Welcome back to the Museum of Pop Culture and the story of stock aching and waterman's hip factory. When we left them, the trio's lives and careers had converged and the taste of early success meant they'd agreed to collaborate on a record label. No one could know that they were about to go on an insane run of chart-topping pop success with the likes of Mel and Kim, banana ramma, Sunita, Cliff Richard and Rick Astley. I would lead them to define a decade in pop music, but also lead some to label them the worst thing about the 1980s except Margaret Thatcher. Hello, welcome back to part two of the Stock aching and waterman story Matthew Crosby. Hello. So we kind of left it. Pete Waterman and Stockenachin have had their first number one. They're on the Cusp of greatness. They're on the Cusp of greatness and this is 1984. Obviously, it wasn't predicted by all well. But. (LAUGHTER) Would you put the music of stock aching and waterman to your room when I- Absolutely not. No, absolutely not. So it is Thatcher's Britain that they are starting to find success in, I think, is important to kind of see it in that wider context. 1984 in Britain, how old would you have been? Four. Four, so you don't remember it? No, no. Not really. Tauvell and Dean is probably one of the big iconic moments they get maximum points for their ballerro at the Winter Olympics and they're the big slabs. Also, the rich of branches and launches are Virgin Atlantic Airways. He's it. Yeah, with their flight from Gatwick to New York in New York. And basically, what you're looking at is the momentum of Thatcher's Britain. So in 1979 Margaret Thatcher comes to power. She is incredibly unpopular for most of her first term and then there's the Fulplins War and the combination of that and kind of an economic upturn means that she gets a second term as Prime Minister. That's a very American thing, doesn't it, term? And by this point, Britain is booming based on her economic model, but it's booming in a way where lots of people are getting rich and lots of poor people are being left behind. Yes. It's kind of a very sum of Britain is booming. Some of Britain is booming that rest of Britain is not booming and it's a very divided country. And that is kind of symbolised most in 1984 by the Miner Strike. It has been the considered view of conference, very narrow goal. We should return on Tuesday and continue the fight as far as this union is concerned. Anyone to run, it's been the miners who have stayed at work, the docus who have stayed at work. In other words, all of those people who kept the wheels of Britain to be beaten, the miners will never be beaten. The strike begins in March 1984 after the coal board announces their closing, cottonwood colony. And this is basically a strike between the miners and the British government and it's almost a whole year. There's battles and there's a battle of all grievance and all these kind of horrific things on the television and eventually the miners lose the battle. And it basically then paves the way for Billy Elliott. Billy. We're in film and musicals. It's what we're going to be talking about. Nothing to do with people, what to know. I just thought we've had enough of them. We'll come back to him part of people. Wouldn't it be nice? We're just going to watch Billy Elliott. But it paves the way for this kind of victory of thatcherism. Right. We've got to be very careful about how we talk about the victory of thatcherism. But yes, I know what you mean. What I mean is she's won the argument in the sense of even if you don't agree with her, I don't agree with her. Yes. She is incredibly popular and powerful within Britain and it allows her to push through more and more things and Britain becomes very kind of yuppies and Harry M. Phil's character loads money and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, I think people who love to really love to say she was a divisive figure, who's probably an understatement. But it's a bit like in the Smash It's poll when it's party. The person who won best haircut, often won worst haircuts. Exactly. Exactly. Very rarely heard. I suppose what you would say about this time, and I don't think anyone would dispute this, is maybe of all the Prime Ministers we've had in my lifetime, which I'm 41, she's the one who's changed the country the most. Absolutely. She absolutely transformed the country. I mean, I guess there's Blair Eitz. We do about Blairism or. Yeah, it is. You know, it was a genuine belief system and ideology and she transformed the country and it meant that you had these two clear sides and which side did stockake in a more to fall on. Because so the Labour Party had this thing called the Red Wedge tour where lots of very cool bands would support them. The style counts, the Commune Arts madness, the other, heaven 17, banana rama, Elvis Costello, Gary Kemp, Tom Robinson, Sarday The Smiths, etc. The young Conservative Party conference, you know, Lindsey DePaul, Steve Davis, the Snoke player, Jimmy Corvall. Yeah, he wasn't DJing, was he? He wasn't DJing. That's the age. He later said he regretted it. Not that he just didn't want to choose a political side. He later said he kind of just drifted into it because he's managed a Barry Herne kind of atori. Yeah. Kenny Everett, the radio DJ. Well. So he comes out of the young Conservative Conference, right? Huge comedy hands. He's playing his character Brother Lee Love. Right, I didn't know this. That's from the Kenny Everett show, yes. Right. He's a picture character who had enormous sort of a big kind of polystyrene foam hands. And he says that the Conservative Party Conference, let's bomb Russia. So the young Conservative Party Conference, which someone argue is even worse, let's bomb Russia. He brought the same sort of a narcic energy that he would bring to an episode of Blankety Blank. Yeah, exactly. But also there's this thing where, you know, stockake and unwaterment are making music that maybe you