Thanks so much to Peter Green for the interview! Thanks too to my friend Jörg who after I wrote about about Hearts on Fire helped Peter and me connect! Hearts on Fire released an album and two EPs on the Midnight Music label back in the 80s and they are terrific jangly records. For some reason or another the band has became an obscure band, but that shouldn’t be the case! Let’s all rediscover their wonderful songs and learn a bit about the band with this great interview!
++ Hi Peter! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? I see you are still making music with Bluebird Blue and as Soulbird! Can you tell us a bit about this band? Any releases you have out? Where can one listen to the music?
SOULBIRD is pretty much a studio collaboration between my and terrific producer dan Cooper – I write the songs, he makes them sound good. We’ve had (and hope to have again) guest vocals from classically trained theatre singer David Watters and songwriter Georgie Cooper. The plan for the next record is to have guest musicians record contributions on guitar, sitar, flute, whatever I can ask a friend to do and more and make it more collaborative as a response to the pandemic.
SOULBIRD has a new album out right now -October 2020 – which you can get from Bandcamp; https://soulbirdpetergreen.bandcamp.com/releases
the album before that was ‘Flypast’ and it was a compilation of some songs from a few years ago remixed to sound like the 60s and given away to people who went to the Fruits de Mer records pop-psychedelic weekend festival in summer 2019. https://music.apple.com/us/album/flypast/1465189154
There are 3 Soulbird Albums you can hear on Apple Music, I Tunes, etc.
Bluebird Blue was a one -off – I have access to a big Gretsch guitar and wanted to try and make an English version of an Americana album. I might do that again… https://music.apple.com/us/album/bulebird-blue/1321875703
I never throw anything away, so I could probably put together a CD for you of ‘Soulbird’ recordings of my songs I wanted on the second Hearts on Fire LP…
++ And if you were to compare Soulbird and Hearts on Fire, what would you say are similarities between both bands? What about differences?
Hearts on Fire was the first real band I’d ever been in and we all really believed in that Monkees thing that you should all live in the same house and dress like a gang. We also felt like no-one else in the world liked the music we liked, so we had that bond. Also, as a writer hearing someone who could really sing and really play bringing their own power to these songs was wonderful for me. We got together with the idea of being a live band because that’s what you did then… play gigs and hope to get discovered.
With Soulbird I know we have to use the studio to get the sounds together, so it’s always aimed at making a recording, so there isn’t the barrier of ‘could we do this live?’ (no) and we listen harder for textures. There’s also the way that you can now se;f-release records instead of needing a record company to like you, that you can reach people all over the world, you don’t feel who have to write songs that suit someone else. The similarities are that at the centre of both there’s my weird self-taught churning rhythm guitar style, and odd songs about good or bad love.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen at home while growing up?
I grew up with two older sisters listening to Hollywood Musicals – West side story, Carmen Jones, the King and I, Oklahoma, THOSE songs. The Beatles came along when we got a TV and that was it for me. I know at first I thought Paul was the lead guitarist because he played it the other way round. I also thought that for the guitar to be in tune all; the tuning pegs had to tbe in the same position. I could probably have been quite avant garde if I hadn’t learned that was wrong. There was no-one to tech me, we didn’t have music lessons at school, I think hearing Creedence and Dave Edmunds and T-Rex talking about 50s rock’n’roll made me realise that you could go back and hear older music and it could be just as great as the very newest thing to come out. I finally persuaded my Mum and Dad that I wouldn’t just put it to one side and never learn to play (obviously that was a lie, but I didn’t THINK it was) and they agreed to let me spend birthday money and pocket money I’d saved up on a Futurama II in a junk shop in our local town – 12 miles away. My memory is that it was £15 although seems like a lot of money for a junkshop guitar, but it was red and every schoolboy’s dream – looked like sstratocaster (not that I knew that) I tried to learn from a book. When I went to college I bought a 30-quidder (entry level) telecaster thinline copy (not that I knew that’s what it was) and met Steve who wanted someone to play rhythm guitar while he improvised solos, so he taught me about chords and rhythm. In the pic attached he’s playing my guitar and I’m playing some kind of Woolworth’s Top Twenty or Zenta guitar that must have been borrowed from the bass player. From the way we look I’m guessing glam was over and punk hadn’t started so maybe 1976, as best as I can recall we would have done songs like the Byrds ‘so you wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star’, the Monkees ‘I’m not Your Steppin’ Stone’ and the Yardbirds ‘For Your Love’ which Nils Lofgren had just revived. God I hope there’s no evidence of it. It was very much playing whatever we could, no guiding principle.
