Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Peter Noone Encore
Episode Date: November 6, 2023GGACPÂ celebrates the birthday (November 5th) of pop singer, radio host and British Invasion icon Peter Noone with this ENCORE of an episode from 2020. In this episode, Peter joins the boys for a loos...e and laugh-filled conversation about rock and roll excess, the birth of the Beatles, entertaining the Queen Mum and rubbing shoulders with Bob Dylan, Keith Moon and Elvis Presley (among others). Also, Alice Cooper climbs the charts, Keith Richards lays down the law, Imelda Marcos requests a tune and Herman's Hermits perform "If I Were a Rich Man." PLUS: "The Pirates of Penzance"! Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders! Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars! The genius of Mickie Most! And Gilbert "sings" "I'm Into Something Good"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried. This is is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast
with my co-host Frank Santopadre.
Our guest this week is a singer, songwriter, recording artist, music historian, TV host,
radio host, and an occasional actor, a former teen idol, and a genuine rock and roll legend.
At the tender age of 15, he became the lead singer and frontman of one of the most popular and successful recording acts of all time, Herman's Hermits.
With hits like, I'm into something Good, Can't You Hear My Heartbeat,
There's a Kind of Hush, Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter, and I'm Henry VIII I Am.
They sold millions of records, scored 18 top 40 hits, performed to arenas packed with screaming fans, and in the year 1965,
at the peak of their success, they outsold even the Beatles. He appeared in feature films as well
as hit TV shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, Laverne and Shirley, Married with Children,
Quantum Leap, American Idol, and has starred on the Broadway stage and on national tours.
And his popular rock and roll history show Something Good with Peter Noon can be heard on the channel 60s on 6 on Sirius XM. In a long and impressive career,
this man has worked with and shared the stage and screen with and rubbed elbows with Elvis Presley, Danny Kaye, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, Tina Turner, Tom Jones, the Bee Gees, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, the Hollies, Louis Armstrong, John Lennon, the Supremes, and Paul McCartney.
And as Frank likes to say, that's barely scratching the surface.
Bloody hell.
And he's entered his seventh decade in show business.
He's still out there performing with upcoming live concerts and appearances all over the U.S. and Canada.
Please welcome one of the key figures of the cultural explosion known as the British Invasion
and a man who says he was told to stay away from drugs by none other than Keith Richards, the legendary Peter Noon.
I'm out of here.
That's the longest, most incredible introduction I've ever had in my life.
And not only was I told to stay away from drugs, I was threatened by Keith Richards.
He said, we will come and find you and beat you up.
If we ever find out you're smoking pot or anything like that, we're going to come and find you and we're going to beat you up.
He couldn't catch me now.
Now, I want to put you on
the spot, first thing,
and to the end of you.
You acted
in Pirates of Penzance.
Yeah. Now,
either with the script or
without it, can you
sing? You don't have to sing
the whole song, obviously, but some of a modern major general.
I am the very model of a modern major general of information, vegetable, animal, and mineral.
I quote the kings of England and I quote the facts historical from Mamelon and Waterloo in order categorical.
Can I have another go?
I am the very model of a modern major general Of information, vegetable, animal, and mineral
I quote the facts of England and I know the facts of story
From animal and auto-luminal auto-petro-valuable
Ah, great!
Almost.
And it wasn't even a song he did in the show.
No, but I always wanted...
You know, everyone wants to play Fagan in Oliver
and they want to play the major general in that.
I always got the leading man role.
You know, always always which is like oh
you know old guys go oh god oh god oh god you know like oh is there not one maiden breast
you played frederick yeah frederick you know i was good at it because it's like uh
Yeah, the Frederick.
You know, I was good at it because it's like the director led me to a person that I could be, you know, in the play.
So it was okay.
I'm sorry I didn't see you.
I saw the first one with Kevin Kline in the Duronstadt.
But you replaced… Rick Smith.
Rick Smith.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you did it with Jim Belushi and Pam Dauber?
Jim Belushi.
Do I have that correct?
Yeah.
Jim Belushi.
I didn't do it with Pam. I can't. I did it with Maureen McGovern. Was it Ma Do I have that correct? Yeah. Jim Belushi. I didn't do it with Pam.
I can't.
I did it with Maureen McGovern.
Was it Maureen McGovern?
Yeah.
On Broadway.
Yes.
Fantastic.
Got to be a morning after.
Yeah.
There's got to be a morning after.
Yeah.
My mom's favorite song, that.
And Let's Twist Again.
Oh, both good choices.
Yeah.
Okay, sing a little of Let's Twist Again.
Let's twist again like we did last summer. Come on, lads. Shake, both good choices. Okay, sing a little of Let's Twist Again. Let's twist again
like we did last summer.
Come on lads, shake it up baby.
That's my mother.
She thought it was
cool to say the words.
Shake it up baby.
Oh,
I can't get enough
of that funky stuff.
Well, there you go.
She was from Liverpool and they were all kind of dropped.
Now, I just heard a story yesterday that you told.
Well, you were working at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.
As a lad.
What?
As a lad, I was there.
It was called. Yes.
It was called.
And the Beatles at the same time.
Yeah, well, they were in another room.
Yes. And I always, I was so young and naive that I thought I could just walk over and be one of the boys.
So I'd see like John lennon coming out of the
thing and i'd sort of ease over towards him you know like and i go uh hello john there you go
who are you and i'd say oh stop it stop it okay her. And I said, what are you lads doing here?
And he go, recording.
So mean.
When I first met him, he was like, I was a big fan of the Beatles,
but I got to be in the same room of them as they were often because I was in a band
as well so you'd think that because you're in a band that they would accept you as one of the boys
but I so I was standing we did Top of the Pops and and I I feel like I know them because I've
seen them so many times and not actually spoken to them I'm standing there like and he goes uh
nice suit hermit
he always called me hermit which really was jarring
nice suit hermit oh thank you do they make it in your size
and i quickest rep r2 was not my thing but, yeah, and my tailor can make collars too.
He's got these stupid jackets with no collar on.
And I think that was endearing to him.
Somebody who had the balls to give him something back.
And the next time I see him, it's like, I get in a lift, an elevator,
and I've gone to this place because I know he goes there.
It's called the Adlib Club.
And it's like a private club and it's just drinking and lots of pretty girls.
And I was famous for having lots of pretty girls in my entourage.
And I think that was also an attraction too.
And Herman, Hermit, had a lot of attractive young girls with him. And so I get
in the lift at the Ad Lib Club and standing in the lift is Terry Doran, who's this hard,
like dangerous man from Liverpool, who's also John Lennon's manager. Mind a hard,
John Lennon's manager, mind a hard, keep away from my boy here.
Don't come anywhere near this.
And he talked like, don't start trouble here.
And John had showed up in like a psychedelic painted Rolls Royce.
It's that very inconspicuous, you know what I mean?
Not under the radar at all so and I get in the lift and we go up and we get out and I'm 17 I'm not even allowed in this club but I'm with one of the Beatles so nobody questions
I'm not with them I just have to enter at the same time as them so I get in and I'm stuck I'm standing
in this like nightclub and John Lennon feels sorry for this kid
who's sort of stood there by their table.
He says, the last one to sit down is an egg.
Which I don't know what that means,
but I mean, I'd never wanted to be an egg,
so I guess I should sit down.
So I sat down.
I sat down and this woman comes over,
this cocktail waitress.
Woman, she was probably 22.
But when you're 15, 16, 17, 22-year-olds are like old people.
And she comes and she looks me straight in the face.
And she knows I'm not 18.
And she says, there's a two-drink minimum.
Like, you probably can't afford to have a drink here, can you?
There's a
two drink
minimum
so John says
Grace
I'll have
two Bacardi's
and he'll have
two Cokes
so she comes
over like
because he's
one of the Beatles
you can't refuse him
so he comes over
and he does
that magic
trick
where he
gives me
one of those
little bottles
those airline
size bottle
Bacardi's and takes one of my Cokes and I those airline-sized bottle Bacardis,
and takes one of my Cokes.