would think is quite kind of for the young toories. Do you know what I mean? It's very mainstream. And to give you an idea of where they stood, they were voted the second worst thing in the 1980s after Margaret Thachshund by a magazine. There's a meme of Patrick Bateman, a marital psycho, in his sort of his cover rules that he's about to murder somebody and he's pointing to his stereo kind of go, "Oh, you imagine that kind of Patrick Bateman style yuppie would be all over stockake and watermelon." Yeah. So Mike, in this year, is kind of talking about the sound that they've got. And he said that their aim is to produce uplifting working class dance music and the slogan of them was the sound of bright young Britain. Working class is interesting, isn't it? Well, is that what they are? Yeah, exactly. So you can't deny Pete Waters with working class credentials. And you say Pete Waters is the most working class man I've ever wrote about. He was in a class of 63 with no paper or pens. He was known as the King of Disco and he left it all to work in a concrete sector. Yeah, the poor man is working class. He loves locomotives. That's his main locomotion. And the locomotion. And the locomotion. Get a guy can do both. Mike Stock says that stockake and watermelon didn't want to be political. And he says whatever people said, stockake and watermelon was never Thachshright. And they don't political. They are the opposite political because that would cup down there. People that they could sell music to. Two cents and a slater in his book. He does say, I will admit I was a Mara Thachshright and I still am. He was a man who made his money at a certain time. Yeah. But they kind of represent this Thachshright 80s. This kind of entrepreneur, this making money, this kind of. You can do anything spirit, I suppose, that comes down to appealing to the masses. They then make a shift into kind of R&B sound with princess, right? And they move to studios. They've got their own studios. Now they can afford this at the vineyard in Bara, which Bit of trivia was the first place that Princess Margaret met Anthony Armstrong Jones. Wow. They were recording a session together, weren't they? They were doing it specially for you. They were doing like a high energy club remix. I say they've got the money to move there. Basically, they can't afford the kit and so they have to go to the bank for a loan. So Pete goes to the bank for a loan and in the meeting he just plays him their latest track by Princess. And the bank manager is so impressed, he gives him a load of money. Oh, it was the 80s, wasn't it? Isn't that incredible? Was Pete Waterman, do you know if at this stage he's still going for the green hair and the stuff? No, I doubt it, surely. He's got more, you know, because when I think of Pete Waterman in the 80s, I think of a man who, despite being a record producer, is always wearing a blazer and tie. Yeah, exactly. like a kind of. of just a bloke in an office. Yeah. Or they're probably jeans. He is a mid-laid kind of slightly balding white bloke. Yeah. He's got a very chirpy, friendly face and he's got a very nice demeanor, but he doesn't strike you as rock and roll. No, that's true. He does. He strikes you as a kind of man who could get a bank loan by bringing out a ghetto blaster. (laughing) And that's the first black soul hit. So they're very kind of progressive. Yeah. They are economically that charite, but socially kind of very liberal. And this was the first song that was a hit for them that they'd written, 'cause obviously dead and alive was a song that was brought to them, they just shoved some dogs fucking on it. (laughing) How many times did they try that on other songs? I don't know. We hear this in, 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 you're magic. I can't give you a writing credit. Hello. I'm sorry. If anything, that should go to Fido. (laughing) Yeah, 'cause obviously there was the one, obviously, but have you ever heard about the monkey selfie? Yes. Where a photographer was in the, I don't know what jungle it was, and he left his camera out and the monkey picked out and took this incredible selfie. Yeah. And then the photographer sold this, and then he got involved in illegal disputors to whether he owned the rights or whether the monkey owned the right. 'Cause the monkey had taken the photo. The photographer's argument was, I left the camera there knowing that the monkey would play with it and I might get an interesting photo from it. This is a very unsatisfying anecdote 'cause I don't know how the dispute was found. If somebody go into the jungle, find the same monkey and say, look, I would like to represent you. Yeah. I think we should have an estate going on. Yeah. It takes a more photographs, but with the portfolio. This is what happened, but we don't. The dog's fucking undead and alive. It's a very similar situation. And we don't know if the dog's fucking, they did their own life. We are assuming at this stage, they're dead. Yeah. So Stock Hector Wormen at this point, they've got their studio, which they call the hit factory, which I love, obviously. And they basically set to, like the concrete factory, they're turning out hits. And the description of how they make these hits is absolutely brilliant. This quote, I had to go, is this a typo? Mike Stock says, I've never made a record that I want to make. I'm sure it'll be interesting, but it might not be a hit. Ooh. So everyone else who's ever interviewed will always turn out the old, all I can do is write the music for myself and both the other people. But I love, yeah. And hope that other people, that's all you can do. Yeah. That's the artistic way. Mike Stock is, I don't make music for myself. I make records. It's the anti-Rick Rubin. I make records for people who read the sun and play bingo is what he says. Which again, I respect that. Like he's like, I know the formula to craft the perfect pop song and I'm going to apply that formula on every song. Well, you say that. Waterman says, writing hits is not an exact science. Okay. That's why it's the most exciting job in the world. You can't write a thesis on why you get goosebumps. Oh, that's actually giving me goosebumps. (laughing) It's unbelievable. Well, don't write a thesis. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to. I can't write. I never learned. Sorry, you should have said, I can't write a thesis on why you get goosebumps. I know why, but I can't write it. Regarding content of the songs, Mike Stock says, there's only ever been two songs. Do you want to have a guess? It's two types of songs, basically. Is it, I'm in love and it's amazing and I'm not in love and it's awful. Do you know what? I'm going to give you the point. One about being happy and the other is about being sad. Yeah, I think that's fair. But what they do is they just, they've really distilled it. And I think the thing that Stock Eight can and Waterman have is there maybe a thing, a lot of musicians or producers think and think I could never possibly say that because that makes me sound artless. Yeah. Is there quite a happy to say it? So Mike and Matt would play every single instrument on the Stock Eight and Waterman records. Really? I didn't realise that. Upsetting some people will come to that later. And Stock Eight and Waterman, the way they wrote songs, basically one of the things they tried to do was writing the shortest possible times. Their claim was nobody made cheaper records than Stock Eight and Waterman. See, did behind the mixing desk at their South London recording studio is also known as the Hit Factory. The team of saw that Stock Eight and Waterman doodle around while listening to some demo tapes, keeping in touch with the pop music scene all the time. I mean, I like the fact it's all up front. Yeah, it's kind of cool, isn't it? Because it sort of doesn't really matter how quickly you write a song. It doesn't matter how cheap you make it. And so my blood was written in half an hour. Yeah. I don't know if it's still the case, but I know at one point it made more money than the rest of their back howl. I think that's the probably true. It's their biggest song. And do you know Johnny Mark from the Smiths? He wrote this charming man in less time than it takes to play it, apparently. It came through by ash. I mean, you can imagine that was written pretty quickly. But on the back of the single of Kung Fu by ash, they said this was written in like three minutes on Christmas Eve and recorded in the same time on Christmas day. I'll smell that later. Oh, me, up on Christmas day. He did. On boxing day, lad. He did, surely. Have you not got families? Maybe I'm getting the days wrong. Maybe it was New Year's, even New Year's day. But yeah, it sort of doesn't matter. No, it doesn't. And if anything, it brings the excitement. You're like, just knock it out. You know, I don't want to spend three months getting the drum sound right. What I love about looking back on the Beatles is, you know, people look at something like Sergeant Pepper. Like in '67, they'd release rubber soul the same year. Yeah, they were knocking them out. So they were just churning them out. The most dangerous thing is when a band has an amazing first record and then they go away for four years or five years. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to. Because never accused Stockake and a Warman. I've going away for four years. They didn't disappear up their own arses. They didn't. And also, it's interesting you bring up the Beatles. Because that's something that plays on Mike Stocks mind quite a lot is comparisons with the Beatles. But we'll come to that later, of course we will. [LAUGHS] So they never made demos, which makes total sense. Why would you need to? They said, why bother? Why not just make the record? That's what Mike Stock says. It's such a good point. But also they're making music with synthesizers and drum machines. And then presumably with a computer of some kind, all of which I imagine cost so much money. Like, you know, well, no. Right. So their studio has one microphone. [LAUGHS] So it's a Cal Rec sound field mic and Waterman has blacked it for free in exchange for them getting a credit on the back of the record. Wow. I'd say that Mike Stocks just better out of that. This was recorded on a time and so microphone. Because they're in such financial trouble. He's playing a song at the bank and he's going, we can't afford a microphone. Give me one for free and I'll put you on the back of the record. They've had a fucking number one. That's amazing. Surely I thought back in those days, having a number one single meant-- You may have seen it. --so many records by this point. So where's money going? They just aren't making good enough money to afford a microphone. They've just moved into the studio. And so it's called the hip factory. And there is a factory element to it. So the way the vocalist recorded on the Cal Trek sound field mic, Mike Stocks would say, I'd sing the artist the chorus, line by line and the verse, line by line. And they would sing it back to me, line by line. Then the artist would go home, we'd pull it all to part and put it back together in the right order. So there's no like, do it this way and really feel it this time or feel this emotion and really go into the song. It's like, sing it like this, sing this line like this. Copy me. He'd give them a line reading for every single line of the song. --So I'm a line reading for every single line of the song. --And they'd do it. And then they'd go home. --And then they'd put it together a seven-minute, like a jigsaw puzzle in the studio. --Yeah. --That's amazing. --It's mad, isn't it? So basically, it's just them, an occasionally the artist. Pete says they banned A&R men from the building. They insisted they only talked directly to the bands. --That seems like a smart-- --Yeah, it doesn't it. --They never let anyone