++ Had you been in other bands before Hearts on Fire? If so, how did all of these bands sound like? Are there any recordings?
I didn’t play again for 5 or more years after that because I was struggling to get a job for 2 years after getting my degree. Then I moved to London in 1981 or 2 and the music I heard was really exciting but I still didn’t know how to get a band together. And I thought no-one liked the same kind of music as me – We’d been through Punk and then synthpop and Two-Tone I hadn’t heard anything that made me go ‘Yes! That’s for me’ since discovering Big Star. I tried to get a duo together with a keyboard player through an advert he’s placed naming the Velvet Underground as an influence. Then I saw REM on TV playing a Rickenbacker ( I knew what different guitars looked like by then) and wanted to be in band playing jangly guitar again.
++ Where were you from originally?
I grew up in the South West, In the country, in Dorset but my parents were from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in the North so I didn’t really end up with either regional accent.
++ How was London at the time of Hearts on Fire? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
When I got to London I was living about 10 minutes walk from the Hope and Anchor which had got famous during ‘pub rock’ and still had up-and-coming bands on most nights – the kind who had maybe one song John Peel had played and one review in the NME. I remember seeing the Barracudas there with Chris Wilson from the Flamin’ Groovies, and bands like the Associates before they got an album out. I also went there the night U2 played to about 5 people – I didn’t go down to the basement because it looked shut, so I missed them. There were gigs on Sundays at the Lyceum on Sunday nights with 3 or 4 bands on – I’m sure I saw Echo & the Bunnymen, the Teardop Explodes, The Thompson twins when there were still about 15 people in the band, the Only Ones. I was living in Islington so Camden Town was the next place over to see bigger bands at Dingwalls – like REM. IO can’t remember if the Rainbow in Finsury Park was still open by the 80s but I saw Dexy’s at a theatre and Costello supported by the Stray Cats SOMEWHERE! And you’d also see Blues bands in pubs in Camden Town when you went to the market on the weekends, which was my introduction to hearing Stax songs for the first time . And there were some genius record shops there – one co-owned by one of the Undertones with a fantastic stock of 60s psych and Ali’s shop on the bridge where if he knew you were that way inclined he’d play you a killer track from new albums by the Church, the Rain Parade and other new guitar bands knowing you’d go home with a new album every week..
++ When and how did the band start? How did you all meet? How was the recruiting process?
Adverts in Melody Maker, how else! I think Mike and I both went to an audition where the word ‘Byrds’ loomed large, and didn’t get a call. Then he placed an ad. Where the first influence was Groovies, so we reconnected. There was a singer but when we clocked that we were carrying guitar cases and he was carrying a make-up box it was not destined to last. Mike knew Simon (Mitch) from their home town of Romford. Simon had been successful as a member of the Purple Hearts on the 1980 post-Jam mod revival scene but the band had broken up before making a second album. Finding Syn was another advert – we said we liked West Coast music and she’s from LA, so it seemed right and her cowgirl boots went well with my interest in the Burritos … everyone in London wore bootlace ties and collar tips at the time anyway. Simon had agreed to play drums to help out, but Mike knew he could contribute more on guitar, so back to Melody Maker. I think ‘about to record an album’ was the selling point that got Andrew Tolson on board.
++ I also would like to know why did you go by Billy Finn instead of your name? Did other also use pseudonyms?
I had a job, but no-one else was comfortable using their real names in case they got checked by the department for Employment. It just seemed more fun for me to have a ‘stage name’ as well. It was originally Billy Dolphin because I’d suggested there should be a style of (happy, slippery) music called ‘Dolphinabilly’. It’s also in the words of ‘Love on Trial’ – ‘my faith in things I don’t Billy Finn’. Syn changed her name 3 or 4 times before settling on Cody. It was the 80s, reinvention was the zeitgeist. Also, as I’ve discovered more recently when putting out music under my own name, being called ‘Peter Green’ is a bit of an (ahem) Albatross – there’s at least 25 of us on facebook alone, but everyone thinks I’m him.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
Mike was living in a rented house in Brixton with a band called the Aardvaarks (which I think was the band we’d met at the audition for) so we wrote songs and strummed up at the kitchen table. I don’t remember full band rehearsals, but there must have been some. Again, at the time there were damp unhygienic railway arches all over London, many of which had broken drum kits and unsafely wired amplifiers in them for bands to flirt with death in… These really were the first songs I’d written, and mainly because I found everyone else’s so hard to play.
