The Hit Factory: Stock, Aitken and Waterman (Part 1)

Hello and welcome, I am Josh Whitichum. For today I am the curator of a place of incredible art facts and exhibitions, a place that stores the greatest thing on earth. This is my Museum of Pop Culture. As a self-confessed pop culture obsessive, I love the geniuses, the scam artists and Derrisset, the absolute madman that made the records shows and films that we love. In each series I will tell you a story of unlikely triumph and usually an enjoyable crushing failure, featuring celebrated stars that in any other industry would probably be politely sacked. It's a show for people more interested in David Hasselhoff than David Lamy, Elizabeth Taylor than Queen Elizabeth I, which let's be honest, is all of us. Today I'm joined by comedian and my friend Matthew Crosby to discuss the incredible story of stock eight Ken and Mortemann's hip factory record label. In the heart of 1980s Britain, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party are reshaping the map for British society. And you'd heard Britain is booming or an absolute wasteland depending on your viewpoint. Either way, pop culture is changing. Welcome to MTV Music Television. And from a studio in South East London, three men are hatching a plan that will change the landscape of pop music forever. Seated behind the mixing desk at their South London recording studio, the team of saw that stock eight Ken and Mortemann doodle around while listening to some demo tapes. They are stock eight Ken and Mortemann and they will become nicknamed the hip factory for obvious reasons. Best British record producer 1988, stock eight Ken and Mortemann. Over 100 top 40 hits, 13 UK number one singles, an incredible 500 million unit sold. This is a story of how they took the nation's favourite neighbour and turned her from go next door to global superstar. One of the big stars of neighbours is the lady who plays the part of Charlene. Her name is Kylie Minneau. Turn an unknown office T-boy into the world's most renowned pop superstar. Brings number one, Rick Ashley. With a creative force behind iconic chart topping hits for Banana Rama, Mel and Kim, Donna Summer, Sanita, Dead or Alive and Jason Donovan. And as always, when money and ego involved, we are heading for disaster. As you tow with any good story, musical geniuses or cynical hitmakers or both, there's only one way to find out. Matthew Crossby, hello. How you doing man? I'm good. I've chosen you to hear about stock eight Ken and Mortemann because I think you're the perfect person in terms of you're interested in it, definitely. But I've got a feeling you're probably not a fan. That's a really yeah. That's very astute of you. When I knew I was going to come and do this podcast with you, I listened to stock eight Ken and Mortemann Gold and I struggled. It's like it's very nostalgic. It replaces me in a time. And actually, when I was a little kid, I was buying those, I was buying those seven inches. But then as soon as I think probably heard about David Bowie, I was like, yeah, about it because he was buying them as well. That's right. He was always on eBay outbidding me. I suppose what's quite nice is to get your view of them now, which is, and then I'll see if it's changed at the end of the four episode journey I'm going to take you on, which is basically the rise and fall of stock eight Ken and Mortemann. I'd say the rise is bigger than the fall, but we'll get there. So what do you think if I say Pete Waterman to, you know, now I have a skewed version of what Pete Waterman is like in my head in that I always thought that he was the man who the Spice Girls were singing about. You know Ziggazigar. Jim Melby eventually came out and explained what Ziggazigar meant. I didn't know that. Okay. Well, she said when they were recording their first few songs, there was a sort of 80s record producer. Yeah. He used to smoke sort of not just cigars and also do some quite noxious toilets. And so his nickname became Shit and Ziggar. Oh, wow. And the shit and Ziggar sort of morphed into Ziggazigar. Oh, wow. And then they put it into one of it. I don't know why they would have wanted to put. Yeah, but why not? In my head it was Pete Waterman because he was famous for chomping on cigars and when I used to work in County Hall, he had his studios there. Really? I'd often see him. He used to go to the toilet. I don't know. I know. Luckily I used to have a cigar part of the equation, but he would often be out on the piazza outside County Hall. Oh, wow. And then he would say, "Oh, wow." And then he would say, "Oh, wow." And then he would say, "Oh, wow." As we go on this journey, we'll find that Pete Waterman is very much himself. He's drunk. He's uncooled. His luxury item on, there's at a highland discs. With himself. With himself. With himself. No. This is a quote. It's a twist, this one. I want to take a woman's prerogative, which is, well, I could change her mind when I get there. Okay. He's overthought that, I say. It's not as good as he thinks it is. No. It's not as good as a mini fridge. No. Last TV show you saw he was once asked, "I only turn on the tele if I know the top cat is on." As in top cat. Top cat. Yeah. Also knows boss cat. It has never dated. What? Not my words, his words. I wonder what he feels about Bilko, because it was based on Bilko. It's a bit like being more into, I think cats does count down. Where everyone is. Which I guess is true. Yeah, yeah. She's 100% true. So those three things, you're thinking, do-fus. Yeah. He has had more number one singles than the Beatles and Elvis. Oh, come on in. Welcome to the hip-factor in London. This is where a host of stars come every week to make their records. And for the last three years, a record from this building has been in the top 40 every single week. So Pete was born. He's a kind of post-war baby, 1947, poor working-class family in Coventry. He went to school at the age of seven and a half. Oh, really? And he laid it a bit. I don't think it was like, "Posh people these days that say my kid was born in July." So I'm going to take you. I don't think it was. He wasn't cooking the books. Yeah. No, okay. He went to school at seven and a half and there were 63 children in his class. That's too many. And immediately he looked at them and went, "I like you two. You two be a good duo together. You three are a band. You're a solo artist." Because they talk about the optimum size, don't they, that where like, you know, a classroom should be a certain size. But it can't. I think 30 these days is considered the top. I think 30 is it. But who knows? Maybe they were all just perfectly well behaved. Maybe 63 was the sweetest model. There are nice things. I think they're just before teaching a system. Oh, yeah. But