And I sat there and had a Bacardian Coke.
And I said, I'll get the next ones.
I'll have two Cokes and he'll have two Bacardis, please.
And I became like a drinking power.
Your first drink.
Well, it wasn't my first drink.
Believe me, I was already pretty good at drinking.
I thought there was a competition going on
and that you could only win.
And at Abbey Road,
one time you were looking at a recording
that the Beatles made.
Oh, yes.
Oh, that's a fun story.
I stupidly...
I thought they wanted an opinion
and uh i almost got myself beaten up because it came to this bit in this i'm standing like
oh carl listen as a kid you know i'm very naive and it's very it's you get much more done if you
pretend to be even more stupid than you actually are and i so said, we were kind of in a band,
so you think that all bands want to share stuff.
So he says, can I listen to what you're doing?
Like thinking they'd say, well, let's listen to yours first.
You know, I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
So he said, okay, okay.
And I step in this door and there's like,
I mean, it's actually absolutely,
it's all unbelievable stuff.
But I think,
they'll think more.
They'll think I'm much smarter
than I really am
if I say something critical.
You know what I mean?
Like,
oh,
you're not leaving that
in, are you?
And they basically
threw me,
physically, like held me, pushed me against the wall and open the door and push me out oh my gosh we didn't want to fuck this
and i'm out and but then there was also a time you saw your name like they had written a song
oh yeah a beatle song just for you there's lots of stuff happened it wasn't even called abbey road You saw your name like they had written a song. Oh, yeah.
A Beatles song just for you.
There's lots of stuff happened.
It wasn't even called Abbey Road then.
It was on Abbey Road.
It was called Manchester.
So it's called EMI Studios.
And so everybody's getting a song written.
Cilla Black has got a song written for her.
And she's Tommy Quickly.
Billy J. Kramer. Billy J. Kramer. And the foremost, everyone's getting a song written for her and she's Tommy Quickly and Billy J. Kramer and the foremost. Everyone's getting a song written.
Everybody from the scene that I'm from has had a song
written by Lennon and McCartney
and they're all bloody number ones.
Everything that they do is like
even
Cilla Black's bad songs are being number one
because John Lennon has written them.
So I'm thinking as I go in there and see
oh my god, look fellas, look, fellas, look.
Look, they've written a song for me.
And they go, what, where?
And there's all these boxes with song titles on it.
Look, look, for noon.
And it was for no one.
Good try.
Can you believe that?
I read the rude word noon.
It's an honest mistake.
No one.
And of course, it was much better than the song that they never wrote for me.
Tell us about seeing them for the first time.
It was kind of...
Was in the field near your grandmother's house?
Exactly.
How do you know this stuff?
So what happened was me and this guy called Alan Wrigley. can i swear on your show yes we insist please i don't normally swear but
it's part it's in it has to be in his words so we're practicing and we go and we can hear someone
else practicing in the distance and you know in those, every street had like at least three groups and 11 guitar players.
Every street in Manchester, every street in Liverpool, every street in Newcastle had at least 11 bands.
It's like New Jersey today.
So, and we can hear this and it's like ding, ding, ding.
Who's that?
So me and Alan Wrigley get up and and we go looking following the sound
it's another group somewhere and we cross a field and then in the next field across
on a stage that is about 18 inches high the Beatles are doing what we thought was practicing
but it was a sound check because they were only practicing the words one two one two
and and it's the Beatles practicing so we go oh it's the Beatles you know we've seen them live
before but we've never seen them with this new drummer who's on a bit of the stage that's even
higher than the band so called a drum riser but we'd never seen one like that only big time drummers added
things oh what who does he think he is you know sydney stapleton or something so so we said we
stay we're going to watch the beatles and and they come on stage and they're in their first song
i can't remember even what the song was but halfway through the song this bass player he was the bass player in this new group that we just put together, Pete Novak and the Heartbeats.
And he's looking at the band and I'm looking at the band and we've never seen anything quite like this.
And he goes, Pete, what? We're fucked. It's over.
He wants to quit show business because he's seen the future
doesn't include anything that he's ever going to be.
He knows in his head
that if he practices every day
for the next 35 years,
11, 12 hours a day,
he's not going to be as good as any one of those Beatles.
So he quits the business.
That minute, that is the last you ever see of him
with a guitar.
And I'm inspired.
I'd love to be in a band who have fun with each other like that.
You know, these guys that I've got in my band, they're not really that fun.
Look at the way the Beatles interacted with each other.
And they're like singing.
He was just 17.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then John Lennon is the lead singer of this band,
this part of the Beatles thing.
The lead singer is this guy called John Lennon.
And at the end of the show, he steps off the stage to the right
and he talks to boys.
There are boys in the audience.
No one's ever seen a band who have boys who are fans.
It's the beginning of that bit where i think the fabian
thing you know this pullover that you gave to me isn't really hitting a home run with any boys
you know because they don't those kind of boys haven't been born yet who want a pullover from a
guy so that's interesting yeah so there's this new thing that like rock and roll thing where rock
people can connect with boys in the audience because he's standing at the side of stage
talking to like a bunch of 15 year old boys because he knows that they're gonna need a
following if they're gonna be a big band and And I go, wow, that's incredible.
Because the only people I know who do that
are like the Everly Brothers.
You go backstage and hang around the stage door.
The Everly Brothers come out and Phil is nice to everybody
and Don's kind of quiet, but they talk to all their fans.
Yeah, yeah, thank you for coming.
And I go, wow, they've got all that package and look.
So they were polished entertainers.
and I go, wow, they've got all that package and look.
So they were polished entertainers.
They were stilted.
It is scary because they had everything,
kind of what you would call perfection.
All the vocal, you know, they didn't have monitors.
Right. There was no, they just played with each other.
It was like one total thing.
It's inexplicable really,
but there was so much joy amongst them on the stage
that you say, I'd love to be in a situation like that
where I like all the people,
and when they play a bum note, everyone laughs.
And there's all this kind of joy going on,
like a soccer team winning the cup kind of vibe.
And for young boys, that was very inspirational.
And the girls all liked it because they were all cute guys
and they had non-rock and roll names.
Remember, it was like George.
They were names.
Everyone was called Elvis and Billy Fury
and Adam Faith and Georgie Fame.
And here's these guys like George Harrison.
Sounds like a working man.
Sounds like a potato digger almost.
You know what I mean?
So I say potato digger because my parents only went to England
because they couldn't find a potato where they lived.
So they swam.
Yeah, so it was a very refreshing time in the music business because they changed
all the rules about lighting and spotlights and and choreography because until then all
british bands had a couple of steps that they did the shadows and johnny kidd and the pirates would
like and they'd had they've had choreography here's these guys who just say,
we got all these tunes that we'd like to show you
how they're supposed to be played.
And we can smile during all these songs
because we truly enjoy music.
You know, we're not playing to anybody else's rules.
We've just created this new thing
and we've been in Germany
playing to a bunch of assholes
for ages and ages and ages
who don't even look at us when we're playing
they just come for a bevy
and here we go look at this
these people look at look their audience
they're coming to the front of the stage
and look those two idiots at the
back who are going to quit show business because we're
that good and it was
a magic moment and it was in a field
it was called the Urmstead it was Abbotsford Park
which is a little park in Urmston,
which is no one's ever heard.
It's where the River Mersey begins
is in this little town, Urmston.
Where your grandmother first put you up on stage.
Same place.
That's where we lived.
I lived with my grandparents.
My parents are from Liverpool,
but my parents were at university when I was a kid.
Me and my sister lived with my grandparents
because my parents,
there was this thing called the war
that ended in 1945, that one.
We've always had one goal.
We've always got a good war going somewhere.
So my parents were in it
and my mother was sent to the countryside
because they were bombing Manchester
because they thought there was stuff in Manchester
and Liverpool.
They were bombing it
and they sent the women and the children out into the thing and they put all the guys, because they thought there was stuff in Manchester and Liverpool. They were bombing it.
And they sent the women and the children out into the thing.
