4.52am Issue: 008 13th November 2016
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the Spencer Davis Group but by then was<br />
working as an A&R guy for Island Records,<br />
came and said hello and that he was sorry,<br />
as he wouldn’t be signing the band, but<br />
that he would have something for me in a<br />
couple of months. I didn’t really believe it,<br />
but he was as good as his word and two<br />
months later I got a Telegram from Muff<br />
asking me to get in touch. That was pretty<br />
flash, you only got them for bad news<br />
normally. Anyway, I rang his office and he<br />
invited me to the audition with Andy and<br />
Chris, for the Sharks’.”<br />
How did the audition itself go?<br />
“I knew I wasn’t first choice, the word was<br />
that both Leo Sayer and Robert Palmer had<br />
auditioned, but I don’t think it got that far<br />
as they both had other things they were<br />
waiting on, or had said ‘no’, but it went<br />
really well.”<br />
Was it true that Andy Fraser wanted to sing<br />
in the band?<br />
“People said that, and it was definitely the<br />
rumour, but Chris says he definitely didn’t<br />
want to, so there it is.”<br />
What happened at the audition, where was<br />
it?<br />
“It was at Island Records, and the<br />
drummer asked if I had any of my own<br />
songs, and I had loads, so I ended-up just<br />
playing lots of them. I don’t think they had<br />
many songs at that point, and their faces<br />
all lit up, apart from Andy’s. Don’t get me<br />
wrong, Andy was a brilliant musician and<br />
arranger, and we kept waiting for him to<br />
come-up with something special for the<br />
first album First Water - he had written All<br />
Right Now so he had it in him, but it just<br />
never happened, he didn’t bring anything.<br />
We were playing a lot of my songs and I<br />
don’t think Andy liked it over much, I don’t<br />
think he liked the competition in a funny<br />
way.”<br />
So you were in the band and recording First<br />
Water what was that like?<br />
“Overall it was great to be playing with<br />
them, but Andy was odd. I’ll give you an<br />
example, he would make me sing the same<br />
parts over and over up until the point where<br />
it wrecked my voice, which didn’t make a lot<br />
of sense when you are trying to make the<br />
best record you can. But I think that was<br />
just Andy not liking the competition, it was<br />
something in him. Brilliant but flawed in<br />
other ways.”<br />
With the album complete, Sharks went off<br />
on a UK tour for publicity, travelling in Chris<br />
Spedding’s Pontiac Le Mans, which he had<br />
augmented with a fin on top and a set of<br />
teeth in the grill. Which was great until an<br />
accident saw the car hit a tree and Andy<br />
Fraser sustain an injury to his wrist.<br />
After a short break the band went off on<br />
tour, supporting Roxy Music until the album<br />
was released. In April. Andy chose at this<br />
point to leave the band, suggesting that he<br />
saw the car crash as a bad omen, but Steve<br />
wasn’t so sure,<br />
“I just don’t think the band had gone the<br />
way he wanted it to. I think he saw himself<br />
as band leader and that he would give<br />
everybody their parts and they would play<br />
them as he wanted, but the Sharks were<br />
never like that. It was always freeform<br />
songwriting, letting things develop then<br />
choose what to keep, which arrangements<br />
later on. I mean, you don’t give Chris<br />
Spedding guitar parts, he is a genius, you<br />
just give him the space and ask him to do