes. I don’t know, in a way, I get slightly envious of the fact that the Doctor seems to get romantically involved with all the companions. In my day, I wasn’t even allowed to put my arm around the female companions for fear that people might think there was hanky-panky going on in the TARDIS. That doesn’t seem to be a concern now.

I have mixed feelings about it really. I think it works very well. That after years of struggling to get companions right, the first companion I think they ever really got quite right was in fact Rose. You want to make a strong character, but also a passionate character, and I think it was a brilliantly written part. And there was this frisson with the Doctor, there’s no doubt about that. It was more of a kind of love story.

JG: The restriction on having the arm around the companion, that was more specific to your younger Doctor. It was no problem for Jon Pertwee to have his cape around Katy Manning.

PD: No, with the previous Doctors that would just have been all right. Indeed, the First Doctor was a grandfather,. So you’re right, it was specific to me, sort of my dashing sort of young Doctor.

JG : Did you feel any special pride when your daughter landed a role in the show? (NOTE: Davison’s daughter, Georgia Moffett, played the title role in “The Doctor’s Daughter” opposite Tenth Doctor David Tennant, whom she later married.)

PD: Definitely. Originally, she went in for a very general casting for the part of Rose. I’m sure many actresses were seen for that part. Well, that didn’t happen. Then early in the same season in which she appeared --- I can’t remember which story and probably shouldn’t tell you even if I could --- she went up for a part and in fact she was offered the part and she was very excited about it.

Then they rang her the next day and said, “If you want to do the part we offered you, that’s absolutely fine, but if you wait for two or three months, we have a much better part coming up down the road.” She rang me up and said, “What should I do?” And I said I suppose if they’re saying it’s a better part down the road, then wait for that. And so she did. Of course when the story came along, it was called “The Doctor’s Daughter.” And I thought really, that’s what was better about it. It wasn’t just that the part was better, it was a brilliant title to have her cast in. Nevertheless, it worked out very well.

Really, yes, I did feel a sense of pride, I guess, because it was a major part

--- uh-oh, they’re showing me the washed dog. (Laughs.) OK – take him away~

I’d never really left “Doctor Who.” When you’re the Doctor and you’ve finished your stint, you are the Doctor plus your number. So I was always Doctor Five. I’d been to the conventions. I was always of involved with the show. So yes, I did feel a sense of pride, and she’s a very good little actress,

JG: Then she became the Doctor’s wife, as well

PD:  Indeed. Which of course made it even more complicated. You should have heard the father of the bride speech. I had to stop when it got to the point where it seemed like she married me. It was a very nice story, because they didn’t start going out together immediately when they worked together. I think they worked together and they left it and exchanged telephone numbers, and eventually he rang her up and asked her to the theater, And she said, “Why does he keep asking me to the theater?” And I said, “Well, maybe he likes you.” It was nice.

JG: How do you like David’s incarnation of the Doctor?

PD: I like it very much. What I loved about it … Chris Eccleston was terrific, but I think what David brought to it was a kind of passion for the show itself because he had grown up being a Doctor Who fan. When I heard his name mentioned first of all, I just didn’t think he’d do it, because his star was rising. He’d just done “Casanova,” and he really could have done so many things. But when Doctor Who came along, he just couldn’t turn it down because in a way like me, he’d grown up watching it, and he was such a huge fan, and probably imagined many times the idea of playing the Doctor, and there he was offered it. It seemed to me like he put his career on hold to play the Doctor, and in fact he made such a success of it, it launched him into all sorts of other things. I think it was a wise move.

JG: Chris Bidmead [a former Doctor Who writer and script editor] has said he likes the new series, he just wishes they wouldn’t call it “Doctor Who” …

PD: (laughs)

JG: Do you think the Doctor in the revived series is the same man as the Doctor in the classic series?

PD: I do, kind of yes,. I know the formula is different, there’s no doubt about that, and if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you either love it or you hate it. I’ve heard many people come up at conventions and say, “I love the classic series, I don’t like this new series, it’s too superficial and they don’t have time to develop the story and they miss the cliffhangers.” 

Personally what I like about it is I think the scripts now are almost invariably written by people with a passion for the genre of Doctor Who itself, and I think that shows. I love some of Russell T’s scripts and Steven Moffat’s scripts and Mark Gatiss’ scripts. They’re all super Doctor Who fans. I don’t think they’ve left the classic series behind. They’ve changed the genre, and I do have some arguments with that. To me it’s a bit too wham, bam. Things happen very quickly and there is no time to develop a story. But the story itself, I always thinks is very good.

JG: The pacing is much, much different than in the classic series.

PD: Yes. Sometimes, it’s just in the last couple of years, maybe I’m getting old and senile, but I used to pride myself that I could sit there and understand everything that’s going on. I have found myself a couple of times this season turning to my son and going, “What’s going on?” But that may just be me. I enjoy it though, I think it’s very good, and I do think it’s the same man, but they’ve made it sort of a different pace.

I’d like to think that I did introduce a certain element of self-doubt into the Doctor, which hadn’t been there before. Which is much more developed in the newer Doctors, that feeling of “Am I doing the right thing? Am I in control?” I liked all the previous Doctors, but I thought sometimes there wasn’t an element of “What’s going on?” and being slightly out of your depth. I wanted to bring that sort of feeling to it.