have the discs from the programming. So no one could leave with the discs and analyse it. --Okay. --So no one could work out. It's a bit like Colonel Sanders. --Yeah, exactly. --No one could break out there. --Exactly. --You're never never heard of the spices. --I never heard of the spices. Pete says when band came in with stuff that was R.T., he would take them aside and beat the shit out of their ideas. --Great. --I mean, I guess-- --Right. --If you look at-- --Why not? --You know, because punk rock is always given a lot of credit for getting rid of all the old dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff. But actually, I think in terms of longevity, stock aching a watermelon who only came along a few short years later did a very similar thing, didn't they? They sort of stripped away any kind of pomposity or pretension from music and said, "No, no." --I'd say they were making less political points. There's only two types of songs, happy ones and ones about how much I hate the Queen. I think quite a lot of politics was retrofitted onto punk. I think with the Queen. --Yeah, yeah. --You know, God save the Queen. Had a point, but it was also just one of those. --But would you like to retrofit it on stock aching a watermelon? --Yeah, that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm currently doing. --So we hear a lot more from Mike. I think Matt's quite quiet. He's described by Mike as smart and funny, but you know that thing about sending the people away when they've done their stuff? --Yeah. --That come back, fire. So he occasionally would reduce artists' tears.
by mistake because he was quite kind of blunt without realizing it. So he reduced Kylie to tears on a number of occasions just by saying something thoughtless, such as, "Would you like to leave the room now, Kylie? I've got to discuss baseline with Matt. Go off and make a cup of tea." So there was an element of. He wasn't a people person necessarily. No. And I think they worked in A. We worked this way. I mean, Kylie only speaks very highly of them as we've come to. He worked in this way, which is just like, "We do that. It's very much turn up. Do it, leave." Anyone with the potentials that they're kind of anything more than a pop star that's being fitted into it. You're all different cogs in a bigger machine. So you know you're facing your name is going to be on the front of this record. The actual part you play is not that important, especially at this stage. You want to be a pop star? Yeah. Then we'll make you a pop star. We'll make you a pop star, but don't think that you're going to really have any say in what you're singing or. Which I guess, probably. I don't know if this is a little bit like when Pete got turned down for being a. Fat with the beard? Yeah. For being fat with a beard. Is there an element that you think the bluntness and the lack of creative control that Kylie was offered at Stock Akin and Waterman eventually propelled her on to being the sort of shape shifting, constantly reinventing song-shrussiest today. You could say that. I don't think that you have. You don't think that you have. No, I don't know. She speaks very highly of you. The heat factor was I imagine it like a pyramid and you really had Pete Waterman at the top. And then the trio was completed through Matt Akin and Mike Stock. And the way the trio had some work was amazing and fast. I don't think Pete's got the patience. It's really a lot of acts, try and break away. It's the classic thing, isn't it? Of being a pop star and suddenly going, I need to be grown up. I need to. Do you want to hear about a band that they really met their match? Yes. So, they did a lot with Banana Rama in the '80s. Right. Now, Banana Rama, by the end of the '80s, they were the best-selling British girl group of all time. I remember they're being absolutely enormous in the '80s. So, they're a stockade, Ken and Waterman band. They're also absolute, hard-drinking legends that start by underlining that. So, Pete says of them, they were very much part of the whole so-ho scene and they'd be out every party going. They're the hardest-drinking girls I've ever met and real man eaters in the nicest possible way. Well, if you've eaten a man, you need something to wash it down. I tell you what prerogative they ate, Pete was a little pig in the air. Robert Smith of the Cure said, "Bummit, Nana Rama, with the first band I met who managed to drink with us until the end." I love it. Yeah. The idea of Banana Rama and the Cure hanging out. They're swapping hair care. Do you want to story about them on the lash with no galaga? Yes, please. So, this is obviously a bit later. We'd all been see Paul Weller live, this is Sarah, and we're trying to flag down a taxi. We couldn't get one and then the bin man recognised Noll. Noll said, "I'll ask them if we can get a lift home. I'm not sure it's legal for them to take passengers on a detour, but they did bless them. So, we sat up front with Noll and Meg Matthews is ex-wife at wife at the time, sure." That would have been awkward. She was already in that. It's like an Uber pull. Meg, what are you doing here? This is my new man now. I'm working class again. We got back to our friends apartment and the bin man came up from beer for their troubles. Oh. I mean, if you are a bin man, wouldn't that be a dream? Yeah, then Karen says, "Who's another member of Banana Rama?" Then I had to rush to them out and say enough is enough when they wouldn't leave. They've been man out, stayed there, welcome. Enough is enough and take those bags with you. Then Karen danced on antique table and snapped its legs off. So, then what a night. This is, by the way, this is mid-90s, we're talking about. That was mid-90s, but this is over a decade into their hard-living days. They're not just hard-living, but they absolutely won't take the shit of Stockake and Waterman. Right. They've got this great relationship with Pete Waterman, where I think he loves