And they put all the guys, they gave all the guys a bayonet and sent them off there.
You know, off you go.
My dad was in the Air Force and he was gone.
And then at the end of the war, like about 1953,
they tried to recover all these people's lives that had been destroyed,
you know, just messed up with the war.
So my dad went back to Edinburgh University. and i can't remember what his degree got my mother went to cambridge and lots of the people in my neighborhood in manchester and liverpool
live with their grandparents it was just part of the culture and you know there's no better person
to live with than your grandparents because they're usually deaf
they're usually deaf.
They're deaf and they go to bed at nine o'clock and they sleep.
They sleep without any ambient or anything.
They just go to sleep.
So you can bring girls in.
You can sleep with girls.
You can have a drummer in the living room
playing as loud as John Bonham
and they don't wake up.
What was this I heard about your grandmother
burning someone's house down?
Oh, don't. She never did it.
She just wanted people to believe it was her.
Okay.
She never did it.
People believed her.
Watch out for that Noon family.
They're crazy.
They're crazy.
She's from Ireland, you know,
and she's crazy.
We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's
amazing, colossal podcast,
but first, a word from our sponsor.
You know, it's funny when you said
about the joy of the Beatles,
because it reminds me like old,
like the cool rock stars snarled.
They all had an angry look on them.
Yeah, yeah. It just, it was different. They all had an angry look on them.
Yeah, yeah.
It just, it was different.
They weren't, it was Elvish.
You know, they had odd names.
They were not names that normal people had.
They were sort of put on a pedestal and idolized.
Beatles had the opposite kind of vibe.
You didn't need to idolize them. You just wanted to be one of them.
And yesterday, Frank sent me a clip I had never seen before. of vibe you didn't need to idolize him you just wanted to be one of them interesting and yesterday
frank sent me a clip i had never seen before and i knew it was going to be a clip that i would like
okay you were uh herman's hermits were playing in front of the royal family
oh yeah i knew you'd like that clip oh absolutely i knew i said do you remember this
he knows was it london palladium yeah yeah herman's hermit performing if i were a rich man
can you believe it and we didn't know that that was not appropriate i sent it to paul
shaver how about we did name you guys and you know what's right it was the i I called when I saw it recently
I didn't know there was a time
I didn't know they even recorded it I know they televised stuff
but BBC dumped all that
stuff a long time ago they sold the
tapes to someone
so I didn't
know it existed and I watched it
and I had to call all the hermits
you know I don't speak to them often I call them
I said Carl have you ever seen that Royal Command performance that we did?
I said, no.
I said, you've got to watch it on YouTube.
I said, let me just ask you a question.
When we did it, did anyone come up to you, like your mum or one of the managers or anybody?
Did anybody come up to you and say, bloody hell, man, I didn't know you could do that.
You were brilliant.
And he goes, no, no one said that.
I said, well, let me tell you now.
I just watched it.
You were brilliant.
They were not dancers.
They didn't do choreography.
We sat for four weeks.
We hated every minute of it.
dancers they didn't do choreography we sat for four weeks we hated every minute of it we hated because they were trying to change us into from this kind of punk band into what we thought was
the bachelors which was a mom and dad's kind of cabaret band and the guy who put that show
together and did all the choreography had done the bachelors you know ramona i hear the mission
bells are calling.
All that stuff, you know, which we didn't want to do any of that.
We were not caro me or mine or anything.
We were the opposite of that.
We were like, you know, woke up this morning feeling fine.
You know, that was our thing.
And I couldn't believe it.
I think we were brilliant. And it was the Queen Mother.
And I didn't know much about any of that.
I'd seen the coronation.
And I remembered for the coronation, we were all at my school.
We were given a banana.
We'd never seen a banana before.
This is all going through my head as I'm singing If I Were a Rich Man.
There's a Queen Mother.
That's the Queen's mum.
And do you remember 1953, for the Coronation Street,
they came for the school and they gave all the kids a banana.
And some teacher explained how this was the perfect package.
It had a peel and you just peeled it off and ate the insides
and then you threw away the package.
And God, this school is called the English Martyrs, by the way,
and God had packaged this so well that
they could ship it from what we don't know where it came from this banana probably Panama who knows
we don't know but we peeled it you know I mean and we ate and it was like this is a memorable
thing for English people because fruit was non-existent my mom and dad had a ration book
and my dad used to trade his petrol ration for cigarettes.
That's all I can remember.
And I remember every Friday night, we'd get a quarter pound of chocolate caramels on the ration book.
And that was a big deal, chocolate caramels.
Now I buy them in the hotel and eat two boxes.
You know, they've always got them.
So that was all from World War II.
Yeah.
From having the ration.
Everybody was from World War II.
I used to run into John's dad.
And I'd say, you know,
of course he slammed the door in your face
because, you know, it's his drinking talk.
Yeah.
Getting pissed, it's called.
And when you get pissed,
you have great information
to fix other people's problems you know so i'm pissed you know i was kind of normal that you've oh piss means drunk
in england and so so uh i'm drunk and i you know probably you know deserted him and and running off
to see and not coming back would probably hurt his feelings.
Leaving him with his anti-mimi,
you know, I'd be disturbed by that.
I mean, my parents went away,
but at least they went to university,
didn't go sailing around the world.
And he said, well, you've got to understand,
Pete, you've got to understand that it was boring being at home. What do you mean, boring? Well, yeah, it was boring being at home what you mean boring well just boring you know
when you're on the ship with the sailors you can play cards and you can drink all night and you go
you should have been in a band so so john lennon's father was explaining to you why he
no he was sad because he was sad he was sad because he'd gone out to John's house.
He was regretful.
And he couldn't understand that John wouldn't deal with him.
I see.
Fred was trying to be a pop star.
He was like, I think you're Tom Jones' manager.
Gordon Mills?
Yeah.
It was like managing this Beatles dad.
Wow.
And now I want to put you on the spot again.
No, it's called tear.
We're Irish people.
We're all Irish, all those people in rock and roll in England.
They've all got some Irish virus,
and we were all getting drunk and sharing our secret.
Every family has a secret.
My grandmother burnt people's houses down.
That's a secret. Gil, you were's houses down. That's a secret.
Gil, you were close to your grandmother.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
She lived to 104.
When did she go deaf?
Very early.
Yeah, see, if you live with your grandmother and they're deaf,
you don't have to communicate that much.
You know, they make sandwiches and everything.
I got to put you on the spot again.
I need to hear a little of If I Were a Rich Man.
If I were a rich man.
All day long I'd giddy giddy gum.
If I was a wealthy man.
Oi!
I wouldn't have to work hard.
That's no material. I didn't realize to work hard. That's new material.
I didn't realize that was really politically incorrect,
especially in front of the Queen Mother.
In this life, one thing counts in some...
I mean, it's all wrong.
It's new material for the show, Pete.
You know, that was the only time I've ever done that.
It's on YouTube.
Everybody can see it.
Fiddler on the Roof. Herman Sh see it. Fiddler on the roof.
Herman Shurmich's Fiddler on the Roof.
And Jerry Herman.
You loved it. I knew he would.
I did.
Yeah, when you had your arms connected.
Like Greek dancing men.
Yes.
Yes.
We hated every second of it.
It was fucking great.
And you know what's great?
The hermits were like counting.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
And they'd never, ever, ever done a dance step.
That was great.
And they were great.
And they're faultless.
I go, look, I go, nobody makes a mistake.
And this is live.
And there's another band playing the music.
We'd never done that before.
We have to listen to someone else playing.
Before, we'd always accompanied ourselves.
We were not used to having that.
And they were in a pit, and they hated us, the guys in the pit.
They were looking at us, oh, gee, look, that crap.
Well, I advise everyone to watch Herman's Herm's on youtube how did you work i thought it
was great gilbert i knew he'd love it how did your working class parents feel about you
entertaining the royal family you know i mean that must have been one of my greatest regrets
is i never ever said to my parents i'm happy that you're proud of my work.
You know what I mean?
I never thought to use,
I never went home and said,
hey, dad, what do you think of that?
