Getting in the Family way

A STRANGE band they may seem to some but Family have earnt their reputation by being different and making no concessions to musical standards other than their own.

Perhaps the most obviously different thing about Family is that well known ”erbert and poet’ Roger Chapman who also provides the vocal power and reveals that the key to the groups success lies in their love of live appearances.

“We live to play live!” Roger told me. “We couldn’t live without gigging because we need that thing with an audience. We want people to enjoy us and the audiences can sense that we want to please them which will bring something extra out of us. I think they sense that we are a truthful band.”

“Performing live is very important for me personally because I’m a very nervous person off stage. I’m too aware of all the other things going on around me and I become diverted easily but on stage I become totally involved with the music to the exclusion of everything else.”

“People think I’m a speed freak but it’s just a kind of superconfidence. I lose all that consciousness of interference around me and think this is me — this is us and get on that!”

My interview with Roger was venued at the Warner Reprise offices, perviously the home of ‘Immediate’ Records who are now with the Great Liquidator in the sky. In the good old bad days ‘The Loog Oldham’ ruled the roost from his dungeon at the end of the corridor but Ian Ralfini has let the light into the old office and the place which was previously a company of stealthy comings and goings is full of brighter better people — only the amplification remains the same to bruise the ear of the visitor but the sneak preview of Anyway which is Family’s new album which I got came through relatively unscathed by the tweeters.

Amongst the ever-fascinating lyrics of tracks like ‘Good News Bad News’ and ‘Part of the Load’ one of the most interesting features is the addition of John Palmer who has introduced vibes into the Family way.

I had the preconceived notion it was going to sound incongruous but lo it provided excellent relief from the heavier electronics and gives their music another dimension. In fact — nice one John.

“The automatic reaction of a few people has been that it makes us sound jazzier”, said Roger “but that’s simply because people have always associated vibes with jazz. It was the same way when we began using violin only the comparisons were inevitably classical but today people simply think of a violin in a rock group as a part of the unit. John will get the vibes accepted in the sam way.”

“One side of our album is live because we feel the need to try and capture that feeling and atmosphere that I was talking about previously which is so important to us. It is also a reaction to that patch we went through when people were trying to organise us — record producers etc — but we are the only people who really know where our music stands.”

A critical analysis of just where Family stand musically is no easy task and Roger makes it quite clear that critics have no real effect or importance to their way of doing things.

“Critics really only happen when we do,” he said simply. “We play to please ourselves and the audience not the critics. If I know that we have played a good set it doesn’t matter a monkies to me what the critics say about it later. I’m very strong Aries and no one can tell me we’ve played bad when I know we’ve played good!”

“If you’re truthful about a really good gig probably happens once a month and you come off stage feeling satisfied with your performance. The others are just average gigs or you go back to the dressing room with a long face knowing it hasn’t happened but you always get a few people tear in and tell you how great you were. It doesn’t matter — we know better.”

I asked Roger how he reacted to an item in the Press like the one which recently compared his singing voice to Frankie Howard?

“I can’t say why I sing like I do”, smiled Roger. “But that kind of thing just makes me laugh. I can’t change anything — I just sing like I do because it’s me. In the early days I was influenced by singers like Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry. We’re a rock and roll band primarily because our roots are with that music like our parents roots were probably Gracie Field’s and ‘Sally’.”

Family have made several excursions to the United States but with a varying degree of success and so I asked what special problems there had been for the band out there?

“Everything went wrong on the first tour”, said Roger. “At our first gig at the Filmore a number and I threw a mike stand at him — it missed. It took Alvin Lee and Mitch Mitchell to get him to agree to let us finish the week.”

“We were entirely different from any other band to play there and although we caused a reaction they were confused. Then Rick left us in the middle and we lost our passports so we couldn’t do the Canadian dates.”

“In one sense it’s a shame we haven’t broken through there yet because I identify quite closely with a lot of things the American bands are doing — the freedom bands like the Grateful Dead and Sly and the Family Stone for instance. I don’t think you need to be too serious about your music but you can be seriously uplifting in it’s presentation!”

Having experienced the trauma of a hit Family are about to be affected by the inevitable influx of new fans — what sort of reaction did Roger have to their bastard pop single.

“It’s a hit”, said Roger repeating what I said like a man trying to convince himself of the fact. “We put it out to sell and it sold. Singles are something we do between albums — almost a continuous thing.”

“If we get younger kids coming to see us — which I’m sure we will because of the hit — and they come for the wrong reasons then they may stay for the right ones. We are there to play music.”

Anyway … there was a transparent cigarette box on Ian Ralfini’s desk bearing the words ’The Loving Spoonful love Ian Ralfini’. ”I used to have one saying they loved me. Talking to John Sebastian a few days ago I discovered he never got one and he’s a bit cut up about it. Anyway …” which is why they chose that word for the next Family album title.