Enjoying the greatest hits of 10cc

Jun 22 2007 by Phil Key, Liverpool Daily Post

‘WE’RE going to the races,” declares 10cc’s Graham Gouldman with a grin. Gouldman, 61, was referring, of course, to the appearance of his band at the Liverpool Summer Pops, being held this year at the Aintree Racecourse.

Not that Gouldman is phased by playing in any sort of venue. “As a matter of fact, we have played another racecourse before and in the early days we played in a lot of strange clubs, particularly in America.

“We were big in England at the time but we didn’t mean anything in the USA so we played in a lot of these very small clubs. Sleazy? Not really but there was an element of sleaze.”

Gouldman was one of the founders of the classic British group in 1972 although the band had actually been created a couple of years earlier under the name Hotlegs – Gouldman had been joined by Lol Creme, Kevin Godley and Eric Stewart.

Hotlegs had even had a number two British hit with Neanderthal Man in 1970, but it was with the Godley-Creme song Donna, under the name 10cc, that the band really began its rise to pop immortality.

Gouldman was no mean songwriter himself and was to contribute to the band’s succession of hit numbers.

Manchester-born, he had already played with a number of bands in the city, including Mockingbirds and Wayne Fontana’s Mindbenders, and had been writing hits in the 1960s for himself and others – For Your Love, Heart Full of Soul, Look Through Any Window, Bus Stop and No Milk Today. There had even been a solo album, The Graham Gouldman Thing.

Even though he was living in Manchester at the time (today he has a north London base) he regrets he paid few visits to Liverpool and never went to The Cavern.

“But I was pretty much massively influenced by everything that came out of Liverpool starting with The Beatles. I used to see The Merseybeats when they came to Manchester and they remain one of my all-time favourite bands. The Big Three blew my head off when I saw them at the Three Coins when I was a lad, one of the best bands I ever saw there. They were dangerous looking as well and I liked that.”

10cc remained one of the biggest selling bands in Britain throughout much of the 1970s with numbers like Rubber Bullets, Wall Street Shuffle, I’m Not in Love and Art for Art’s Sake.

Inevitably came a split, and in 1976 Godley and Creme left to form their own duo and work on other projects while Gouldman continued 10cc with Eric Stewart and other musicians including drummer Paul Burgess (who would later become part of Icicle Works).

The picture becomes a little confused in the mid-1980s, with Gouldman joining with fellow writer Andrew Gold to form a new band Wax and both later releasing solo albums.

Recent years have seen Gouldman back on the road under the title 10cc Featuring Graham Gouldman and Friends. “It’s a bit awkward,” he admits. “I can use the name 10cc but I felt it needed to be qualified because it isn't the original band and there is only one original member and that’s me.”

But his Friends of the title have been friends for many years and some like Paul Burgess played in what Gouldman likes to call 10cc Mark II.

They still play the old 10cc songs – “that’s what people want to hear. We stick to the old arrangements although we might extend the opening and closing sections.”

And he is still writing, something he does on his guitar. “A title suggests a lyric, a lyric suggests a mood, the mood suggests chords and you go on from there.”

Songwriting has provided his real income, he admits. But he never wrote for money. “I don’t know any artist of any kind writing songs or painting who thinks, that’s going to be worth a few quid.”

His most successful song? I’m Not in Love, the one he wrote with Eric Stewart, he says. “That’s the one you always have to play at a concert.”

THE appearance by 10cc Featuring Graham Gouldman and Friends is on Sunday, July 15.