Thanks for, you know, getting me.
I never thanked them for getting me
into whatever place I got to.
You know what I mean?
My only regret is that I never thanked my parents properly
for being, you know,
letting me live with my grandmother.
Which opened up kind of a lot of pressure and i i saw something paul just a second the queen
mother was cool because i i you know that line where you're standing and i'm sort of
kowtowing it's the queen this is the royal family and i'm like a real loyal british citizen
especially then and i'm i'm like bowing in front of her as if she's like you know jesus like big
this is a big deal and and she she very kindly says um you had won the best dressed man in england
twice and one of her relatives uh Anthony Snowden Lord Snowden had also
tied with me one year I was like the coal best-dressed man of the year so she
knew about the best-dressed man because it was part of her family that she goes
that's a lovely suit and I said you know
the materials English but I had it made in France.
It wasn't an English tailor.
And she goes, oh, yes, your wife's from France, isn't she?
And I was like, she must have read the bio before the show.
Wow.
That she knew that I was married to a Frenchman.
Why?
And she connected all the dots, and she was probably 80.
Did her homework.
Yeah.
And then I realized probably they all do their homework.
Yeah, probably.
Wherever they go.
People briefing them.
Yeah.
And I saw something.
I think Paul Schaefer was stalking to you.
Stalking me.
Yeah.
Yeah, stalking you.
And you said they used to call you,
I'll see if I'm pronouncing it correctly,
a yuck with a Yiddish cup.
Yuck.
A yuck.
Yuck.
I'm the yuck with the Yiddish cup
because nobody knows how this happened.
Nobody knows how this happened.
Could you explain?
I'm going to try and explain.
In Manchester, there was a thing called the JLB, which was the Jewish Lads Brigade.
And there was a girl who went there.
Her name was Wendy Herman.
It's really weird.
I'm not in Herman's firm.
I used to go to the jail, Jewish Lads Brigade.
And for some reason, nobody questioned me.
What are you doing here?
And the Jewish lads brigade was like people
young English
Jewish boys who would
fight if anybody started stirring
up any more trouble. So it was very
attractive to me, I'd like a fight, I'd
fight for that, something worth fighting
for, you know, instead of fighting over who gets
the next drink, I can fight for something
that means something. So I'm friends with this and graham gouldman is a member harvey lisberg
who's my manager eventually is they're all members of this sect this little place that i'm not even
part but i'm a musician so i can play there and eventually i'm called herman so they think i'm
So I can play there.
And eventually I'm called Herman Sermit. So they think I'm the Yock with the Yiddish cop.
They think that I'm smarter than I really am because all the newspapers are saying,
the happiest millionaire, the luckiest millionaire, one hit record,
and they've got a million pound deal from the label.
And I'm going to the news.
No, no, no, no.
It's a million dollars
and I've got 11 partners.
You know, I've not got
the million.
Because cup is...
Head. Yach means I'm not Jewish.
And the Yiddish cup means
I've got a Jewish brain.
Oh, it's like a Goya Shapunim. Right, Gil?
Yes.
Yes.
Exactly.
How come you're all Schaefer, Guy? A Yiddish cup. a shaponim right gil yes yes exactly exactly shaper guy but yeah
do i have that right there yeah it's like a compliment it means someone's smart for some
reason yeah for some reason i could speak yiddish better than most of the okay people i'm not going
to do it anymore because i've forgotten most of it but i i do now i do bruno yiddish better than most of the people. I'm not going to do it anymore because I've forgotten most of it.
Now I do Bruno
Yiddish.
And my wife
is from Strasbourg where they speak
a dialect
and I can
make her fall on the floor
laughing when I do when I speak German or Yiddish
to her so you were able to speak Yiddish years ago yeah when I was a kid because I lived in this
culture where almost a hundred percent of the people in the culture were were speaking Yiddish
just happened to be that neighborhood that I was in because I I wanted to be part of theirs that that there was a band called the Mockingbirds which which Graham Gouldman was
in which was my favorite sort of local band and they would they're the one that they'd made the
first recording of For Your Love which was it we pre-recorded as well there was three versions
there was the Mockingbirds then there was the theann's Hermits version and then the Yardbirds got it right. They had
the hit, For Your Love, and
they would also do, they recorded Bus Stop
which we did and then the Hollies had
a number one with. We used to give all these songs
to our friends. We never ever spoke to any of them
ever again after we gave them the hit song.
I was going to say, why did the
Hermits record Bus Stop and For Your
Love but you didn't put it out.
We didn't think they were singles.
You didn't think they were singles?
We tried to make singles.
Every time we went in the studio, we were trying to make a single.
And the ones that failed were called album tracks and b-sides.
Mickey Most didn't think those were hits, those songs.
We wouldn't have ever recorded it if he didn't think they were hits.
Yeah, I see.
You wouldn't have wasted the money on tape.
I see.
He was a genius, Mickey Mouse, because he could make you believe.
I'd be singing Mrs. Brown, You Got a Lovely Daughter.
You never liked Mrs. Brown, You Got a Lovely Daughter.
It was just we needed one more track for an album.
I see.
Every song in our set list was already somebody else had made a record of it.
So we can't do that.
We can't do Roll Over, Bay Over.
We can't do Reeling and Rocking.
We can't do this because you can't do...
So all the popular local songs were already recorded.
So he said, what else have you got?
I said, Keith showing that...
He said, don't worry, we can put it on the...
We put it track three on side two of the album.
No one will ever get that far.
So he truly believed that, that people wouldn't listen to the whole Herman Salman. That's interesting.
Yeah.
That came from a Tom Courtney movie?
A play.
A play.
A televised play?
You know what happened?
It's a really odd story.
There was a play written by, I've forgotten his name now, but a play.
And Tom Courtney was in it.
And Tom Courtney, during the opening segment,
sang Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter.
And Keith Hopwood, this guy who was in Herman's Hermits,
he had this guitar called the Gretsch Country Gentleman.
And it had a damper on it, a Chet Atkins version.
It has like a little,
it's hard to explain on the radio, but it had a little damper that made it supposedly sound like
a banjo. But banjo is open string sounding thing. So it's not, it wasn't clang, it was more
and we were both watching this thing and we were both watching the play at the same time in
different buildings
and uh you know he was at his mom's house and i was at my grandma's house
that's like my tv was much louder than his so i could hear it and and they they sing this song
at the beginning of this play and it's got that and i said and so i said keith
you know did you see yeah yeah yeah that song's, that song's great. It's a great song.
It's Tom Courtney.
I think we should try and get a record.
And, you know, we could use,
that's the one place we can use that Gretsch country gentleman.
He spent a lot of money.
I think it was 300 quid when 300 pounds
was what the Beatles were getting paid for a show.
So it was a lot of money, this guitar.
And we work it out.
And it is incredibly incredibly difficult
to play mrs i've not met a guitar player who can play it as good as the 16 year old keith hotwood
plays it on the record wow it is really that's cool it's intense and very difficult what you
it's very difficult and we recorded it as a you know and, and some disc jockey in Philadelphia or something
played the song for 24 hours.
But once upon a time, DJs could like change thoughts.
Oh, sure.
Oh, that comes up a lot on this show.
Yeah, and we had to put it out.
And we said, we're not putting that out as a single.
That'll ruin our careers.
You know, we've got more serious stuff than that.
We're like a punk
band you know we want to sing a song like no milk today we want like you know songs like good songs
about real things and so you never put that up he said he says he's got 400 000 advanced orders
what day are you putting it out how quickly they have you heard gilbert's version of mrs brown you've got a
lovely daughter no but i bet i'm going to the fear in this man's eyes gilbert
they also can't see on the radio yeah can we do something good first oh you do whatever you want
it's your show i was trying to segue into that Why do you want to do something good first? Okay, well
we have time for both. It's a
warm up. Okay. Okay.
We'll do Mrs. Brown.
He's got his process, Peter. I don't want to...
Have you written new words for it? No.
Oh. No. Okay. You sure
Jackie the Joke Man Marthling
hasn't written you some rude
script for it?