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?
First of all, it has nothing to do with the Dylan Film (that was years later) or the Gram Parsons song (it existed but I hadn’t heard it yet) . The band also didn’t have that name until the album was getting made. I can’t remember all the names we went through in those months – usually me wanting to be ‘The…’ something because in my mind that’s what Bands DID and other people wanting something that sounded more like ‘The Big Music’ – it was the era of Simple Minds, the Waterboys, huge, grand soundscapes and abstract ideas.. I think we signed a deal with Midnight as Action Painting (Yes, yes, referencing the Creation) and ditched it because we thought it was asking for someone to call us a ‘Load of Pollocks’.
My recollection of the final choice was it was Nick Ralphs came up with it but later admitted he’d meant to say ‘Hearts in Exile’ – the title of a 1950s detective novel that I think was the first book in England to openly include gay characters – which is indeed a great band name, but ‘Hearts on fire’ chimed with our belief in being passionate and with the words of the songs ‘hidden heart’, ‘fire one’ ‘this sultry day’, ‘love on trial’ – hunks-a hunks-a burnin’ love there…
++ And who would you say were influences in the sound of the band music-wise?
Too many to mention! Mine were things I’d been introduced to at college – Dylan Stones, The Who, ‘Nuggets’, Fairport Convention,; Mike had been in bands playing 60s pop psych covers – Love, ‘Little Girl’, Jefferson Airplane; Simon was discovering everything with the freedom of not having to play Purple Hearts songs – but then when we got together there were these new cool bands appearing every week – the Icicle Works, The Pretenders, The Dream Syndicate, Green on Red – that made us think jangly guitars were still gorgeous…
++ All your releases came out on Midnight Music. Was wondering how did this relationship start? How did you meet? Did you send a demo? Was a there a contract to be signed?
This was Mike again – bass player as hustler! He’d moved to a room in a flat with the owner of a record shop called English Weather. This was Steve Burgess, who was co-owner of Midnight with Nick Raplhs as well as co-writers and owners of Dark Star magazine. Mike hustled the band to Steve who liked the idea of Midnight having a house band and was originally interested in producing us. We made an 8-track demo which definitely had Camera and Seasons, the first time I’d ever heard either with proper lead guitar on! Wish I had it now, I think both versions were more exciting than the Alaska ones – maybe because 8 tracks meant Simon could play drums and dubbed on lead guitar. Nick thought we made music that would record well and sell, as well as liking us. The contract meant they paid for all studio time with a professional recording engineer and to put the records out. I think they own the publishing and I know we agreed there’d be an even 5-way split on any songwriting royalties anyway – as I said, if it wasn’t for the ideas and contributions the 4 of them made, there wouldn’t BE any radio play or record sales.
++ And how was your relationship with the label? Was it all that you expected? Were there other labels that were interested in releasing your music?
I thought they did fine by us – they worked out a way to pay Syn for designing the album cover, they shifted their release dates around so we could have the catalogue number Midnight Chime 12, they got us on the support slot to Robyn Hitchcock, who was by far the biggest star the label had, touring colleges up and down the UK. The problem was they didn’t have any promotion budget so no-one ever got to hear the record. We definitely didn’t have any interest from major labels. I think at some point we had a meeting with the manager of one of those bands who were about to be the ’next big thing’ on London’s psychedelic scene, the Playn Jayn or the Mood Six, who actually said “I don’t hear a single”
++ Your first release came out in 1985, an EP called “You May Now Know” that was produced by David Ros. How was working with him? In which studio was this recorded? Was it your first experience at a professional recording studio?