that. He says, "If I dare to argue or if I didn't see things the way they did, they just walked out. They made it clear they would never change and anyone who didn't like it could get lost. They would get me out of bed in the early hours to pick them up from a club if they couldn't find a taxi." So, all these things that he'd hate in other acts, he's kind of got this love for banana armour. He's basically become their dad. Well, he says they were the only people, so quite the opposite, apart from my mum, who ever called me Peter. It was their way of telling me they were the boss. I love it. It's a great relationship. He says, "I never knew what was going to happen next. I was once arrested because the girls set off a hotel fire alarm and told the police I was their dad." I love it. It's so great. You know what? I think there aren't many people I would accept being arrested for, but banana armour. Yeah. Why not? What are you in for? Banana armour grass me up. Yeah. No, I'm not that dumb. Why would I be the dad of all of them? They were cutting edge and without them. We would never have had Madonna. He says, "I don't think it's true. I don't know." He knows more than I do. Yeah. He loves them and they love Pete. They say, "I'm fond of the old fault," says Shavorn Fe. He's a massive fan of music, says Dallin. Music trains and Bullseeman. He used to talk about that a lot. Bullseeman? Bullseeman. It doesn't come up ever again, so I've got no idea. So, he's looked. He looked. That is the only real reference to Pete and Bullseeman. There are so many questions if you were to meet Pete Waterman, Peter. If you were to meet Peter Waterman. Yeah. It would be the socks trying to get to Studio 54, actually, get there. It would be the grave digging. And now we've got a third question. What's going on with you and Bullseeman? What's the deal with you and Bullseeman? Why a banana Roma thinking you're always going on about it? It comes up in no other area of your bar room. Rick Hassey's not mentioned it once. Yeah. Mike's not as much of a fan of banana Roma. Bullseeman? No. He says they're very difficult to work with because he's actually. Pete Walton's enjoying that side. He likes a bit of RG bar here. Yeah, yeah. Mike's trying to write his songs. Sure. And he says, especially when we're forced into writing with them, with them, rather than for them, he said they would laugh at his methods of writing songs. Oh, they embarrassed him basically. They embarrassed him. They made him feel small. Yeah, like a square. Yeah. Meanwhile, Pete's loving it and poor old Mike's there. They are huge. Venus gets numbed right in the UK because it's number one in America. And then in 1987, Shvorn Fey leaves banana Roma and she forms Shakespeare's sister. Of course, yeah. Now Mike doesn't like Shvorn. He says Shvorn was the most difficult. After he split from the other two, she went off to form Shakespeare's sister in 1988, which I thought was a lot of appalling nonsense. Yeah, I can imagine Shakespeare's sister who felt credible and worthy and slightly arty. It was her and Marcelo Detroit. Yeah, and they did a song called Stay that was number one for years. And it's like this weird song which was like two different songs cobbled together and yeah. I think they'd use the word cobbled, but no, no, no, no. I mean, it's the best possible. Yeah. For him, he'd be wrapped up, he's cobbled all over the shop. It's one of the most cobbleds. Only he's like the streets of York. So Pete also found Shvorn difficult. He recalled how she wouldn't sing the lyric, Ain't Life a Bitch. You've got to keep on working till you strike it rich. You know why she wouldn't do it? I'm going to say, use of the B words and rampant fatturism. Yeah, she thought it was a capitalist song. Yeah. Pete says, she then marries. She's a brave steward and she took a private jet to the south of France and had Bob Dylan appearing at the wedding. Now the most extravagant wedding you could imagine. Didn't they both diagnose themselves with paradise syndrome? Yes. Where their lives were so perfect, they needed to have their appendix is removed or something. It was one of those. A girl. Yeah. So yeah, they should have said, I wish I was me. I wish I was me. I wish I was me. Only I were me. But by the end of the '80s they're the best-selling British girl group of all time. Good for them. Can we mourn for a moment that Pete's idea for them never happened, which was them singing Abba-type songs in a project called Abba Banana. Abba Banana. Now I know about Abba Banana. Dude. It was a collaboration with Abba. Oh, was it? Yeah. The idea was that Benny and Björn were going to write half the songs. Right. Stokeh can walk when they're going to write the other half. And it just didn't happen. And it didn't happen. But they did try and write in an Abba style. Stokeh can walk them and did try and write in a. They tried and write some songs in an Abba style. Well, in a way, you know, they're more successful than Abba. Stokeh can walk them and. Amazing. But would you go to Stokeh can and Waterman Voyage? Would there be a Stokeh can and Waterman musical? Has there been a Stokeh can and Waterman musical? Oh, there must have been. Do you know what? There's no one that I'd take. No one's that I'd take Box Musical. No one's can tap. No, no. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's a big friend of Banana Rama. They did a comic relief song together. What were they called? But it were called like Nana Noonus or something. Yeah, Banana Noonus. And they. She said they were great drinkers. Of course. So that is Banana Rama. That's. By now, they are turning out big bands. Next is Melanchim. So they are two sisters. And they're from East London. Peekaboo.