Do we have this queued up?
Mrs. Brown looks older than she ought to.
Are you okay with a karaoke background?
Absolutely.
Because that's all we've got.
I love it.
Here we go, Gil.
Why don't you let Peter start, and then you'll pick it up from here.
I'll pick it up from tell her?
Yeah.
This way Peter will acquaint the audience.
He will acclimate them to what it actually is
Oh so I sing a bit
You start us off
Here we go
Here goes nothing
It's pretty good
Mrs. Brown
You've got a lovely daughter
Girls as sharp as her are something rare
But it's sad
She doesn't love me now
She's made it clear enough
It ain't no good to pine
Return ain't no good to pine. Return.
And she wants to return
those things I bought her.
Tell her she can keep
them just the same.
Walking about.
She doesn't love me now.
She's made it clear enough
He ain't no good to pie
You know the tune, Gilbert.
Walking about
Even in a crowd
Well, you pick her out
Makes the bloke feel so proud
If she finds that I've been round to see her
Tell her that I'm well and feeling fine
Feeling fine
Don't lean on
Don't say she's proud of her
I don't know nobody's best
No good to mine
Walking around
Even in a crowd
You'll be in hell
Makes a bloke feel so proud
If I'd have got a lovely daughter
Lovely daughter
Mrs Brown, you've got a lovely daughter
Mrs Brown, you've got a lovely daughter Lovely Jordan!
Wow.
That would never have been a single.
That should go on side two, track three.
But I'm really impressed with your knowledge of the song.
So am I. You've obviously heard it before.
At least twice.
Oh, God, I hope your wife's deaf.
Not a bad Gilbert Gottfried impression, Peter.
Oh, really?
I just shouted as loud as I could.
That's all it is.
And I just didn't go anywhere
Near the melody
Or the rhythm
You know
One is where you want it
It's like working with
Ginger Baker
You're just supposed to
Imagine where one is
And if you don't know
It's because you haven't
Done heroin
With me and Phil Seaman
Yeah
Beware Mr. Baker
Beware
Gottfried singing.
We might put you through another one later,
but before I get off this track.
What a lovely day we're having here.
More vocals with Mr. Gottfried.
You mentioned Elvis before.
Do tell us about meeting Elvis.
And you got to interview him.
Incredible.
It was the worst interview.
When are you coming to England?
Also on YouTube.
Oh dear, oh dear.
You know what happened was we saw, we were in Hawaii, we had one day off.
It says in the story that Peter Noon is meeting Elvis Presley on his day off from a 360 day tour.
We were so young and stupid that our agents figured we had one more year left in the
business and to sell us every night everywhere. So we'd go France, Belgium, Holland, Germany,
Italy, Israel, Hong Kong. And we end up a day 196 with a day off in Honolulu because it's been a time change. We've earned a day. And in the hotel, we see Colonel Tom Parker,
who to me is one of the most fascinating people on the planet.
And he's got the cigar and the hat and the fake Texas thing going.
And we coerce him into letting us meet Elvis,
who is there making a movie.
And there's a DJ called Tom Moffat
who plans the whole thing.
He said, I can set it up,
but you will say you're going to do an interview with him
because he met the Beatles
and he didn't have a really good time with them
because he thought they were disrespectful.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just an aside.
So there's going to be nothing
but maximum respect from Peter Noon,
whose watch is now saying, have you fallen over?
I don't know why.
I have to say no, because otherwise it calls 911.
So we get in this car.
Peter's ignoring a warning on his wristwatch.
Yeah.
Have you fallen over?
Must have been that singing
Hey, hey, hey
Why was there an interruption?
Because I'm missing a page
Okay
I need you to print up
You're not going to sing an Elvis song, are you?
Something good
Oh, yeah
Well, they'll prep it for you
In big print
They'll prep it for you
I know the words
He's
So they arranged to take us And we've got to be in the car at 5 a.m so me and barry the drum barry
whitwam the drummer from hermit's hermits stay up all night because when you're young you think
if i stay up i'm definitely i'll be ready yeah i'll be ready at five o'clock otherwise
the rest of the hermits all overslept they didn't make the five o'clock wake up thing that,
you know,
to me,
Elvis,
because they were tired,
you know,
192 days on the road.
So we,
we get in this car and they take us up there.
And the best part is Elvis punks us.
They take us into this hut.
It's all these Hawaiian huts.
He's making a movie,
Paradise Hawaiian style or something i
can't remember and we walk in and there's an elvis flat out on the floor uh face down as if he's just
been out at a party with keith richards you know what i mean like a a wimp. Like done. Fixed. Like, oh, somebody has dropped him off there after a big night out,
just taking him out of the taxi and throwing him in this hut.
So we're standing there.
We don't know what to do.
And then Elvis walks in, and he looks like Elvis Presley,
like the most beautiful guy I ever saw in my life.
I go, he's in makeup, and he's ready to go for a movie.
So they've made him up and he looks like Elvis Presley.
Wow.
And I'm like in shock just from seeing him
because he's this idol figure in my world.
You know, like they've got statues of Jesus
and St. Francis of Assisi,
but we've got a statue at home of Elvis.
You know, my sister is like a big Elvis fan.
And I don't know what to do, but I've got this microphone.
I wish they'd stop calling me on my watch.
Excuse me.
So can you hear that?
That's all right.
So Elvis is there, and he goes,
I put this microphone in front of him,
and I say, my sister has a phone,
and I've called her from the Hawaiian hotel.
Throw this bloody watch in the toilet, will you?
So my sister, I called her.
She lives in Liverpool and her husband works in Ellesmere Port in a car factory.
And I've called her.
I'm meeting Elvis Presley.
Denise, can you believe it?
I'm going to meet Elvis Presley. Wow, can you believe it? I'm going to meet Elvis Presley.
But I've got to ask him some questions.
You got any good questions?
She goes, ask him, does he dye his hair?
And you did.
So I look at Elvis and what's going through my head is I've got to introduce him.
I've got to make this interesting.
So I say, when are you coming to England?
And he goes on this long lie kind of thing.
The reason he's not going to England is because Colonel Parker's got a bad hip and he can't fly.
We don't know that Colonel Parker doesn't have a green card or an immigration statement.
This only comes out 40 years later.
So I'm listening to this story.
Oh, shame about this thing,
but all the time I'm looking at his hair.
So my brain isn't working on all the questions that I've got.
All that I go on, I'm like, he does dye his hair.
You can tell he dyes his hair.
Also wears a lot of makeup, you know what I mean?
Because he's on a movie set and his hair is perfect.
And I look at him
and I'm like,
his clothes are perfect.
I'm like,
I feel like
this is the most beautiful,
I didn't know
I would ever find
a man beautiful
but this is one.
I didn't know
that I was going to go,
wow,
this is really,
this is like
one of those moments
like when I saw
the Beatles in that field
that you go,
shit,
this guy's got the whole thing,
he's got the whole package and He's got the whole package.
And he's funny.
He's making, you don't know the part about Elvis.
He's a bit of a character
because they don't want him to do interviews.
They want everybody to think he's like a truck driver,
kind of, donk, hon-yon, hon-yon.
But he's like being funny.
And I say, who's your favorite group?
And he goes, oh, I like the Beatles and the Stones.
And Herman's Hummets of course
you know like that
and all these clowns
that he's got working for him who weren't around
his friends who weren't around when he died
you know like oh yeah he's been in the bathroom
for 11 hours perhaps we should go and check
him out all these guys are there just
laughing at everything he says
and not laughing at anything I say.
It's like a competition.
Fools.
And I'm friends with some of those guys still.
Some of them were cool,
but their job was to make everything Elvis did
better and more funny than it really was.
What are you, 16 at this point, 17?
17, yeah.
It's really, really nice.
Your questions are so cute.
People can see it it's
online is it yeah yeah the whole thing is there yeah you know it's that's the great thing about
the internet things that you thought were covered like my grandmother burning down houses well
listen i had to write that one down we will return to gilbert gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. What did you find out about the Colonel?
What disgusting...