it would be in the time of the cane. Yeah, the ultimate teaching assistant. Yeah, absolutely. Nature's teaching assistant. A birch. He didn't pick up a pen until he was 11 and he couldn't read him right until his 40s. His 40s. So almost at the pomp of Stock Eight can award him when he learns to read and write. Isn't that mad? That's unbelievable. So he's a lyricist before he's able to literally write these lyrics down. I don't know if he's a lyricist. We'll come to that. Okay. Which has swiftly become my catchphrase. Is that another one of the podcasts? We'll come to that. We'll come to that with Josh Widdickham. So this is his quote on it. This is his quote. why he didn't learn to read or write. There was no interest for me at all. I just found it dreary, boring. We had no paper to write on and no ink. We had a teacher called Mrs Beasley and we used to have to write in the air. How could you tell if it was a P or an F? No way, it was impossible. So basically they were trying to teach 63 kids to write. They'll paper up and take a lot. He went on to be one of the premier sky writers at all time. You get him inside a little plane, oh, honestly. He can write you happy birthday in this guy. So he can't write, he can't write until his mid-forties. So basically comes out of school at the age of 14. He always has ways of making money and this initially starts through music. He's obsessed with music and he starts charging. I don't really understand what happened here because this must be a thing that's now been dropped from weddings. But he starts charging best men to choose songs for them at weddings. So presumably in these days in Coventry in the 50s, best men were in charge of the music at wedding. Oh, okay. It wasn't like best men had to end on a song. Because the best man's speech is nerve-wracking enough without doing my work. So you get used to me or everything at the end of it. So he knock out four weddings in a day choosing the songs for best men. Wow. And he used that money to start building a record collection. Great. And then he left school at 14 and he worked British Railways and Pete Warton's main passionate life is Railways. He's got a massive model railways. Yeah. He says about British Railways. I still regret in every way other than financial that I didn't follow it up with a railway career. So he prefers railways to music but he's obviously absolutely loaded. Yeah, of course. Well, his love of trains, we won't go too deeply into it because it's quite dry. It basically lived 50-artonal railway where coal trains went to a colony all night. So he was into them from the off. That's going to send you one of two ways, isn't it? Because I live next to your railway. But it doesn't make me want to, you know, become a box car jumping high. No. His quote on trains, whereas many people in the music industry get their kicks from cocaine. I only have to go off and look at a train. I haven't seen before to get me excited. I love that. Yeah, it is nice, isn't it? That's, I think that's very wholesome. I like that a lot. Yeah, I appreciate that. He takes cocaine once in his life. You can stop me at any time during the four episodes. I'll tell you at the end of which point Pete Warton has taken cocaine. That's going to be the Easter Egg, is it? Well, the end of it. I hadn't planned that. But actually, I can say, you can play your cocaine card. Okay, all right. I can play my cocaine card. Yeah. But in the 80s, he basically, when he's in his pomp, he has a 214 foot replica of Acton Railway junction in his barn behind his house. That's so, if you look at, you know, there are going to be people who took a lot of drugs in the 80s. Yeah. If you have nothing to show for it. Exactly. He's got something to show for it. Well, his most tragic possession, he says, is his train set. And he's not bringing that to his desert island. He's not bringing that to his desert island now. Lunatic. He's bringing women's progative. He's bringing all his progative. And I've changed his mind and bringing his train set. I love women's rights. And I'm sorry, I still only vaguely have a grasp on what it means. I hope. Who was the host in those days? I just don't know what I do with that. Is that Kirsty Walk? I imagine it was earlier than that. He does say that his train set is bigger than Rod Stewart's. And he adds that Rods is nothing to be ashamed of. So don't go around. No. Don't throw around that Rod Stewart's got a shameful train set. No shade on Rod Stewart. It just so happens that his is bigger. Yeah. Exactly. Rod, of course, managed to also have a very successful cocaine career as well. No, no, no. He was staying with Rod. Get a guy who can do both. So Pete Waterman moves into music after in 1962, he spends two hours as a grave digger. Which is one of those facts that from out sky the image of what happened is probably better than what happened. Yeah. How many graves do you think you're doing in two hours? I don't think it's just you're probably doing one. You're only doing one in two hours. You say six foot deep. I don't think you're doing that in two hours. You're working with another person though, aren't you? Are there always two grave diggers? Or am I just thinking of. It feels that way. Just thinking of Hamlet. No, I think there is two grave diggers. I don't think me and you could dig a grave six feet in two hours. No, I don't think we could. It's just the sheer grunt work of doing exactly. No, we both the calfed ourselves, but two hours of solid digging. Yeah. That's a lot. That's the way the right decision. A lot of hits. Exactly. He's been in good shape and he does actually later on you'll find that he does take on a manual labor job to keep in shape. But he does grave digging gets job at general electoral company, but his love is music. Right. And basically he's got a massive eclectic record collection. So he starts doing discos. Great. Is this in his hometown of Coventry, in and around the midlands? Well, it's the Midlands, isn't it? Yes. So he says that after leaving school he got work as a DJ at Smedic Barthes. Which I'm presuming is the name of a night club, not the school pool. I mean, he's spinning records every 45 minutes, he'd say, "Anyone with a red band, come on in now." I wait to assume that there's less music happening in modern life than they used to be, because you're doing a best man's speech. There's no music for that. You're going for a swim. There's music for that. I suppose the advent of Spotify and other streaming platforms, that's meant that you can have music where and when you want, so you don't need it played to you while you're having a swim. That's true. But anyway, he doesn't actually get the job at Smedic Barthes. He gets some work at Smedic Barthes and then when he turns