This was in Alaska studios at Waterloo, owned by one of the Vibrators and a place where lots of great punk and post-punk music was made. The first thing he did was to get rid of the studio engineer who we were pretty uncomfortable with after some kind of sexist suggestions when we arrived and say he was going to engineer it himself. I don’t really remember how David was connected with Midnight, he was a member of loads of Camden bands. I really liked working with him – I think I was the only member of the band to be at every session. I’d never been in a studio before – I suppose Simon must have been in a few studios, having made records with the Purple Hearts – and I was interested in the process. I ended up playing David’s Les Paul signature on pretty much every song because he knew how to record it to get a good sound. But yeah, his approach was always ‘how do you want it’? not ‘On this one we want to make you sound like…’ and on the night where I just couldn’t stand to hear anything I was involved in any more and wanted to go for a walk in the night air for half an hour, that was OK. He’s a musician, he knew what to do.
++ That same year your first and only album “Dreams of Leaving” was released. I really like this album and have enjoyed it quite a lot. I have heard also a lot about Alaska studios where it was recorded. But something that caught my attention is that for the record you got some guest musicians like The Midnight Rambler, Jeremy Hirsch or Louis Vause. Were you friends with them? Or was it the label that recruited them?
The Midnight Rambler is Nick Ralphs exercising his privilege as label boss to play on his artist’s record! The others were bandmates David Ros from his band the Trojans, I think. There WAS going to be a special guest star on the album but it didn’t happen: some of the band got talking to Peter Buck from REM at a gig and he said yes to an invitation to come to the studio. We faded out the guitars at the end of ‘Sultry day’ to give him a space to [lay, but he didn’t show. Later I found out he’d played on the Dream Academy’s album that day.
++ Speaking of musician friends, were you tight with any other bands? Did you enjoy sharing bills with any bands in particular? I guess what I am asking is if you felt part of a scene at all?
I definitely didn’t, but I never have. I think we met a few people we liked and went to see them, but I don’t remember ever gigging with them.
++ Your last release was the EP “You Promised Me a Camera” that is great. I am curious though, why just three releases? Why weren’t there more?
By the time ‘camera’ came out on a single I wasn’t in the band any more (which is why I don’t own that record) and I think that meant a 4-piece band with no new songs to play and a songwriter with no band to perform or record with.
++ Are there more recordings by the band? Perhaps early demo tapes? Or any other songs that were recorded at the different recording sessions?
There’s the demo of ‘Camera and Seasons’ but I don’t have it. There’s definitely no outtakes either – 16 songs, that’s your lot.
++ One thing that was quite particular about you is the art for your records, they are pretty interesting and different. Who was in charge of that? And something I was curious about the sleeve of the album, is that a caravel or a different kind of vessel?
Syn designed the 3 sleeves, with a fairly democratic ‘that one!’ voice from the rest of us. She is a graphic designer by profession anyway, so it was good to have that talent available. I think all three of those covers have a kind of ‘time travel;’ vibe though, it felt consistent, Victoriana/psychedelic/found imagery. Sorry, can’t help you on what kind of craft it is –despite my interest in pirate ships (you’ll hear the a few times if you listen to Soulbird). It’s not my ship, it’s an engraving Syn saw and we liked. The background was a pretty elaborate process of cutting out different areas and printing that colour one at a time. I’m sure as soon as I saw I said ‘Oh we should call the album Dreams of leaving’…
++ One thing that I hope happens someday is that the songs get reissued, I find it it will be hard with Cherry Red owning Midnight Music catalogue these days. But I wonder if that’s has ever been in the band’s plans?
Really can’t say – I’ve never had any contact from Cherry Red. I can’t imagine there’s any plan to reissue it – it didn’t sell, it wasn’t on radio (no-one to plug it I suppose) and it’s not like any of us went on to be famous and have roots to monetise. I’m sure if someone approached Cherry Red about it they may not even know it exists. I can’t really speak for the others in the band either. We live in different countries, we don’t very often communicate, I don’t think anyone would come to a 35th anniversary tour!
++ I think my favourite song of yours might as well be “(You Promised me A) Camera” wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
Can I first of all say it is not in any way connected with REM’s song ‘camera’ which I hadn’t heard when I wrote it. It’s ‘about’ someone I was in a relationship with who was a great promiser that things would be better and they wouldn’t do it again – but those happy smiling faces photographic days and red letter days on the calendar never came. Sad, but pretty. Absolutely transformed by Simon’s guitar intro and solo by the way.
++ If you were to choose your favorite Hearts on Fire song, which one would that be and why?