Well, you know, I stayed friends with him
because I was interested in him as a character.
Once I'm doing a gig in Las Vegas,
and he lived at the Las Vegas Hilton.
In his final five years, he lived at the Las Vegas Hilton. In his final five years, he lived at the Las Vegas Hilton.
He had a room there.
And he would be found in the lobby
taking groups to see the Elvis suite,
charging $20 or something,
and all day on a $5 poker machine.
He was a big gambler.
So perhaps that's why they gave him a room there.
But he was a character, and so perhaps that's why they gave him a room there but he was
a character and he had lots of fun stories you know about being being in a circus and finding
his way to texas because you could in texas you could play poker with money on the table if you
had a hotel room so he obviously got off a ship from rotterdam in norfolk virginia roanoke found
his way to d Dallas and played cards
and was not successful and ended up on the road
and, you know, found himself in a circus.
And he would tell the story that they said,
come and see the animal.
And I said, get yourself, put animals up there.
And they said, well, they were from Hungary or something.
I said, well, we've only got one animal.
They were being honest, you know what I mean?
He says, well, we'll just throw a bucket of paint on it,
put a different girl on it and take the animal,
take the elephant around the building,
bring it back in the other door.
It was brilliant.
And, you know, he'd tell me stories like, you know,
I'd say, you know, we ran into this union problem
because British musicians had problems with the union in America.
And I'm a union guy. My dad was in a union. I was in the union. So British musicians had problems with the union in America and I'm a union guy my dad was in a union I was in the union so I never had a problem and so he got a problem he said well what I what I used to do I can't do his accent but he said what
I used to do is like if we'd run into that problem and they'd say you know he had a trio at the
beginning Elvis Presley at the beginning had a trio like the most brilliant trio and the musicians
you need to employ 12 people this is the rule of this
room is there needs to be 12 musicians paid and you'd make them play six in the ladies room and
six in the men's room he would make them play if you're going to pay you you're going to play
and that was kind of we don't know if it's true but it was a great anecdotal story about a union
and and he was a character so i'd say say, I'm playing this gig in another casino.
And it's Paul Revere and the Raiders and Peter Noon,
Herman of Herman's Hermits.
And he's charging the wrong money.
I said, what?
It's $40.
It's a good deal.
He said, $39.95.
I said, what's that?
He said, people, there's a barrier at 40.
Interesting.
He still thought he was in the business.
A businessman.
Yeah.
Through and through.
All the time, completely giving me suggestions on how to run my business, even though he was like an old geezer.
And you knew, well, at least you hung out with Bob Delon.
Well, only I didn't really hang out with him. I just would find myself sitting at a table next to him often,
and Captain Beefheart and John Lennon.
People would invite us because when you were a pop star in those days,
you'd get invited to like a new group.
If somebody had a new group that they wanted to promote,
they'd invite whoever was in town to come and be seen in the audience.
Now it's Paris Hilton.
But in those days, it was John Lennon, Bob Dylan,
and that kid from Herman's Hermits.
Maybe they won't let him in because he's only 17.
But, you know, if he's with John Lennon, they'll give him a drink.
So I would be sat next to him often.
It just was one of those people that whenever I came to New York,
I had a friend in New York called Gloria Stavis,
who was the editor of 16 magazine and she was the coolest woman i ever met she was like from
another generation and powerful too very powerful yeah and and she would tell i'd come into town i
didn't really know what to do and she said go to this place go to this place go to this place and
one day i saw there she go she actually i go i'm coming into new york and she said go to this place go to this place go to this place and one day i saw there she got actually i go i'm coming in new york and she said don't bother what do you mean don't
bother said your thing's all over i said oh you mean the monkeys oh no jim morrison alice cooper
you're done that's a good friend isn't it
nobody knows who you are anymore the whole business business has changed, and it's now Alice Cooper and Jim Rohn.
I remember the words.
I go, who the hell is Alice Cooper?
Some girl taking over the...
And it was true.
The business went overnight from being pop stars and Bob Dylan and Beatles and monkeys to that next level.
It kept changing.
Well, of course, and the Beatles themselves
and the British Invasion Acts knocked out a lot of those.
Yeah.
Chuck Berry and Fats Domino and a lot of their heroes.
It was just disturbing.
So cyclical.
It was just disturbing to be told that my career was over
and name the people who'd ruined it.
What do you remember about coming to the states for the first time and and and entering uh
it was joining up with dick clark's review that i would suggest that any 15 16 year old boy has
an experience like that because we saw the real america we were kids from you know provincial
england had a taste of london and we get on a bus with Billy Stewart, Ike Turner,
Little Anthony and the Imperials. We connected instantly with Little Anthony and the Imperials
because we knew who they were and they knew who we were. And they'd been ours once before
in a completely different culture. In our culture, people wanted to beat us up because we had
different clothes and long hair.
Are you a boy or a girl?
Always turned into a fight.
We couldn't accept.
What do you mean?
Are you a boy or a girl?
You know any girls with one of these?
And then there'd be a big fight and stuff would happen.
We came over here and we thought, whoa, this is a completely different.
They knew who we were because they'd had that kind of stuff happen to them.
This is 65 when you came? late 64 or 65 yeah and you know we'd play in cities where you know our managers
would say you should close tonight you should you know because when we started on the tour we were
the opening act you know it was like it was like uh little anthony imperials bobby v freddy kennett
and from england direct from England,
Herman's Hermits, right?
But by the halfway through the tour,
we had three records in the top 20,
and our manager's saying, you should close the show.
Sometimes we'd walk out onto the stage,
we didn't know, we didn't know any better.
We'd walk out on the stage,
and it would be 100% black audience,
and we'd have to sort of change the show.
You know, we got Mrs mrs brown you got a lovely
daughter coming up this is not going to work with this crowd you know being cute is not going to
work after that somebody's just an it's all right it's all right it's all right with the splits and
everything now we're going to stand up like these wooden little english twerks you know following
that so we just you know some nights we we better let Anthony go on after us.
They were fantastic.
They were so fantastic.
And during that tour, Bobby V had this band called Myron Cohen and the Caddies.
Terrible name for the band, the Caddies.
Sounds like you're carrying someone else's gear, doesn't it?
So halfway through the tour, this is a perfect experience for you. Sounds like you're carrying someone else's gear, doesn't it?
Halfway through the tour,
this is a perfect experience for you.
Halfway through the tour,
there was this beautiful girl on the bus and round Robin,
who is this guy from America,
and Billy Stewart,
who was this 380 pound fantastic person
who I sat next to on every bus ride,
basically because he weighed 380 pounds, so seven I sat next to on every bus ride basically because I he weighed
380 pounds so seven eighths of the seat was taken up by him and I was last on the bus because I was
doing the promotion so my arse my arse would fit into one eighth of the seat I weighed 110 pounds
so between us with the 500 pound people so one day a round robin gets on the bus
and fires a couple of rounds at billy's i don't know how he missed him because he was a 380 i
would have i could have gunshots rounds yeah boom boom so i learned to how to eat cigarette ends and
bits of pieces chewing gum wrappers that were on the floor of the bus. And that night, Dick Clark shows up and said, we're going to get you a station wagon like Bobby V. Because Bobby V
was at a station wagon that we, and we'll get you a driver because we know you're not old enough to
drive. And we got, I call Randy, who drove us all around America. And we followed Bobby V.
By the second day, Bobby V had introduced Herman's Hermits to a thing called the Cherry Bomb,
which was a piece of dynamite packed in a cherry.
So we would be driving behind all giddy little English schoolboys, you know,
and out of the window of his station wagon would, this smoking thing that would explode
and basically four out of five hermits
would shit their pants.
And I never did.
I never did.
The glory days of rock and roll.
But we were, of course, the first stop,
first time we ever got to talk to Bobby V
about what was this item that he just introduced us to.
It was called a cherry bomb.
And we said, where'd you get it?
And he said, well, you can't get them in this state.
You can only get it when we go to Ohio.
So we waited every day.
Now we knew what was coming out the window.
Every time the windows rolled down.