kind of season was a turning point. Initially they try and do these kind of stocking and waterman songs for them, and then it's not really working. And so Mike goes to the pub with them and realizes that in his words from his book, they have a loudmouthed, funny charm. So he starts to write songs for their personality. Songs that he says are about crap boy friends, shopping for clothes, dancing, and having a girl's night out. - We ain't never gonna be respectable. - That was the big lyric, yes. - I love it. - Yes, and so Kim, when she first meets Stockake in a waterman, is like shocked because she likes the song by Princess that we talked about in the last episode. And she says, are they a bit so old? Really kind of non-funky, not groovy. (laughing) 'Cause that is one of the more things you've got. Mike Stock, who's a man who bananas or armour a laughing at, and he's going, I'm gonna be writing songs like, crap boy friends, shopping for clothes and girls' nights out. There is this kind of middle-aged bloke pretending to be young people about Stockake in a waterman. - Sure, but presumably they had been young at some stage. And so they've lived through, I mean, obviously not, well, crap boy friends. - Bear in mind when Mike Stock was young, was he a double glazing salesman or whatever he was? - Oh yeah, that's true. - And then he was in a band called Mirage. - Mirage, nice work. - Yes, he wasn't young and cool. - Yeah, he wasn't young and cool in the late '70s, early '80s. - No. - And they released a song called FLM, which stands for Accordance of Homelessity, Fun Love Money, but actually it's Mel's favorite phrase, which is fucking lovely mate. - Fucking lovely mate. - It's a bit like the two dogs fucking remix. - Did they ever do a TDF remix of FLM? - No, they should have. - They should have. - They should have. - Really, yeah. And their big hits, showing out, getting fresh for the weekend. And as you say, respectable, which video was directed by Simon West who went on to direct Conner. - Really? That's amazing. - Yeah, that's cool, isn't it? - It's really cool, yeah. It ends really sadly, Mel and Kim. - I remember this, yeah. - The two kind of young sisters from East London. Mel had liver cancer as a teenager, and in her early '20s, it returns. And it was kind of horrible because they tried to keep it from the public. Journalists were all over it. And then she dies at the age of 23, which is just very, very sad. - That's very tragic. - Yeah. - Mel and Kim was so famous though that the Christmas song "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was by Mel and Kim, Mel Smith and Kim Wild. - Yes, so the Kim. - But why do you, Mel Smith and then Kim Wild? - Yeah, which I guess they, the only reason they did it was because they were like, "Hole Mel and Kim." They're so famous we can have our band called Mel and Kim as well. Which is mad, really. We can think about it. And if you're listening to "Christmas Music Now," the Mel Smith and Kim Wild "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" will still come on magic. - Yeah. - Christmas. - Still plays every year. I mean, very few people then go, "Oh, that's because Mel and Kim were a big deal when that came out." I don't think anyone's. It's cool. That's what his podcast is there for. People like us to tell people stuff like that. - Let's go through some of the mad acts that they worked with, okay, at this point. So 1987, they worked with Samantha Fox. - They did. - I've got page three girl. Page three being a huge deal at the time is "Topless Women on the Page Three" and "The Sun," which is the biggest newspaper. Of course, this is for Sun Newsreaders. They hadn't wanted to work with her. They've got some level of who they think they can make a star. But the label approached them for the second album and they're impressed with her in the meeting. And they wrote her a top 10 hit. Nothing's gonna stop me now. Bit of trivia about Sam Fox. Her breasts are in short for a million pounds. - Oh, really? - It's a classic. - That's one of those classic stories, isn't it? Libra Archie's fingers. Was it Elmuk first and his legs, maybe? I don't know. - She was the body. - Someone had their legs. Someone had their legs. Maybe Cindy Groff. - Do write in if you know of any people who've got different parts of their body in short. We'll just try and create a full human of each other. We'll do a Whitacomstine's monster. (laughing) - The most expensive to ensure human. - We're gonna create a six million dollar man, yeah. - So then they do Sunita? - So Sunita. - Oh, yes. - Wrote a song called Toy Boy. And the reason they did Sunita is they were begged for months to work with her by Simon Cowell. - Simon Cowell. - Or Simon Cowell. - Our old friend Simon Cowell. - On again, off again, love interest. Whenever Simon Cowell would do judges houses on the extra tect. - If Sunita would be there. - Sunita would be the mentor. Yes, she would appear with some palm fronds over her boobs and dance around in front of a bunch of people who don't know who she is. - Exactly. - 'Cause they're 13. - They certainly don't know why Mel and Kim did a Christmas something to go. (laughing) Pete Waterman says of Simon Cowell. They've got quite a fractious relationship. This is the start of it. When Simon Cowell goes out of business, we covered this in the blobby episode. Mr. blobby episode, because Simon Cowell was behind that song. - Yeah, of course. - That Pete keeps his car. Pete says of Simon. Simon knows very little about music. His knowledge comes out of the Guinness Book of Hits. He'd keep a copy on his desk and whenever an act came in, he'd skim it for an old number one, look at the sales figures and then do it again. I love Simon. He's the smartest man I know, but he isn't in it for the music. - I don't think anybody ever thought he was. - No. Do you want to know what Mike Stockthorff's Sunita? - You're gonna have to tell me, 'cause I don't think I should guess this, but I would imagine he thought she was quite barney. - We knew what she could do vocals rise. She also had fantastic legs. As soon as I saw them, I knew she was a great singer. - Oh dear. - Oh dear. - That's the real