Can I choose two? I’ve played ‘love on trial’ since then at open mike nights and with other bands and it always gets a good reaction – my favourite being on a phone video hearing someone say ‘Ow, that’s a catchy tune!’ as we end it. I think my favourite thing on the record is ‘Shall we be dancing’? because everyone said ‘you always play really pretty guitar, do something different’ and that backwards guitar is the result.
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
Not by the standards of other working bands – we did a few in the famous rock’n’toll toilets (that’s a Robin Hitchcock song) of old London Town, then we were making the record, then we were playing the same songs on a tour of universities, then Tolson got an offer to join someone more successful.
++ And what were the best gigs you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?
There were a few good gigs on the Hitchcock Tour – one was when Simon’s brother came along and returned the 12 string guitar so we got to use it on more than one song each for the first time ever! The Marquee was bizarre – we met ‘jesus’ who was always in the audience there playing tambourine, and felt like a proper part of the London live music history We came on stage to ‘my friend jack’ by the Smoke. It was pretty much a home crowd for Robyn Hitchcock so he had a lot of friends in the audience and someone was throwing frozen prawns on stage during every chorus of ‘where are the prawns?’, making the stage dangerous at the end when we went on to get our amps…
++ And were there any bad ones?
There was one in Bournemouth – near enough my home town where we didn’t have a drummer. We had someone from the audience come up and try (uninvited) on a couple of songs, then did about 4 songs with tambourine as the rhythm section. It did include quite a nice cover of ‘Femme fatale’ though.
++ When and why did Hearts on Fire stop making music? Were you involved in any other bands afterwards?
This isn’t that happy a memory for me, and you probably ought to ask one or more of the others how they remember it. We only had those 16 songs. We’d played them before getting signed, we’d played them to make the record, we’d played them on tour. We knew we wanted more songs for a second album and the band fell apart disagreeing ‘how’ to get there. I had at least half an album’s worth of songs, there was a fantastic one 90% written by Syn ‘Nightwatchman’ that I’d still like to do – maybe next year, but some of the band wanted to ‘jam’ some numbers into being, which I felt that I wouldn’t be any good at and couldn’t think of any examples of music I liked that came out of ‘jamming’. I felt very hurt by that – like they didn’t want my songs, but expected me to help with theirs. So I quit. It also felt like Miidnight chose the band over me. For a bit I auditioned for C-86 and Creation type bands who’d all emerged with that same sound, but it didn’t happen. I think it was a good 10 years before I picked up a guitar again to play in a covers band at work. 10 years ago I discovered Dan and the studio
++ What about the rest of the band, had they been in other bands afterwards?
Simon left when there was an offer for The Purple Hearts to record and promote, and 2000-whatever’s mod revival revival meant reforming the Purple Hearts for live work. Simon also has his own band and plays in a Mod -supergroup with a Chord and a Long Tall Shorty, I think. Syn went to France and became a mother. I don’t know how long the March Violets lasted after being on the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie, but I know Andrew ended up back home in Canada where he now creates with a camera not a drum kit. Mike has certainly given up music now, but I don’t know how long he went on with it after the Hearts folded.
++ Has there been any Hearts on Fire reunion?
It was a pretty bitter ending.
++ Was there any interest from radio? TV?
No. it seems odd in retrospect – we were an i mix of British/US, male/female, gay/straight, we could have been interesting.
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
There was in interview in Melody Maker that made us sound like a copy band – we mentioned people we thought of as inspirers and it sounded like we were comparing ourselves with them.
++ What about from fanzines?
Not as I recall. I think one or two of the student newspapers talked to us.
++ Looking back in retrospective, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
I can’t really speak for the Band, but I know actually getting a vinyl copy of the LP in its cover was – and still is- one of my favourite things to have happened: ‘We made this because we love music – and our music is loveable too!’
++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
I still like shopping for clothes, I like Art galleries, I take the dog for walks in the woods and by the river and still notice the birds and butterflies as they go past – even more this year when that daily walk has been the only time out of the house we were allowed. I like movies and theatre.
++ Been to London many times, but would love to hear from a local for some recommendations by a local, like sights one shouldn’t miss? Food and drinks one should try?
I moved out of London about 10 years ago to the countryside – I think anything I told you would be horribly out of date!
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
Just top repeat my thanks for liking and writing up[ the LP, and I hope you find something in my solo stuff to like as much.
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Listen
Hearts on Fire – (You Promised Me A) Camera