And remember, windows rolled down slowly
because there was a winder.
You could see the window coming.
Ah, here comes another one of those things and the next time we bought one and
one of the i think it was bobby keys the saxophone player bobby keys was in the stones i think he
says you should try dropping it in the toilet see what happens of course with kids from england you know with kids from we don't know what's going to happen
it blows the bathroom wall out oh jeez so yeah you know but we always we always once we knew that we
always paid for the bathroom wall before we were honest i'm gonna make a segue here speaking of
destroying bathrooms and explosions,
tell us something about your friendship with Keith Moon.
Well, we introduced him to the Cherry Bombs.
Oh.
You know, every time we became the old-timers,
so we'd bring the animals on tour,
and we'd show them Cherry Bombs,
and of course they used them,
and eventually used them as weapons.
But then we bought the Hollies and Wayne Fontana.
And by the time they'd finished the tour, they knew all about the Cherry Bombs.
And then we brought the Who over.
And, of course, they took it to the next level.
They dropped it in soon so that it was way up into the plumbing system before it exploded.
And you could take out a whole floor, really, with it.
Keith loved that. And we were take out a whole floor, really, with it. Keith loved that.
And we were there when he first did it.
You know, it's like when they want to claim stuff,
like he put the car in the pool.
Yeah.
The people who were there would say, I defy you.
Go to a holiday and try and get a car past the ice machine and the wall.
There's no car can get through there.
And they always had that white railing around.
We thought of all that stuff, but you can't get a car in America in a pool. and the wall there's no car can get through there and they always had that white railing around we
thought of all that stuff but you can't get a car in america in a pool it's it's safe for children
was it was there a story about keith moon's infamous birthday party at the holiday inn
it's a big story because in flint yeah remember we're english schoolboy twits
twit is short for nitwit, just so you know.
I think of the Python sketch, the twit of the year.
Exactly.
So we were really twits, and we didn't have much going.
We always ordered the same thing in a restaurant because we'd seen.
If we went for a drink, we'd have whatever they were having.
I'll have a Singapore slink.
Me too.
Vodka, Jim.
I'll have one of those.
Because we didn't know anything.
We only knew beer.
So we didn't know. So the Who
come and is having his 20...
He says it's his 21st birthday party because
he can drink if he's 21 in this state.
And he was already drinking.
So he didn't make it legal.
So this is my 21st birthday. So we order...
We had this guy called
Bob Levine who was our tour manager.
From the very beginning beginning he was always there
and his job was to
go to the hotel manager
and negotiate
for a room for us to destroy
because we were nice people
we wanted to pay
we wanted to prepay for any damage
you know so they couldn't say
oh those hermits got
blah blah blah
so he goes to the manager
he says look
I know this is unusual,
but it's somebody's birthday party tonight,
and they're going to destroy a room.
Have you got a room that you're going to redecorate soon?
And we'll use that room to minimalise the cost.
So I remember the room.
It was downstairs, and it had one of those concertina doors on it,
you know, those like a concert, the doors that go like that.
And he said, just this side here.
I remember standing there going, well, can't we have that?
No, no, no, don't leave that room.
We're just down there.
And we negotiate to have this one room on the side of this half of a room.
And we ordered 100 birthday cakes.
And I remember that when Bob Levine, this guy, was ordering,
they said, well, they're not going to said, well they're not going to eat them.
They're not going to
eat them.
And it's like so bizarre
because it was like, suddenly
we're in this room downstairs
and everybody
is in their underwear. Just
their underwear because they know that it's going to be
a pie
thing.
It's a non-sexual pie-throwing orgy.
With 100 birthday cakes.
100 birthday cakes. And they're all laid out ready for it.
And, of course, Keith Moon walks in and gets it immediately,
and he gets down to his Y-fronts, and he throws the first cake.
But then 50 cakes.
Everybody throws a cake at him.
Everybody is going gonna plaster him
because it's his birthday
and we've paid
for the room
so he's getting
all these cakes
and he climbs up
on the table
because he was very
he was a very fit guy
and he climbs up
on the table
and he starts
throwing this cake
and
I don't know
if you've ever
thrown a cake
while standing
on a four mic
I can't say that you've ever thrown a cake while standing on a four-miker. I can't say that.
He slipped, and he slipped, and he hit his face on the table like that.
Boom.
And he knocked his front tooth.
He broke half of his front tooth off.
Of course, we thought that was funny.
Your bra has fallen on his face and fuck, he's bleeding.
He's bleeding.
Brian's falling on his face and fuck he's bleeding
he's bleeding
and then
it is a dangerous thing
it's probably very painful
and
they come and there is road manager
Chris Stamp
gets him and they take him out
and they take him to a dentist
and he's going to miss the next gig
and we're all worried now like being he's going to miss the next gig. And we're all worried now, like being so professional,
will he make the next gig?
So we get him a helicopter and they fly him onto the next,
send him a helicopter and pick him up all for his birthday, see?
And that was the end of it really.
And then what happens?
It gets a bit out of control and he's gone,
but the party's not over.
And we're all running around in our y fronts and some
other men in the hotel say those guys look at all those girls they're having a load of fun let's
join them so now complete strangers are joining us in their underwear
and they're running around so we've run out of. So we take those fire hydrants off the wall there
and start shooting them up, firing the fire hydrants.
We don't know that that's poisonous and can make you go blind.
And they're chasing us with them.
And it's going on all the cars.
And that foam in those things takes the paint off all those cars.
And God was thinking four Herm Herman's Hermits that night and our bankers
because these men, it was their cars.
We didn't have a car.
We came on a bus and all the paint was gone off their cars,
but they all worked for Mutual of Omaha Insurance.
That worked out.
That worked out great for us.
There were insurance men
and their cars had been destroyed.
Moon turned that to driving a car in a swimming pool.
There was a lot of damage to cars,
but none of them went in the pool.
What a character.
He was so much fun.
You know, and I was kind of,
this is so pathetic.
I was his minder,
Moon and Noon,
the Loon twins, because I was a bit crazy. And I would say, you I was his minder, moon and noon, the loon twins,
because I was a bit crazy.
And I would say, you know, his manager,
he had a really nice guy manager called Kit Lambert,
who was a very gentle, nice human being.
And he would say, would you do me a favor?
Would you watch out for Keith?
Because, you know, he gets in trouble every now and then.
And he trusted me to look after him.
So I took it upon myself and said,
Keith, ever been water skiing?
So every day, wherever we were,
we would find somebody who would take us water skiing.
It was summer.
And I'd take him water skiing,
not knowing that water skiing with a bottle of vodka in one hand
isn't really that good.
But when you fall, you don't hurt yourself at least
you're not falling on fort micah but every day we'd go there's pictures of me and keith moon
in fort lauderdale and all over america we'd find a place we'd get there at 10 o'clock in the morning
i'd take it thinking that was how he got fit not knowing that drinking all day was not a good thing
morning I'd take it thinking that was how he got fit not knowing that drinking all day was not a good thing because what I could do it so why couldn't he go ahead and and okay now before
because there was an argument I didn't you know something good feeling fine something good yeah
it's it's it's my is my song the one it's it's called I'm into something good is my song.
It's called I'm Into Something Good.
Wait a second.
I'm Into Something Good.
After all those terrible stories, you're going to sing now?
Yes, yes.
And you're going to sing with me.
Okay.
He won't know the tune.
I'm just giving you a fair warning, Peter.
Oh, I know the tune really well.
Maybe you can carry him.
You've sung it before?
Let's sing it together. Oh, okay. With apologies to Carole King.
Alright. Here we go.
Here we go.
Woke up this morning feeling
fine. There's something
special on my mind.
Last night I met
a new girl in the neighborhood.
Oh yeah.
Something
tells me I'm
into something good.
Take it.
Go ahead, Gil. She's the kind of
girl who's not too shy.
And I can tell
I'm her kind of guy.
She then comes to me like I hoped she would
Oh yeah
Something tells me I ain't a something good
We only danced for a minute or two
Then she stopped close to me the whole night through
Can I be at falling in love? minute or two. Then she stopped close to me the whole night through.
