'Daniel Weir, superstar.'
'Well, no; I don't want t-to be in the limelight, like; really I just want to write the material, but seein as the bass player's leavin, we thought I might as well join, you know? No... Ah think I'll be stay in in the background; I'll leave the... the sort of figurehead work t-to the t-t-two guit-t-tarists. They're a bit more photogenic. I'll just be sort of... there, you know? Anyway; I'm writin the songs, well; I'm basically writin the songs, but we've agreed that for this album, seein as I'm needin a lot of help, we'll split the c-credits between me an Dave an Chris — they're the two guitarists; they've been helpin with the arrangements an things. I mean, this is really serious; they're all takin it really seriously; they're all ... well, apart from the guy that's leavin, and the guy that's a cclerk with the c-council ... they're p-p-p-postponin goan tae university, or takin a year off till we see what happens. I mean, they're holdin up their careers while they see how this goes.'
This was all true. Things had moved quickly during the previous eight months. We'd been offered a contract almost immediately by ARC Records, courtesy of Rick Tumber, the A&R man who'd been so impressed by the band's Strathclyde Christmas gig. I'd been all for jumping at it and just arguing about the terms (and having a word in private with this guy Tumber about the need for a new name for the group), but Dave Balfour said no. He told Tumber he didn't think they were ready yet; they wanted more time to practise together. I told Balfour he was crazy.
He wasn't, of course. Middle-class wisdom. Supply and demand. Tumber went away shaking his head and telling us we'd missed a great opportunity, but interest in the band only increased; the gigs improved, the crowds got bigger and the fans more numerous, various A&R people came to watch and listen, producers travelled up from London especially, and a couple of executives from small record companies came backstage after gigs with contracts which only needed our signatures. I looked at the figures and told Balfour he was totally insane and if he didn't sign something soon I'd take my songs somewhere else...
... Only he wasn't insane, and I'd no intention of going elsewhere.
Apart from anything else, I was starting to get paranoid about the band ripping off my songs; I'd realised that the outside world only had my word for it that these were my creations; I hadn't deposited copies of the manuscripts with a bank or solicitor, nobody could swear that they'd heard these tunes before Frozen Gold did them; if it came to it, it would be their collective word against my single one.
I'd panicked when I first thought of this, photocopied all my songs at enormous expense, and given the envelope full of scores to my mother with strict instructions to give it to Father McNaught, and not to forget to have him note the date he received the package. I prevaricated outrageously when Dave asked if they could have more songs; I said I was working on them. In fact I had about another forty finished — though of course they hadn't had Christine and Dave work on them — and raw material in the form of individual riffs and melodies for another twenty or thirty more. I wanted to see what happened to the ones I'd given them already.
Under great pressure, I eventually gave them another four songs; they now had enough material for an album. This gave them increased credibility in the eyes of the A & R men. The serious offers started to come in in June. After much negotiating, in which I gradually realised that Dave's dad was having at least as big a say as any of the rest of us, ARC won the dubious distinction of signing Frozen Gold for what was then some sort of record sum in the industry. That was what Dave — and his dad had been waiting for; somebody to put so much money into the band that they couldn't afford for us to fail.
The deal was signed, the details worked out. We would make an album, we'd be given all the technical help and session musicians we needed; and a hot-shot producer whose granny had been Scots was assigned to us to get the best out of us and make us feel at home (and they were serious). Publicity had already started.
Dave hadn't got the required exam results to do medicine anyway, Christine had got permission to take a year off from her Physics course, and Wes had decided Eng Lit wasn't so attractive after all; he had his heart set on a Moog synthesiser and, even after trading in the Hammond, there was no way a student grant would pay for that. Mickey gave up his clerical post at the planning office with all the regret of a man wiping dog shit off his shoe.
Only Steve preferred academe to the bright brash world of rock. The others tried to persuade him to stay, and so did I. I didn't want to play on stage; the idea terrified me. I'd never pranced about a bedroom in front of a mirror miming to Hendrix solos; I wanted to be the power behind the throne, the source. Loads of people could play music, it seemed to me, but far fewer could write it. I did do a sort of audition though, and I'm no more immune to flattery than anybody else — less; I have so little experience of being subjected to it — and I gave in. As long as they promised never to shine spotlights on me.
We had three weeks of studio time, and our trio of academics had twelve months to decide whether Frozen Gold was more likely to provide them with liquid assets than a real job. Of course they might have been looking for Fulfilment rather than largesse, but that didn't even occur to me at the time, and I doubt it entered their heads either; 1967 was a long way away, even then.
Dave, his dad, plus Christine and the Balfour family lawyer, had gone down to London to close the deal earlier that week, with written authority from the rest of us to do so. I'd taken a deep breath and made the frightening step of instructing my own lawyer — on Mr Balfour senior's advice. I'd been almost disappointed to discover that the agreement was pretty fair, on the whole. The only possible point of contention was that three-way split on the composition royalties... but I had needed the help composing and arranging, Christine and Dave had both done a lot of work, and I wasn't in a position to be too demanding, I thought.
Anyway, I was learning fast; I might not need anybody else's help for the next batch of songs. I made sure the songwriting credits on future material weren't covered by that first agreement; it was a three-album deal (ARC had wanted a five-album deal originally), but there was no clause in the contract that the songs on the second two LPs should also be credited to the band rather than an individual. That was one of the smartest moves I ever made in my whole life. Possibly the only totally intelligent one in fact. Must have been a mistake.
In fact I was being ripped off, but it's all relative. I look on it as the price for having all that wonderful middle-class advice in the first place. Without it I might have had sole credit, but no money.
I've met guys in this business who've sold ten, fifteen million records worldwide, and who were, effectively, broke. Jesus, they should have been multi-millionaires even after tax, but the money had all just disappeared, frittered and filtered away through and between contracts and agreements and producers and lawyers and record companies and managers and agents and tax deals.
Thirty-three and a third per cent (an appropriate figure) of a real fortune is worth a hell of a lot more than a hundred per cent of a fake one. A taste for the bottom-line is the most important sense to acquire in this industry.
So there I sat in the Waterloo bar, with Jean Webb, me a man of the world now, set to do great things. Jean had looked cold and a little grey when I swept her off her feet in Espedair Street, but the warmth of the bar brought the colour back to her skin. Her fine brown hair was a little shorter than it had been, but bushy and lustrous. Her face had filled out a little, bringing more curves to her cheek and chin; before her lips had looked a little too full, half-pouting, but now they looked in proportion, and to me — now with a hundred per cent more sexual experience, thanks to a girl I'd met at a party in Dave Balfour's house that May — very kissable. Her breasts, under the ruched bodice of her long dress, looked as graspingly enticing as ever.