up the manager says, "No dice, you're not getting in here." When I asked him why, he said, "You're a big fat git, now piss off." He was body shamed. So he takes on board. He says, "After that, I lost weight, shaved off my beard, I took it as constructive criticism." It's a different time, Matthew. Yeah. I'm not saying the manager of Smedic Barthes was right. It was right, but I think it shows that Pete Waterman is a man who's willing to adapt to popular tastes at any whim. He's willing to make that change. That's populism for you. Yeah. So 1973, he decided he needs a bit more musical education. So he heads to the US of I. He goes to Philadelphia. Because he's a big Motown Philly fan, isn't he? Exactly. Big Motown Philly. Yeah. And he thinks the original Motown Detroit is dead. So he goes to Philadelphia on a month long trip to research a book on R&B. Can you spot any issues there? Or remind you, he can't write. Ah, yes, that would be it. Yeah. So it will be a book. It will be a book he has to write in the air. He'll be a book he's written in the air. There's him. He's lying on his back, looking up at that big Philadelphia sky, writing the entire book. The writing the history of R&B with his finger. Hoping there's some publisher who also happens to be educated in a class of 63 who can read it for him. Yes, he can't read him right, but he's gone to Philadelphia. So he just basically wants to do a, it's a jolly for him really, isn't it? Yeah. Do you think he actually has aspirations to, is that also part of it? He's taking himself to Philadelphia. No, I don't think so. I think he's interested. He goes to watch Richard Pryor. Oh, wow, amazing. And he sits sunburn from Rosenta. Of course. And he's the only white man. And I bet Andy is Richard Pryor, I had a field day. In the words of Pete in his autobiography, he is ripped apart by Richard Pryor. Roasted by the sun, roasted by Pryor. Well, the sunburn is because he's relying on his back writing in the air. He's, you know, probably, you've got some factor 50 on when you're typing Pete. Well, that's right. He moved to typing, hadn't he? Because he started off just using it, using a finger to write freehand. And now he's just delicately, he had actually, he'd learned to touch type by that stage in the air, but not with the typewriter. So 1973 comes back. Great. And he joins magnet records as an A&R assistant working for Michael Levy or Levy, I think, and who later becomes Lord Levy, who's one of Tony Blair's big pals. Yeah. One of the big new laborites. Okay. Lord Levy. But for now, he's the head of A&R. And Pete signs Donna Summer. Wow. And Chris Rhea. Wow. So he's already got the eye. Yeah. Yeah. He can spot a chin. And also he meets Michael. It's like a real plasher of cultures because Pete's the guy who can't write from Coventry. And Michael soon to be Lord Levy. And Pete recalls of their first meeting. He sat me in his office with smoked salmon sandwiches. It's the first time I'd ever had one of those in my life. I guess that that might would have been the case of growing up in the 60s and 70s. All of these things would have been yeah. Coming in. They would be very much the lifestyle of somebody who had a bit of money, social standing. Exactly. And I think when you imagine Pete Waterman, you imagine him in the 80s with a cigar. Yeah. Possibly having a heinous shit in the spice girls. So yeah. I'm doing one line of cocaine. Doing one line of cocaine at some point. At some point. Have we come to it? We haven't come to it yet. And I'm being mad if it was like, yeah, I had a smoke sandwich and we're doing a line of cocaine. I don't like it. Neither of these things. If for me, to be honest, I couldn't eat the smoked salmon sandwich. I couldn't eat the wrong order. But he is like a working class post-war baby. 1947 he was born. He's the same generation really as the Beatles. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He is. And if you imagine them, you imagine them from their childhoods from a completely different time. Would I say the story of Pete Waterman sums up post-war Britain in one man? You know, maybe. I haven't written it down, but I'm not saying no now. Yeah. So he has to go around. drive across the UK to promote records, small problem. I haven't got a driving license. But he still does it. (laughing) He's never been a man who's let his shortcomings hold him back. - No. - Do you know what? - He either shows off the beard and loses weight or he just goes, "Well, I just pretend I can read him, right? I can pretend I can drive." - I just pretend I can drive. - Yeah. How hard can it be? - But there is that kind of, you read these things about these kind of entrepreneurs and they just go for it. Do you know what I mean? - I imagine he felt a similar thing when he bought his first drum machine. - Yeah. - I don't know how to drive this thing, but I'll do best. - Exactly. The only thing I really know, I can't do is dig graves. (laughing) - No, he was like, "I'm out." This is one thing I've pretended I could do too much. So, through all the promotional work he does, he signs it on a summer's well and everything, billboard, no Pete Waterman, call him the King of Disco at this point. - That's insane. - How does Nile Rogers feel? - I know, some white bloke from, like a white bloke from the whole country. (laughing) - Wouldn't even get in at Smerthick Barz, as known as the King of Disco. And he obviously heads to Studio 54. - He's got to. (upbeat music) - It's three in the morning in Manhattan and still at Studio 54, people crowd the doors hoping to get in. But first they have to do something even harder than finding a place to park here, and that's to win the approval of the owner, 28 year old Steve Rubel. - Oh, you're not shaved, there's no way in only a year. - I can't get it. - It doesn't matter if you're not shaved, listen, just go home. - Most people don't make it, but that doesn't stop them turning up night after night. To take part in this slightly absurd ritual, in which dignity measures much less than being able to post later, you actually got inside. - Are you aware of much about Studio 54? - Studio 54, I think of Andy Warhol, very hip night club. - Yeah, and it's a hip night club in the '70s in New York, where everyone goes. - Yes. - I'd say, if you want one fact, Bianca Jagger on her birthday at Studio 54, she rode a white horse around the dance floor. - Fantastic. - Yeah. - Absolutely. - It's only the sort of 1970s opulence you like to see. It doesn't happen nowadays. - Well, I worked with someone who had, she worked in costume. - Oh yeah. - But she had done the costume for, "I Want to Break Free by Queen." - Right. - So she dragged them all up. Amazing. - She'd been Studio 54 in the '70s. And she said that Grace Jones turned up with a cheetah, I think. - With a big cat, a big cat on a leash, presumably. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - She didn't just really see it. - She wasn't just trying to get out of paying a bar bill. - It was actually. - I just launched a pew. - She's actually a terrorist attack. (laughing) - Do you know what Pete, what were in the studio 54? - Did he go, presumably he's got to ride on something. Is it, do you ride on a giraffe or something like that? Did he do that? - Him and Chris Hill, I don't know who Chris Hill is, but he's part of the story. - That's true. - His name and shame. They went down to Studio 54. Naked except for socks on their dicks. - So they were the ones who did it before, Anthony Keedis and Flea and the rest of the Red Octubi peppers. They went down and is that, is that in the same sort of league as Charlotte and the Cheetah? - No, and I think there's a difference also in Bianca Jagger and two blokes that no one knows. - Two blokes in the Midlands. - Two blokes in the show. - I don't know who Chris Hill is. I've researched, I don't even know who Chris Hill is. Let alone if you're a studio or off your face, OK. - So we've got a Matt Pete Waterman, a man we know he's lost a little bit of weight. He's in the shape of his face. - He's in the new socks. - You'd assume he'd been to Macy's that day and got a fresh pair of Cheebs socks. I don't think, 'cause it's not even in the sort of sort of fetish world. - No. - It's not even in that sort of thing. You look like somebody who is on a stag do. - Yeah. - And it's gone a bit wrong. Did he also say you're in the shave his eye, Brass off? - That may also mean there's an interesting. I mean, if it was to be Pete Waterman, it'd be weird to drill him on this point, but this would be mainly, I'd say, gravedigging. And then I'd say, how did you get Studio 54? - What we were wearing on the underground. - We're talking New York in the '70s. It's not the friendly, you know, everybody waves to you. - You got quite, no, you could obviously more crowds and talk to him. - Oh, the sock on your car. - You could stroll around like that. And people were just assuming it's rag week or something. But no, there's, you'd be stabbed, wouldn't you? - Yeah. So that's the peak of Waterman as the King of Disco. Then he quits music. He quits music after two and a half years because he's become disillusioned. Bear in mind when we're going with this story with the industry's blind commercialism. (laughing) - So he hung up his sock. - He hung up his sock. He said, he was overweight, he had no friends. So he left and did a summer of hard graft in a concrete factory. - Oh wow. - It's quite, I find that again. Another, I also find that quite inspirational. - So do I. He's just gone, this is bollocks. Like I'm kind of, I want to work. - It's kind of my hands. - Yeah, I'm kind of in this commercial world. I've got no mate. Some just kind of doing what I don't want to be doing. I'm just going to go back to Coventry and work in a concrete factory for the summer. What I was back in Coventry is mate who runs a record shop says, check out this new Coventry band called the Automatic, they're a punk scar band. Pete manages them. - Oh yeah. - Tries to get them signed, can't get them signed. The relationship breaks down. They go on to be the specials. - Specials of course. Of course. - It's not amazing. - That's amazing. Pete Waterman briefly managed the specials and couldn't get them signed. - So he had a little kind of while he was working in a concrete factory. - A little brush with you. I wonder if maybe the concrete factory was holding him back. Because if you meet a band that they say, oh, it's our manager, are you may recognise him with a concrete factory? - Okay. - Well, and why does his face grey? (laughing) - Well, it's Coventry in the 70s. The devil's face is grey. So then that will make him necessarily stand out. (laughing) - Oh, he gets the. - That was the original lyric of Ghost Town, wasn't it? - It was about the Waterman career. - It was a great book. - It was a. It wasn't all the shops. It was this concrete factory has been closed down. - He then gets a column in Record Business Magazine. - Okay. - Under the pen name DiscoDoc. - DiscoDoc. - Can you see any issues with people on the waterman having a column in Record Business? - Well, he can't read. - He can't read. - He can't read. - He's the definition of a frustrated writer. (laughing) He doesn't have any paper, he doesn't own a pen, and if you gave him those two things, he'd be all at sea. - I presume he's dictating it down the phone like a kind of football match report in those days, or AA Gill was incredibly dyslexic. - Yes. - You should just dictate his columns down the phone. - I find that mad. - So he never, he's just flowing out of him. He's not editing. - I think he'd write it down, but oh, I can't go that they can't, you know, you can't submit this. So he'd dictate it down the phone. This is a bit of a dy version, but I read him, so he said, like, he'd make his writing as coarse dick and harsh as possible, 'cause what he really wanted to do is make the woman who was always on the other end, the same person as he laughed as much as possible. - Right, that's kind of his way of doing it. - With AA Gill, that's where he could have gone one or two ways. I guess that's a good thing. You're always thinking of your immediate audience. - Exactly, and Pete Wartman, as Disco Dark, was doing that. - And never stopped thinking about the audience. - Never stopped thinking about the audience. - That's Pete Wartman. - There's a quote from Mike Stock about the audience, which we'll come to. (laughing) - Part of the way. - There's so many, there's so many little cliffhangers and cheeses. - It's a huge problem, it's right. 