Mott The Hoople, Verden Allen

Verden Allen is a founding member of legendary rock n’ rollers Mott The Hoople, but left the band in 1972 when frontman Ian Hunter was reluctant to use any of Verden’s songs on the band’s albums. Verden has since pursued a solo career (with varying degrees of success) but participated in the 2009 Mott The Hoople reunion concerts.
I had the immense pleasure and honour to meet up with Verden before the premiere screening of The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople – a new and fascinating documentary about the band shown during the London Film Festival. Charming and good-humoured, he doesn’t shy from discussing career highs and lows in equal measure.

Music-News:
Verden, why have you decided to become an organ player as opposed to guitarist or bass player? Especially since guitars are more associated with rock music than most other instruments.

Verden Allen:
Well, organs were very much used in rock bands in the early days. I had piano lessons when I was younger and my godfather, he was an organist in church. When I moved to Hereford from South Wales I started off playing the piano, but early piano sounds were not as they sound now. So I bought an organ from The Animals and also, because I’d gotten into the great jazz organist sound, people like Jimmy Smith and so on. I also used to work with Jimmy Cliff at one time, and of course we used an organ – the Hammond was coming in at that time. But it’s a very big instrument to carry around, and very heavy.

MN:
So that’s how you got into the more rhythm n’ blues / rock n’ roll sound of things…

VA:
Yes. I started off with Jimmy Cliff as I said, and the first place we went to was Paris where we played with Bill Haley and people like that. That’s going back a long time, doesn’t it? (laughs). Then I left Jimmy Cliff and came back to Hereford where we formed Mott The Hoople. Obviously, I played a rock-style organ with that.

MN:
You’re a founding member of Mott The Hoople… did you set out with the ambition of making it real big in the biz, or more like “This is the music we wanna play and we’ll play it regardless”?

VA:
Oh, we had a deal with Island Records. A producer called Guy Stevens, he saw the band and he liked the band. Our singer at the time, he didn’t quite like the direction we wanted. So we were looking for someone else and what Guy had in mind was someone who sounded a bit in between Bob Dylan and the Stones. So we put in some ads and Ian Hunter turned up and he had that similar sort of voice. So we went to record our first album which is called ‘Mott The Hoople’. On that one, of course we wanted to do our own songs and find our own direction, which took quite a while to do. It wasn’t until David Bowie came along and wrote ‘All The Young Dudes’ that we managed to find a way. I mean, Ian was writing good songs but he couldn’t come up with what is called a commercial song. His stuff was a bit more undergound.

MN:
Why do you think Mott The Hoople always did really well with concerts but the band’s album sales could never quite match the success of the live shows?

VA:
Well, I think we couldn’t capture that raw live sound on a commercial record. When we went into the studio, everything had to be immediate. Our producer Guy Stevens couldn’t see anything in a different way from that. I mean you couldn’t put a song together and work on it with harmonies and all this, because he didn’t like that. He liked to hear it sounding live straight off. Also, Ian wrote some great songs but lyrically they were a little bit deep perhaps but also, our songs always sounded different live. With the audience interaction and all that, and with all the raw energy, you just couldn’t capture it like that on an album because when you listen to it, the same magic doesn’t come across. You had to see it I think. But really, we were never happy with the production. Guy Stevens made us sound commercial on our albums, but we weren’t really about that kind of sound.

MN:
You left Mott The Hoople in 1972, because Ian was reluctant to record some of your songs…

VA:
Yes, that’s exactly what it was. Well, I did hint a few times before that I was going to leave and when nothing changed I did. In hindsight, I’m thinking that maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut and stay (laughs). In those days, you couldn’t just record your own songs if you had any, because we didn’t have the equipment that we have nowadays. At that time, we didn’t have a manager you see, to sort out these things for us. Well, first we had Bowie’s manager to look after us, but then he was too busy to look after Bowie. I had songs that would have been great for Mott The Hoople, but of course Ian took over and he added a different sound with his. So I left the band.

MN:
After you left, you had various band projects of your own going.

VA:
Yes, foremost the Cheeks, which also featured James Honeyman-Scott and Martin Chambers. We tried to get a deal but couldn’t secure a deal and we also did have offers but didn’t take them, as they didn’t feel right. All of a sudden Chrissie Hynde came along and nicked James and Martin to form The Pretenders. And I felt I’m on the wrong side of the fence again, haha. Now I’m thinking maybe I should have just done things in a different way, but I didn’t do that.

MN:
In 1999 you released a solo album (‘For Each Other’) on which you played almost all the instruments yourself.

VA:
Right, I did on that one. I had done one before called ‘Long Time No See’ which I did with the Thunderstruck Ram boys and that was recorded in a studio. But then Peter Purnell of Angel Air Records wanted another one and I had to do myself. It was done using the home-recording technique (laughs). There are some good songs on ‘For Each Other’, but it’s difficult to do all by yourself.

MN:
There were some gaps in between those two albums.

VA:
Well, after my father had passed away I was looking after my mother for about five years (she passed away since). That’s when I was in the house recording them and I actually did another album called ’20 Year Holiday’. But, when you do these albums on your own, you can’t go out to promote them. Really you need to do it, and be out playing and talking to people and doing it that way. So maybe that’s why they didn’t take off really, you know.

MN:
You had a signing at Virgin Megastore for the ‘Mott The Hoople/All The Young Dudes’ anthology box set. It was the first time you met Ian Hunter again after you’d left the band in 1972, right?

VA:
Yes, it was the first time, though I bumped into him an and off over the years of course. Actually, the atmosphere wasn’t tense, it was great that day. Obviously it took a bit of time to settle in again, but there were other people present and it was great, actually. And it was nice to see Ian again, you know.

MN:
How did you feel about the 2009 reunion gig at Hammersmith Apollo?

VA:
Oh, I though it was great! Ian has a promoter, and when we agreed to do the reunion we just just went for it. At one point we were going to do it in the Royal Albert Hall but Ian always wanted to do it at the Apollo. So Ian’s promoter got in touch with the Apollo people and we sorted out a date and when they put some tickets out, the tickets sold really well and really quick and suddenly it went from one day to five days.

MN:
A new documentary called ‘The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople’ is shown this evening as part of the London Film Festival, which is fantastic news. Do you think the documentary will generate a renewed interest in all the Mott The Hoople albums and the band, especially to a newer generation of rock music lovers?

VA:
You know, during the Apollo reunion gig there were really mixed audiences – younger ones and the old ones – and everybody liked the band. So it was good, and hopefully the film will achieve the same. But we’re all getting a bit older now and really, Ian is older than the rest of us. I mean, if we’re gonna do more we better sort that out quickly now, like for next year. But Ian’s management might be a bit awkward. Our drummer is probably not able to do it next year I think, because he has got Alzheimers – but my friend Martin Chambers from The Pretenders will do it. Also, I got my own band to do some bookings with anyhow, but if the Mott The Hoople thing happens we just go and we gonna do it.
Failing that, I got some songs on this album I did on my own called ‘My Masochistic Side’ (also released via Angel Air) and I wrote some songs on the end for the Mott The Hoople thing really. I like to see them recorded with a group again. It’s not bad, it only took me about two months to write those songs, to go with Mott.

MN:
It’s been a pleasure doing this interview, Verden.