JG: And you got to reprise the role along with David [Tennant] in the Children in Need special, “Time Crash.”

PD: I wanted to do it. Steven Moffat came to me and said “I’ve written this for the Children in Need,” and asked “Would you like to do it?” “I read it and thought it was a fantastic little script that worked on two levels, It was the Tenth Doctor remembering being the Fifth Doctor, but it was also David remembering watching me as the Doctor. It was just brilliantly done. By that time they were filming in Cardiff, which was a long way from where we were filming in London. And they had what they call a standing set, so they didn’t have to take it down at the end of the studio and put it in a store cupboard. It was left there. And so it was much better, sort of more solid and intricate a set than we had. But nevertheless, I had a great time doing it, and by the time we finished I could have carried on for, well, another couple of years, really. (Laughs) No, but it worked out very well.

JG : In “Time Crash,” David gives the speech with the heartfelt “You were MY Doctor.” Your Doctor was Patrick Troughton, correct?

PD: Yes …

JG: And you got to work with Patrick in “The Five Doctors.” What did you like about Patrick, and his interpretation of the Doctor?

PD: I did work with him, yes, on a couple of occasions, He was in an episode of “All Creatures Great and Small,” and then of course we did “The Five Doctors.” What I loved about him, I suppose, was I watched William Hartnell, and at the time no one had dreamt of the idea of regeneration. It wasn’t in the picture at all. And then William Hartnell became too ill to carry on and the BBC didn’t want to end the program. And they came up with this idea that the Doctor had regenerations.

I remember being very trepidatious about watching Patrick, a new Doctor. Because to me William Hartnell was the Doctor. And I remember sitting there and thinking, “I’m not going to like this, I’m really not going to like this.” And by the end of the first episode he had just won you over. Because he introduced a kind of humor that really wasn’t there before. Not that I’d missed it at all, it just wasn’t there. He was sort of befuddled and it was just an extraordinary character he came up with. He was really to me the reason that the program really became hugely popular, because he was able to inject something different into it, and far from being turned off, everyone just climbed aboard.

JG: What I’ve seen of Patrick’s era is a few complete stories and some bits and pieces, with so much of his time missing. But now they’ve recovered “The Enemy of the World” and most of “The Web of Fear.”.  

PD: Lying on the floor somewhere in Africa, yeah.

JG: Have you gone back and watched?

‘

PD: I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t had time to do that yet. But they look actually in not bad condition. I think they’ve done a fantastic restoration job on it. I look forward to seeing it again.

JG : You mentioned earlier that after “Time Crash,” you felt you could have gone on. How would your approach be different, IF you were to come back to play the Doctor as an older man.

PD:  I think I’d just take advantage of the way they’ve developed his character, his mental state. You see much more of the Doctor than you did in my day. It was really about sort of … I just think the scripts are better. I’d look forward to playing the scripts. Largely I think the scripts are … for an actor, they’re much more exciting to do now.

JG : Almost from the beginning of your association with “Doctor Who,” you’ve appeared at conventions.

PD:  The first one I think I did was a big Chicago convention in uh, 1983, I think it was.

JG: That sounds right. They had the MASSIVE conventions here at the time

PD: Chicago has always been a stronghold of Doctor Who fandom. I always thought they [conventions] would sort of go away, and they just haven’t. They’ve just carried on. It’s very nice now when you go over there, you still have that hard core of fans who have been loyal to the program for years, and very often they bring along their children who they’ve brainwashed. [Laughs] But you also of course get the people who come to the show, you have a slightly wider visibility. So I often get sort of kids coming up. I do worry that they’re a bit shocked when they actually see me because they’ve probably gone back and watched The Five Doctors or whatever from my era, and they see me and go, “Who’s that?” It’s very nice, they’re huge fans of the program and it’s wonderful to see, really.

JG: Obviously, during a convention, you’re working. But besides that, what do you get out of conventions?

PD: I can’t say that it’s not very pleasant to be told how wonderful you are for an entire weekend. Also, I kind of know what it’s like to be a fan,. I can’t put it any more concisely than that. You kind of know when you go along that you meet them and you’re nice to them and you’re friendly, and it’s a nice moment. It would have been a huge moment for me. So I kind of know how it feels. And it’s nice. It makes you feel very good that you’re making people feel happy.

‘

Also, it’s nice to talk about the program,. We talk about it in a fairly irreverent way, quite often. And the fans love it, and enjoy it and seem entertained by it. It’s nice to do it.

JG : With the new series, the convention crowds seem to be getting younger. A friend of mine is on the planning committee for Chicago Tardis, and he jokes about middle-aged men putting on a convention for teenaged girls.

PD: (Laughs). I didn’t know about that. That cant be a bad thing, can it? (Laughs some more)/

JG : No, no, it can’t.

PD: You’re probably right, It’s a younger audience. I;’m not sure that it’s me that the younger female fans come to swoon at, sadly. It’s nice to have a varied bunch of people coming up to take a photograph or have me sign something for them.

JG : I come with my son, who’s 22 and been watching Doctor Who since he was born, really. You’re HIS Doctor, the one he really latched onto when he was younger.

PD: Oh good, that’s really nice to hear.

JG: This has been great, thank you. I really enjoyed talking with you, and look forward to seeing you back in Chicago.

PD: Thank you, I look forward to it, too. I have to go and dry the dog now!