'Cause I've been immersed in the world of Pete Wartman. I've got so many things I wanted to tell you about this, but I've got all the time in the world. - We just got to go chronologically. - Let's do it chronologically, that's the best thing. - Okay, he gets a job at MCA, which is a record label, a big record label. - Yeah. - Creates hits for Nick Kershaw, Tracy Almond, and most interestingly, a group who I'm sure you're aware of, and I'll ask you to describe musical youth. - So musical youth did pass the Ditchie. - Yeah. - To the left hand side. - Yeah. - Were there school projects? So there were a group of teenagers. - Yeah. - And they did a song called "Pass the Ditchie", which was originally called "Pass the Coot Sheet", which is weed. - Right. - Ditchie is a cooking pot. - Ah, but it was always, I always assumed it was supposed to be about. - Yeah, so my mum, briefly, was a runner on "Blue Peter" around this time when musical youth were on it, and she was dispatched to the market to buy a cooking pot for their performance on "Blue Peter". And they were looking at going, "What are we supposed to do with this?" - Yeah. - "What's this?" - Yeah. - 'Cause basically just to go, just to hammer home, this isn't about drugs. - This isn't about drugs. - This isn't a drugs. We've got the pot here. - Yeah. - It was a bit like a kind of apprentice task where you're sent out to buy a Dutchie. - And it would have been like a British task, and she's not allowed to use a smartphone, because they would have been invented. - The pop chart has a new number one this week. The record passed the Ditchie by musical youth has shot from number 26 to the top slot. The most surprising thing about the group of five Birmingham boys is that the youngest is only 11 and the oldest 14. One day last week their record sold 102,000 copies. The five boys learned to play at the Salkley Workshop in Birmingham, a project set up by Community Arts Group. The band all from Dudiston Manor School in Birmingham, plan a nationwide tour in October, and this is a sample of what the audiences will hear. ♪ Past the Dotsie family live and size it ♪ ♪ Past the Dotsie family live ♪ - So they were really young. They were the first black bands to ever have a video on MTV. - Oh wow, that's amazing. That was a huge problem with MTV. - Yeah, it was really nice. - David Bowie was one of the first people to sort of pick them up on it when he was interviewed by MTV. There's that clip that keeps going back around on social media of him saying, why do you never play black artists? - Tied lines are asking you something. - Yeah, you know what? It occurred to me having watched MTV over the last few months that it's a solid enterprise and it's got a lot going for it. I'm just flawed by the fact that there's so few black artists featured on it. Why is that? - I think that we're trying to move in that direction. We want to play artists that seem to be doing music, that fits into what we want to play for MTV. There's the companies thinking in terms of narrow casting. That's evident. It's evident in the fact that the only few black artists that one does see are on about 2.30 in the morning or two around six. Very few are featured predominantly during the day. - No, that's a. - I'll say that over the last couple of weeks, these things have been changing, but it's a slow process. - Yeah, so Pete Waterman's musical youth are the first people to ever be played as a black band on MTV. Basically, they're incredibly young and then they have this hit and then they disappear and they go back to school. So there's two quotes that kind of sum it up. Dennis Seton, who was the singer of musical youth, said the song went to number one, so the five million copies worldwide. After it reached top 10 in America, we went to Michael Jackson's house. We made a film with Mr. T. and Hollywood with the first black band to be interviewed in MTV. In a way, it was a relief to get back to school and restore some normality. - They needed their own concrete factory. - Basically, basically, everybody needed a concrete factory. - Exactly, it's them going, it is like, I don't really, you know, I don't believe it. - I'm at a place to this, this is weird. Michael Grant Keyboard said, "Back then I was too young to buy cars and houses. All I wanted was a BMX Super Burner bike. When the record company dropped me, I asked the accountant, does this mean I'll have to sell my bike?" He told me, no, you can keep the bike. - Oh, that's heartbreaking. - But you got to keep the bike. - You got to keep the bike, but I mean, imagine being forced to grow up that fast. - Yeah, where you're at school and you're thinking, I don't know, I had no concept of money when I was, you know, when I was growing up, thinking, "Oh, my fine arts is in disarray, what am I going to do?" - Would you have wanted that? If I offered you from the ages of 13 to 15, you're a mega star. - Would that be a nice thing to happen to you? Or do you think it would be difficult to process? - I'm looking at, I'm looking at child stars of the past and thinking, the track record isn't great. - Child stars? - Child stars here in the McCallie Colquan. - I think so, yeah. I mean, all the cheering was, he was his child actor. Wasn't he? - Yeah, he was a long time star. - He was a child star. He wasn't hosting sat in that line at the age of 10 or whatever. Yeah, I think if you're a McCallie Colquan, you're a masonry. The only thing you can do is stay famous. Carry on a grand day. You know, just never not be famous. Although, I imagine she's under quite a lot of pressure as well. (laughing) I don't think she's kicking back and going, "Well, I've done it now, I can relax." - Just so you know, if you want a nice life, you've just got to remain famous forever. - It's no pressure. - No pressure. Just remain famous forever. Otherwise, it will fall apart and you will hate the world. - Just chill out and remain famous. - You'll lose all your friends, you'll lose the massive house you live in, no one will want to talk to you and you'll be seen as a sort of international joke. - Yeah, but apart from that. - Apart from that. So just to avoid that, just constantly be making successful projects, okay? - Make sure all your films are successful or your record sell loads of copies. That's all that Arianna, it's really, really simple. It's, you know, just be a success and you can keep the BMX. - Yes, you never have to sell your BMX. - So that's the success. Waterman's now cooking on gas a bit. 1983, Stephen Spielberg tries to get him to work for him. - Wow. - Offers him quarter a million quid, which is a lot of money now. Is an incredible amount of money in 1983. To run a company out of London to bring out some music for soundtrack. It's a no from Waterman. - What's the company for a sound? - So he's like, can you get me bands and songs for my soundtracks? - Oh, okay, for soundtracks. - 'Cause you got, yeah, yeah. - You know, great ears, basically. - Yeah, so could you put together the soundtrack to ET or close encounters? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - That sort of thing. - Okay. - And then in 1984, so Pete turns him down. - Yeah. - Pete flies back to London. He's had enough for LA. He's been in LA doing musical youth and the Spielberg thing falls through. Gets an office at Stiff Records. And he says, the phones were dead. I didn't have a plan. Enter Mike Stock. - I love it. - Yeah. - Why not? - This is great, isn't it? - It's so good, isn't it? - It's great when there's somebody who, their name is so synonymous with your name that as soon as they arrive on the scene, you're like, now the story can begin. - Exactly. - Well, though, let's be honest, by this point, Pete Warman has lived a life. Like he's already a weird, interesting bloke. And actually, you can see so many of the things that then he takes on already in his personality. And they're, you know, he's got that love of music, but he's also got this weird candle attitude. He's also absolutely, I'm gonna do things my way. I don't care. I'm gonna work in a concrete factory. I'm gonna say no to Steven Spielberg. And I kind of love him. - He's his own man. - Yeah, I love Pete Warman at this point. - Okay. - I mean, I shouldn't have led with the Wormers' Progative thing 'cause that's the only bad thing now. (laughing) - He made one nap joke and you're really holding it, you're really holding it over his head for his entire career. - Mike Stocks born 1951, four years after Waterman in Margate. He's kind of lower middle class, one of five children, not as interesting as Pete Warman, 63 kids in a class. He teached himself guitar and piano. Can't read music. - Can read? - Can't read music. - Can't read music. - He's got that going for it. - Yeah. Oh, Pete Warman can read music. - No, I don't know. (laughing) 1969, age 18, the height of kind of the '60s. He takes a gap year in tending to travel around the world. Meets a girl in Holland stays put. I'm gonna call it Amsterdam because what you reckon that his job was? - It's awful. He had to sweep up in the pornographic cinema after each film. - Yeah, you see. I was hoping it was gonna be tulip picking or he maintained a windmill, but no. It's obviously the red light district, isn't it? - I've been sweeping up after the film is absolutely. - Also, I wouldn't, a broom. Is that the right thing to be used to? I'd say mopping up, surely. - Surely. He then goes back to home and goes to the university in Hull where he forms a band. Oh, I might get you guessed this. With Oscar winning director Andy Mingela. No, I wouldn't have guessed that. - Years later, he turned him down. That was what they bonded over, turning down movie directors, wasn't it? I was Spielberg for you, Mingela for me. And then he gets married to Bobby, who's met at university. And he basically settles down. He moves to Barry and becomes a double glazing salesman in the mid-70s. - So these are people who've worked real jobs? - Exactly. Well, Pete warming did for two hours. So he does it for a year and he's like, I can't do this. So he chucks it in and becomes a jobbing musician on like the circuit. Oh, right. So he's basically going around doing the pubs and clubs. - Yeah. So they move in with Bobby, his wife's parents and Kent and he just does the pubs and clubs. Okay. And then five years into this, he's nightband. They lose their guitarist, right? On the day of a gig. And he hires Matt Aiken. - Amazing. - Yeah. - I should say sack the guitarist. But they lose the guitarist. - They lose the guitarist. - They sure, they lose the guitarist. - Yeah. - We assume the guitarist didn't die. - Yeah. - They'd cancel the gig for some reason. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's what he wanted. - Exactly. - Let's keep going. - So Aiken's hired because one of the band has worked with him on a cruise ship. It's really, you know, the proper club circuit. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And Stock basically says that he got the job because he owned a suit. - I think that's it. If you're a gig, it's a bit like being a gig in comic. - Yeah. - You get a lot of gigs because you've got a car. - Yeah, exactly. - So Matt Aiken hadn't owned a suit. Possibly none of this would have happened. - None of this would have happened. Incredible. - Aiken was born in Coventry, like Pete Warman. But seven years after, and he grew up in Greater Manchester, he realises music. His thing as a kid is parents refuted by him a guitar. He studies classical piano. So he's a kind of, right, a pianist. And then Stock and Aiken form a band together. And it's a kind of circuit band. And they are variously called Mirage. - They must have been a thousand bands called Mirage. - I know. And Nightwork. - Ooh. - Yeah. So that kind of sums them up. They weren't making a great living. Okay. - Yeah, we've never heard of Nightwork or Mirage, so you-- - After one night work gig, there was enough profits to buy one burger apparently. - I know. - Yeah, so Stock quits. - It reminds me of my days in sketch comedy. - Yeah. - You would do a gig and you'd get a fiver. - Yeah, and you'd rather not. - How do we divvy out? - I'm just a clar this. - We're not making enough for it to be taxable, so let's not worry about that. - But basically, you quit to focus on songwriting. And this is where Stock Aiken and Warman come together. So they briefly work together in 1980 on a song called "194 A Lady Breaker" under a pseudonym. Chris Britain, Pete says it's one of the worst songs. songs he's ever produced. - It's called "What 194 Lady Breaker." - 194 F.O.R.A. Lady Breaker. - Right, and if you know. - It feels like the sort of thing that somebody would say over, like a convoy. I'm like a truck, you know, like Breaker Breaker. It feels like that. - Yeah. (upbeat music) ♪ 19 for a lady breaker ♪ ♪ Do you copy ♪ ♪ Copy Lady Breaker on the 19 ♪ ♪ 19 for a lady breaker ♪ ♪ One man come home ♪ ♪ The world have a take ♪ ♪ One man come home ♪ ♪ One man come home ♪ ♪ Any lady breaker ♪ ♪ One man ♪ - Stock and Akin then decide together to create a female Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Frankie Goes to Hollywood. - Francesca Goes to Hollywood. So they are, for anyone that doesn't know, Frankie Goes to Hollywood are kind of a very successful by their three huge number one singles, two tribes, relax and power of love. They're very out in your face gay band in the mid '80s from Liverpool. - Yes. - And they play a lot on that with their videos and stuff like that. - So they come up with this song called The Upstroke. - Okay. - And you're wondering, why is it called The Upstroke? - Yeah. - Trick it? - No. - Matt came into the studio one day, Mike commented on what a decent shave he'd had. Matt says, it's 'cause I did The Upstroke. - Well, you know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't, he's talking about shaving against the grain here. - No, that's bad tip. - Which you're not supposed to do. - Because that will give you shaving round. - It'll give you ingrown hairs. Exactly. - Exactly. - You have the bumps all over your neck. It's Upstroke today, bumps all over the neck tomorrow. That's the B side. - Exactly. - So they go to three A and R meetings with The Upstroke. - Okay. - The first one's cancelled, 'cause the bloke's hung over. The second one's not interested and the third one's Pete Warman. - Oh yes. I love that. - Yeah. - In that order, we're hoping it's in that order, right? - It was in that order. - Really? - So that Pete Warman takes them, they're locked first to being so disastrous. And then, - hung over, no, Pete Warman, fantastic. (upbeat music) - The A, - Strewed. (upbeat music) - You need me to motor the thing. - It gets to number 16 in the chart. But interestingly, it does very well in the gay clubs. - Right. - And this is a big thing for Stockadegan and Warman, 'cause they have no budget to promote their songs. But they realize that, so they can't get it on the radio, but they realize that the gay clubs are a place which creates huge demand for records. So they focus at this stage on creating music for gay clubs. - This is still happening today, because there's this idea of becoming gamers and then becoming famous. - Yeah, exactly. - If you heard it. - It's like Chappell Rohn. - Yeah, it was gamers first, and then became famous. I think then it's almost a more revolutionary act. 