I never really thought about things when i was in Small Faces, I was too busy trying to remember the words to 'All or Nothing', avoiding getting my head kicked in by jealous boyfriends and figuring out how to spend the three quid I had in my pocket.
I was always a titchy Mod. The pint-sized geezer with the voice like a foghorn and a haircut that could take your eye out. Blimey, we looked a sight. All those brilliant, ridiculous clothes. Italian suits, tailor-made, but still looking like I’d been dressed by a blind man in a rush. I was five-foot-four, but on stage? On stage, I was ten-foot-tall and built of pure, unadulterated noise. Me, Ronnie, Mac and Kenney… four cheeky bastards from London, crammed into a van, causing chaos wherever we went.
We had a laugh, didn't we? We’d write a song like 'Lazy Sunday' in ten minutes, a bit of a daft piss-take, and it would shoot to number one while the serious-minded muso types were chewing their beards in confusion. That was the joy of it. We weren't trying to be Beethoven. We were trying to get out of our council flats and have a good time.
Of course, a good time costs money. And we were seeing about tuppence of it. I still wake up in a cold sweat thinking about Don Arden. The ‘Al Capone of Pop’. A lovely man, I’m sure. If your idea of lovely is being rooked blind while he’s calling you a genius and pocketing your entire publishing. That was a lesson in never, ever sign anything without your mum reading it first.
Then came the Pie. Humble Pie. What a racket. We decided to get ‘heavy’, we did. Grew our hair, put on the denims, and turned the amps up to eleven. People called us a ‘supergroup’. A supergroup? It felt more like a super-headache most days. Me, Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley and poor old Jerry Shirley, who had the monumental task of keeping us all in time and out of jail.
We went to America. Oh, they loved us over there. All that noise and sweat. They didn't care that I looked like a garden gnome who’d swallowed a trumpet. They just wanted to be hit over the head with a wall of sound. So we hit them. And it was a blast. A proper, messy, glorious, rock and roll blast. I bought a 16th-century pub in the country, filled it with dogs and kids, and pretended I was a sensible country gent. What does a rock star do with his first big cheque? Buy a Rolls Royce? Snort Colombian? Nah. Buy a pub. Logical, innit?
I like to think a few of those tunes hold up. If you can put on 'Tin Soldier' or 'Itychoo Park' and not want to wiggle a bit, then you’re probably dead.
They say I influenced a whole generation of punk rockers. The punk rockers! All that spitting and safety pins. A bunch of surly oiks telling me I was alright. Well, I’ll be. At least they had the decency to nick good chords.
I wasn't a saint. Far from it. I was a nightmare to work with and had a temper like a firecracker and an ego the size of a small planet. I loved a drink, a smoke, and a proper row. I made mistakes. Bankrupted myself more times than I can count. Lost friends. Let people down. I was a human being, not a bleeding monument.
Cor blimey, what a way to go. There I am, back at the old gaff, having a smoke and listening to a tape. Next thing I know, I’m waking up with a stinking headache and St. Peter is giving me a right telling-off for smoking indoors. The papers called it tragic but the only tragic thing about it, apart from the obvious, is that it was started by a cigarette. How bloody typical! All that effort, all that noise, all that life… snuffed out by a bleedin’ Woodbine. You couldn't write it.
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