Can I be at falling love? Cause she's everything
I've been dreaming of.
She's everything I've been dreaming
of.
I walked out and she held my hand.
I knew it would be just
a one night stand.
So I asked a senior to
search my telephone. Just a one night stand So I asked the senior To shake his shirt
To my head
Tell her I feel like a
Something tells me
I'm into something good
Wait a second
I feel like Ginger Bacon now
Let the guitar player go
Okay
You just look in admiration over the guitar player. Here
we go. More coming now. I walked home and she held my hand. I knew it would have been just a one-night stand so i had to say
something tells me i'm into something good
something tells me i'm into something good
do one on your own something tells me i'm into something good do one on your own something tells me i'm into something good
let me do one something takes me i made a good
something good
that was marvelous.
I never thought anyone could make me feel that musical.
It's good.
I come from a musical family and no one ever did that.
Thank you for letting me share that with you. That was beautiful, Peter.
You're a brave soul.
I hope I can still sing like that tonight.
Do I have time for five minutes of questions from listeners, Peter?
Yeah, go.
Real quick.
This is fun.
This is fun for a change.
Andrew Hirsch says, I don't have a question.
I just want to thank Peter for making my uncle happy in his unfortunately short life.
His uncle was a huge Herman's Hermits fan.
Oh, well, that's good.
I hope Herman's Hermits made lots of people happy.
Yes.
Alison Ward says,
In August of 1965, you kindly signed an autograph for a shy 15-year-old girl
who was terrified to approach you in suburban Virginia.
And now 55 years later, that same woman wants to know,
what's the most outrageously forward thing a fan ever did to get your attention?
Oh, I couldn't possibly tell you that.
Okay.
You know, it's so funny.
Last night, we went to the Philippines,
and Mrs. Marcos had asked us to do a song that we didn't know.
It was recorded by Herman Sermits,
and we'd just been with the Beatles in England
and I said we're going to the Philippines what's it like and John said just say yes to everything
which we didn't know what that even meant oh so we got over there and they said Mrs. Marcos would
like you to sing one little packet of cigarettes and it's a it's the stupidest song. It is the stupidest, most ridiculous song.
And it's about a guy who writes a girl's address on a packet of cigarettes.
Whoever did something so stupid?
A phone number.
A phone number.
An email address.
Excuse me, I'm attracted to you.
Could you give me your address?
No, never happened.
But that's the song.
And I've looked here and I've looked there.
On the table, on the chair.
I've looked up, I've looked down.
And one little packet cannot be found.
What a stupid idea for a song.
I regret quite a few things in the songs, but that is one.
So we had to go
in the dressing room and learn the song um we only played it once ever and i did it last night
because somebody requested it uh somebody from the philippines requested wow wow second time in my
life was last night and a lot of bad things a lot of bad things have been written on bits of tissue paper you know
about a drink in them already but some wonderful things yeah they're mostly what they'd like to do
with your little winky wanky woo tell us about to get let's let's get to the plugs you're still
doing the serious show yeah i do it got it's on every Saturday. Every Saturday. Yeah, Saturday afternoon.
60s on 6, Sirius XM.
Yes, and it's called, ironically,
after that duet,
Something Good.
Well, that was kind of good
if you like that kind of stuff. And your
dates, people can go to your website and find
out where you're going to be. You're here at the Iridium
in New York this week. Yeah, and I'm always
somewhere. Everywhere. Yeah, I do about 150 a a year you'll know what that's like the road is
pretty good fun really 150 a year yeah wow it's it's crazy i do three a week i told my i told my
agent i've only got 10 more years i keep saying 10 more years i've been yet but like at least 10
years i've been saying 10 more years it just started again today the 10 more years and i say
i want to work every Saturday,
book all the Saturdays.
And when you've booked all the Saturdays,
get me the Fridays.
And then when you booked all the Fridays,
get me a pick up date on either end.
Because then, you know, last night,
my friend told me I should call my show
the Peter Noon Solo No Band Per Diem Show so because you want to get you i want to keep my
my men on the road um making money you know so you don't want to go out and get stuck in
you know i see these all these bands out there stuck on the road that'll kill you getting stuck
in you know some town in the middle of nowhere for three
days off so we don't take days off we go home i leave on thursday and i get home on monday
every week i admire you my friend you're still out there doing it i still make people happy people
think that there's something wrong with me for enjoying my job but i really do enjoy my i like
my i'm lucky see it's always been about the songs my dad used to say it's all about the songs you see you know why don't you get someone good opening for you like
the stones instead of that bloody freddie in the dream is that setting yourself up so it doesn't
work like that dad this is now you're right it's all about the songs it's all about and i've got
all those great songs of course i sing them and i'm so proud of them you know i go who who got the luck you know i once i was hanging this is like roy orbison said to me
you know i said i gotta sing henry d says listen there's only about at the time there's only 20
acts in the world who can go on the stage for 45 minutes and only sing their own material
and the people will know all the songs.
Yes, that's...
And I stupidly said, have you got 45 minutes?
But it was, and then the Bee Gees came along
and the Eagles, but for a while it was like the storm.
It was about 10 people.
It was really very few people, so I'm lucky.
I'm so grateful that I was there
to make those records
because other people
made a load of
we've made versions of songs
like I said
Bust Up For Your Love
we should have had
the singles of those
we just weren't good
at picking songs
you've made a lot of people
happy for a long time
and we thank you
and we've wanted you here
for a long time
and we're glad
you're finally here
I was looking forward to it
I knew that he'd be
a load of fun
I wasn't so sure about you
because I've heard the show.
I knew you're the serious one,
but I knew he'd be
a load of fun.
I wasn't quite expecting...
Am I too serious for you, Peter?
No, no, no,
but on the show
when I listen to the podcast,
you're kind of very sort of,
shall I say mature comparatively.
I'll take the compliment.
We want to thank Jackie Martling, our friend,
for his role in finally nailing you down.
We want to thank Carice, who's here,
who's been very patient.
Thanks, Carice.
You should ask Jackie Martling to teach him the songs
instead of just the words.
You've joined an exclusive club, we told you.
Ron Dante, Tom James, Tommy James, Peter Asher he sang with.
Billy J. Kramer was here.
Oh, good.
You're not the only one that suffered.
Billy's a nice guy.
They're all nice guys.
All those guys.
I think probably one of the reasons they stayed in the business so long
is probably because people like them.
They're likable people.
Good people.
And Ron Dante. Come back and play with us
another time.
Not tomorrow.
I want to go home.
Well, let me just do the wrap-up.
So this has been
Gilbert Gottfried's
Amazing Colossal Podcast
with my co-host
Frank Santopadre.
And we've been talking
to a man who really should learn
the lyrics to the Herman song.
Because it's pathetic.
If I'm here, I'm a professional.
And I want to work with someone who fucking knows the music and the lyrics.
Peter Tilly.
I got stuck with that second verse same as the first.
I just keep singing the same
words over and over and over.
Go to Peter's website.
Find out where he's going to be. He's a great
entertainer. The show is wonderful.
And this was a treat. See what I mean?
Much more mature.
Somebody's got to be a pro.
Exactly. Thank you, Peter.
Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks.
There's a kind of hush all over the world.
Tonight, all over the world, you can hear the sounds of lovers in love.
You know what I mean?
Just the two of us and nobody else in sight.
There's nobody else and I'm feeling good just holding you tight.
So listen very carefully.
Close some now and you will see what I mean.
It isn't a dream The only sound that you will hear
Is when I whisper in your ear
I love you
Forever and ever
There's a kind of hush
All over the world
Tonight all over the world
You can hear the sound
Of lovers in love
La la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la la So listen very carefully
Closer now and you will see what I mean
It isn't a dream
The only sound that you will hear
Is when I whisper in your ear
I love you
Forever and ever
There's a kind of hush
All over the world
Tonight
All over the world
People just like us
Are falling in love
Yeah, they're falling in love
Hush
They're falling in love
Shh