'Cause this is-- - Oh, no, of course, yeah. In the '80s in Britain, by the way, just as a side, the song is played by John Peel, and that's the first person who ever plays a Stockadegan Warman track. - That's amazing. John Peel being the most alternative man on British radio. So homosexuality in the UK in the '80s is totally different points to what it is now. You've got the AIDS epidemic which started in 1981. Section 28 is passed in 1988. You've got this kind of incredibly homophobic messaging from the government. Section 28 is basically illegal for schools and councils to promote homosexuality or teach it as acceptable. - You'd love to say we've come so far since then, but it's sort of going back that way, isn't it? It's really depressing. - Yes, and Chief Constable and Manchester described gay people as swirling around in a cesspit of their own making. This is, oh, man. So for Stockadegan Warman to be using the gay clubs is even though they're considered naff and stuff, I think it's incredibly kind of positive and revolutionary thing. - Yeah, it's incredibly progressive. - It really outbalances his desert island discs faux pas. - The next. - You'll never let him forget it. - I'll never let him forget it. - Holding it over his head. - The next one, song, is the 1984 Eurovision entry for Greece. Okay, of course your revision. And why have they got, how have they measured to Wangle Greece? Have any of them got a Greek? - So the early work is released sort of thing called proto records, which is a gay disco label run by Pete's flatmate Barry Evan Gellie who is a Greek sippriot. - Right, okay. - So he gets the chance. Oh, no, sorry, it's Cyprus, sorry. He's a Greek sippriot. It's Cyprus, yeah. So he gets the chance to produce Cyprus's Euro song entry and saw end up producing one of the options. Now, this is how saw get chosen. 'Cause this, I love this about them. So you know, not xenophobic, not homophobic. They're in, you know, these are good guys. - They are good guys. If they can make a bit of money out of it, they'll accept any works. (laughing) - Do you want the be kindly face of the cap of this? - I've captured this in exactly. - You wanna know how the as sippriot, the sippriot song is chosen. Okay, gone. The competition is done in four stages and last entire day from 10 AM to 10 PM. For the first stage, the submitted recordings of all 40 songs are presented twice and each jury member chooses their 10 favorite songs. After which the votes are collected and the 10 songs with the highest number of votes progress to the second stage, the 10 songs were presented again and were then whittled down to four songs and then those four songs, two are chosen. The winner was chosen out of the final two songs where each jury gave one vote to their favorite song and the runner-up was kept as a backup entry in the case of the winning song could not go to the Eurovision Song Contest. The last part of the competition with the final four songs is broadcast on TV and radio live. - Wow. - So it is. - By the way, that is word for word wiki-pea-de-a. - Of course it's wiki-pea-de-a. - Yeah, of course. - One stop shop for things that may or may not be true. - Yeah, exactly. - Oh, there's a lot of citations there, Matthew, thank you. - Thank you. - I'm gonna accept that. So that in many ways was the kind of the pop idol. - Yeah, 40 songs they get chosen. - Yeah. - On the night of Eurovision, they get 31 points, they come 15th, which isn't great. (upbeat music) - By this time they've gone, we should be working together, we're good, right? Devines, you think you're a man, divine is a. - You don't have to tell me who divine is. - Well, would you like to tell us who divine is? - Divine was the movie director John Waters Muse, very famous drag queen, famous for movies like Female Trouble and Pink Fomingos. - So, yeah. - You want to test known for eating dog shit and Pink Fomingo. - That's right, yeah, to win a competition to be the filthiest person alive, she ate a dog turd, yeah. - Yeah, and that means that when the her single is released by Stockadegan and Whartman, you think you're a man. I've still got a review of that on my wallet at home, says Whartman. It says, "For a man who started his career eating dog shit, this record is a step in the right direction." (laughing) Pink Whartman says, "I thought we've made it, this is it, we've arrived." - I love it. - Love it. - I mean, already what a storied career. - I know, it's your work with Tracy Chapman and your work with Divine. This is incredible. - So varied. - Later that year, he scores a top 10 hit with Hazel Deans, whatever I do, wherever I go, which reached number four, they are cooking on gas. This track has been repurposed, re-version written for Mike Prince, Michael Prince, who's an unknown American and they wrote it for him, then they repurposed it and then he calls to complain to them. - Oh, no. - At which point he reveals to Mike, Mike says, "Where are you?" And he says he's in a hospital bed after falling around with a jar of pickles. (laughing) - Which I would say is the two hours in a grave digger, in terms of what's gone on there. - Even more, I mean, a hospital room, after falling around with a jar of pickles. - Falling, not falling as well. - Yes, fooling around. - Yeah, yeah. (laughing) Oh, no. - I think we just leave that. - I think we leave it. - I think we leave it for the listener. There's tensions earlier. - Can I take five seconds? (laughing) - That'd be all right, Mike. No, I just want to, maybe I don't need to say anything, but I just need to process. - Yeah, okay. - I think we just, okay, okay. I think I've worked out of my system, which is more than can be said for Michael Prince. - Yeah, so by this point, there's something going on here. - There's two of us around Michael Prince. - Stock Hake and Waterman are like, "Okay, we should continue this triumph for it." - Yeah, yeah. - Pete says, "I'll be the producer, and you two can be the directors." And there you go. We're vetoing that. - That's not the name, it's about you. - I guess there's a musical director, but when you think of pop music, you think of juices, don't you? - So in order to have Waterman, they want Waterman 'cause they think he's good, so in order to have them solely working with them, Stock suggests that him and Akin will write the songs, Pete promotes and sells them, and they decide to split everything three ways. - Oh, okay, okay. So he's the promo guy. - He's the A&R man, really. - And that's why we know him, because they're the kind of face the songwriters, and he's the promo man, but you think in your head, "Oh, he's written all this stuff." - Yeah. - He's more of a Simon Cowell. - Right, okay, okay. So he's an ideas guy, yeah. And he's a salesman. - Yeah. - And I mean, yeah, and again, yeah, you're up to it, you're right. He was the one who had his own telly show and stuff like that, which again, we'll come to that. - Sure, come to that. - So they then come to work with a man called Pete Burns, who I'd say is, almost the most interesting Pete we talk about, more interest in the Pete Warman. Pete Burns, yeah, RIP, RIP. But, yeah, of course, Pete Burns, it was already before joining Dead or Alive, was already like a local legend for being such a grumpy sales person in the wreck shop. Got it. Yeah, so he's from this mad background, his mum's an alcoholic, she attempts suicide several times when he's growing up, he says as far as parental skills go in the conventional normal world, she certainly wasn't a mother, but she was the best human being. She called me star baby and she knew there was something special in me. And he goes on to become, he does the door or the coat room, Erick's where lots of exciting Liverpool music's going on. Yeah, Erick's is, I mean, there's a whole episode to be done on Erick's because it's an absolute sort of fulcrum of Liverpool music scene. And then he gets a job in a record shop in Liverpool, dropping out school at 14 because he's summoned to the headmaster's office with no eyebrows, harmony red hair and one gigantic earring. Yeah. They sign him because there's, and this is the word of the time, there's a kind of craze for gender bender acts based on a George. Sure. Not the right terminology now, but that was the terminology at the time. I would imagine a terminology that Boy George probably would have used themselves. Yes. But yeah, okay, fair enough. Yeah, yeah. That's a kind of. How would you describe Pete Burns? He's kind of, that era Pete Burns had absolutely wild sort of doctor in the medic hair, tautled out to, you know, a sort of feet beyond him, wore an eye patch, makeup, very kind of like David Bowie ashes to ashes video. Yeah, yeah, you know. Quite a sort of androgynous. Yeah, androgynous. Yeah. He worked in a record store in Liverpool called Probe and he's known basically for slagging off-customers. Yeah. You try and buy a record and he tell you how it was, you know, a dog shit. So he, there's someone who said he'd boloc to me for buying a clash single. Someone said he would stare right into your soul, pout, and then even serve you or tell you to do one. Great. Fantastic. And so he forms a band called Dead or Alive, right? And at this point, Stockake Hill & Mortemann are in real financial trouble, right? To give you an idea of their financial trouble, if they're meeting someone important, what they will do is they'll get to the pub early by one point, split it between the three of them. It's like the burger all over again. Yeah, exactly. And then now, just when the person comes in, finish their points so that then the other person buys them around, smart, because they can't afford to buy a full round. And then a burnt meets Pete Wormann. He presumes that Pete Wormann is gay. Pete Wormann says, "Admetedly, I did have green and red hair, I red leather suit with a yellow stripe, so it might have been an easy mistake to make." He was flamboyant. He was flamboyant. Yeah. It's released in November 1984, the song You Spin Me Round, which is the big song for Stockake and Mortemann. But not yet. Goes in at number 41 and then it flounders for 13 weeks. Why did it get to number one? It was a remix called the TDF Mix, which stands for two dogs fucking. Okay. The two dogs fucking remix. The two dogs fucking. They saw two dogs fucking said, "Come in a second, do you want a remix in this song?" Not a million miles. Okay. Pete is like, "What are we going to do? This should be a hit. It's not a hit." And then he gets a BBC sound effect CD that anyone could buy. Right. And it's got like, he says, "Bom explosions, moving bridges. One of the things is two dogs having sex." Okay. And so. Why has somebody recorded that for the first time? I know. For a soundtrack. You might need it for the arches. So basically, he uses this sound, puts it all over the record, calls it the two dogs fucking remix. The TDF remix. The TDF remix. For the radio. And it goes to number one. That's amazing. Isn't that what it turns out? He knew exactly what the people wanted. He knew what the people wanted is a little bit of sex. A little bit of sex. Yes, it's necessarily half the could be two rock violas. It doesn't have to be a man or woman. It doesn't have to be a man or a man. Exactly. It could be a bully ex-el. So that could all to easily have been, you know, the C-girl remix. Exactly. Or the big Ben-Fine ball-fee or gravel. Exactly. But he chooses two dogs fucking and stockake him a water run. Get their first number one. And this is the beginning of huge success. They build the hit factory which we will learn about in the next episode and basically become the ultimate example of Thatcher's Britain. And that is in the next episode. I can't wait. Coming up on the next episode of Museum of Pop Culture. And this was the first song that was a hit for them that they'd written. Because obviously, Dead and Alive was a song that was brought to them. They just shoved some dogs fucking on it. How many times did they try that on other songs? I don't know. We hear this and we've got this song. We can't make it work. We're here, you're the guy who got a record of two dogs fucking. But do you imagine? I can't give you a right in credit. Hello. I'm sorry. If anything, that should go to Fido. [laughs] [music] We'd like to get in touch with the show and we'd love you to get in touch because that's the best bit of doing a podcast is actually hearing from the audience. If you've got, you know, something we've got wrong with tried our best. Don't sue us just correct us. If you've got any questions, any ideas for subject, you can email us at [email protected]. And you can follow us on Instagram at MuseumofopculturePod.