shame. - That's a real shame. I was hoping that was gonna end. As soon as I saw them, I said, "You should ensure those from the impact." - You should ensure those from the impact. - That would have been fine. That would have been absolutely fine. - Hey, you're on the Antiques Road show. That's actually how Sam Fox found out that she should have addressed for a million pounds. He took them on the Antiques Road show and they said, "I would ensure these from the impact." It was never so, they couldn't show it at 6 p.m. on a single note. - Oh, no. - Did you know they worked with Cliff Richard? - Yeah, I did know they'd worked with Cliff Richard, but I don't know which song, go on. - So this is an incredible story. This is so mad. So when they worked with Cliff Richard, they did, "I just don't have a heart." And Cliff wanted to take the tape home with him, which as we know, that's opposite against the rules. - Against the rules. Cliff said, "I've been in the industry 30 years. "I won't play it to anyone." So he gets to take it home and then he confesses that he had played it. See you back, eh? (laughing) They finished playing tennis in the back garden and he said, "Come on, listen to this. "Just don't tell anyone, all right, keep some." - Better to his mum and his milkman. - Milkman? - Yeah. - No, no, no. Mum, I think, is fine. But milkman is literally going around the houses. - Well, Cliff says, and this might be where he took it home, he plays all of his songs to the milkman. And if the milkman likes it, Cliff knows it's gonna be a hit. - No, okay, I'd have seen anything with a binman. (laughing) If the binman lets it, you could ride around the block and the bin car, roll with it's the one. - The milkman was right. It went to number three. The milkman is always right. - That milkman was Simon Cowell. - Yeah. Give that a shot, milkman, a job in A&R. (laughing) Cliff says, "I've stockaken a woman. "I never had to defend anyone that I had to defend them. "I'm a Christian and I've never had to defend God "as much as I had to defend stockaken a woman." - Really? - Yeah. - What reason is that because they were seen as naff and cheap? - Yeah, I think so. And God's not God. - God is not God. - You can say many things about God. He's not naff and he's not cheap. - He doesn't make records as cheap as possible. - No way. Have you seen Vatican City? - Exactly. - Dripping with gold. - So I think you're getting through these acts and real image of A.T.'s Britain. - Yes. - And then we come to one which is just an insane story of A.T.'s Britain, which is Mandy Smith. - Oh dear, yes. - Yes. - Yeah. - And the definition of it was a different time. - Yeah. - Was it a different time even then? People saw it as, well let me talk about Mandy Smith. - Let me take you through the Mandy Smith story. So Mandy Smith, a lot of people won't remember Mandy Smith or they weren't around. And the story of Mandy Smith is one of the maddest, most unsettling kind of-- - Yeah, it's the images of A.T.'s Britain and early '90s Britain. - Yeah. - So Mandy Smith, they wrote a stockaken woman, a debut single. I just can't wait. It's already a bad title. - Yeah. 'Cause it was released after she turned 16. - Oh no. - Can we give a bit of context as to who she is? - Yeah, so she was in a relationship with Bill Wyman who at the time was the bass player of the Rolling Stones. And he'd been the bass player of the Rolling Stones since the start. She met him when she was 13. The description in his autobiography. - Wow, let me say, I've got it here. - Oh no. So he was 47. - She's disgusting. - It was in 1990, he wrote this. She took my breath away. She was a woman at 13. The relationship then becomes public two and a half years later when she reaches 16. - They get married. - Yeah. - All three members of stockaken woman go to the wedding. From the steps of the building, they see all the guests arrive. Do you want a bit of levity? - Go on, who is there? - Spike Miller Gunn brings us in a frame for Bill Wyman. - I mean, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. Spike Miller Gunn always funny. - Always funny. - Always funny Spike Miller Gunn. The same thing with the war. - Yeah. - Turning a tough situation into light hearted comedy. - Exactly. So the relationship doesn't last. You don't need me to tell you that. That is unsurprising. - Yeah. - After they've split up, this is a surprising turn. Bill Wyman's 30 year old son, Mary's, Mandy Smith's mum. - Okay. What for balance? - 46. - So. - So. - Bill Wyman splits up with Mandy Smith. And then his son, Mary's Mandy Smith's mum. - They've got very different tastes. - I'm the Lilly's son. (laughing) - Wait, how old was the son? - 30 and the mum was 46. - I'm gonna say, that's totally fine. - That's true.
- It's actually fun. - I'm gonna say it's still weird. - Yeah, 30 and 46 is. - No, no, no, not in the age. The fact that you're marrying your dad's ex mother-in-law. - That's definitely weird. Once again, you probably don't need me to tell you, it doesn't last. One awkward family reunion and over. One positive for the British public's reaction to this is that the song makes it to 91 and that is Mike Stock thinks because the public didn't like Wyman's relationship with Mandy Smith. They were willing to get on board. - I think that's-- - I'm financially support a song called "I Just Can't Wait." - Yeah, I think-- - Well done the public on that. - It has to go down as one of the maddest things that's ever happened in the history of Britain and been seen as kind of just tabloid fodder rather than-- - He's just seen as a bit of a joke. - A bit of a joke, really. - A bit of a joke, yeah, bit of a joke, rather than basically a crime. - Well, it is a crime. - Yeah. - I tell you what, wasn't a crime, bringing us a zymma frame to the wedding. - Yeah. - That's just good humor. - That's a good humor at the end of the day. - There must have been a point where he was like, "Right, I can either not go "and nobody knows that I'm boycotting it." - Yeah. - Or show up with this-- - With the zymma frame-- - With the zymma frame and get in the daily mirror. - Then the most exciting acts arguably, so far at Stockade, Ken and Reutelman, in 1985, Pete is told by his then girlfriend to go and see a band FBI in Warrington. So he says, "I turned up at Monk's social club "in a silver Ferrari. "I don't think anyone in Warrington had seen a Ferrari before. "Never mind a silver one." (laughing) - It's the epitome of Flash 1980s, again, it's opulence, isn't it? - Yeah. It's certainly a Monk's social club in Warrington. - Yeah, absolutely. - I said to the manager, don't like the band, don't like the song, I'll sign the singer. It's Rick Astley. So Rick Astley got an incredible voice and Stockade Ken Waterman, they employ him. They don't sign him, they employ him on the youth opportunity training program, which was known as Yop, which is a thing for school levers. And he's brought on as a tape operator in the studio and he is essentially the T-boy. - Yes. - So he's paid 20 pounds of Rick and he does that for a year before they actually work with him. Although I should say, Pete disputes this and says they were working on him becoming a star during that time and he just happened to be making tea for people. - I mean, I guess T-boy is one part of the job. You're in a studio. - Yeah. - You're living. - We all, we remember. They told Kylie to go and make her own tea. - Absolutely, yeah. But he's making tea for other people. Astley has done quite a long quote about making tea. Okay. I made tea for Banana Roma, Dead Or Alive, Melanchim and anyone else who was around. Most people are just build as tea with a bit of milk, aren't they? There was a much herbal tea around in those days. That was a newfangled thing and coffee wasn't a big deal. It wasn't all this latte and cappuccino business. - Oh no, he's doing it. - There wasn't anywhere to buy all that. - He's doing it. - It was unheard of. That sounds rich quite a lot. - And don't get me started on the plant-based milks. (laughing) Sorry. I was just wanting a milky coffee. I don't want to be mad about. So how have you even milk an almond? All right, Astley, just stick to the singing, all right? - Yeah. - So then they write this song for Rick Astley. He's done a year making builders tea. - It was called "Seven's Cold Milk and Two", wasn't it? (laughing) He said, "Come on, I don't want this to define me." - This is another classic of, so this is the first time we see Mike Stockton Pete Wormen arguing over where something came from, which will become a kind of motif as the partnership goes on. Wormen's argument for this song is, "I've been going out with a woman called Gainer for Ages. "One morning, I came off the phone "after a long call to her and Rick quipped. "You're never gonna give her up "and it stuck in my head. "The song is called 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'" Mike says that was one of the few times that Pete instigated a song, and it wasn't even original. It was the title of a B-Sitra musical youth record he'd made with Pete Collins a few years earlier. Plus, there's also a Barry Wright song called "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up." - So all he came up with was the title, was that what they're saying, and the comes an argument later on that Pete Wormen considers that writing a song. - Ah, okay. - Lastly says, "I remember Mike inputting "the chords of 'Never Gonna Give You Up.' "I made the T while they're programmed." - In "Curna," I did the basic track. Mike sang the melody literally into my ear, and I went in and sang it, which we've established is how they do it. ♪ Never gonna give you up ♪ ♪ Never gonna let you down ♪ ♪ Never gonna run around it ♪ ♪ Who's there to you ♪ ♪ Never gonna make you cry ♪ ♪ Never gonna say goodbye ♪ ♪ Never gonna tell the lie ♪ ♪ Never gonna do ♪ - It's released August, 1987. This is mad. It tops the charts in 25 countries. - Wow. - A woman sues them, Stockake and a woman, 'cause she claims that Rick had overheard her singing it on a bus in Hackney. - What? - She says. - So, he's not from Hackney. - I don't know. - No, he's moved down. - He's moved down. - I don't know where. I've done a lot of research. I don't know where Rick Ashley was. - Whether we ever caught a bus through Hackney. - Yeah, whether he was ever on the 425. - His arms weighed down with bags of PG tips. (laughing) - I've gotta get to the studio, I'm late. - What's she singing? - So she said she had an original recording that predated theirs, but her solicitors said they'd lost the tapes. So, never know. - Not into the North Sea. - Never know. - Of course. - It's a debut album, called "Whenever You Need Somebody" was released that November. - So, it was 12 million copies. - That's crazy. - That's mad. - But that's kind of it. He leaves Stockake and a Waterman in 1988 to sign for BMG. I presume there was like, you don't have to make the tea anymore. - Maybe you just really enjoyed it. - Yeah, he starts on the second album without the Stockake and a Waterman, and it's recorded in the Workout Studio All-Came Road. And then running out of time, and he just can't do it with BMG. And then a fire breaks out in the studio and destroys all the tapes. Maybe it's the same one that destroyed that woman's tapes are never going to give you up. He's given extension, and in that extension, he goes back, and he works with Stockake and a Waterman again. - Do you think, I don't want to say, do you think that anything to do with the fire? - No. - I don't want to say it. - No, I'm not. - No, I'm not. - No, I don't. I'm asking questions. Leave your thoughts in the comments below. (laughing) - Nathan. But that's kind of it. He just peeks to that first album, that's it. He kind of has this kind of overnight fame. And it affects him. He says, "I developed a fear of flying. "I didn't want to promote records. "I didn't want to do any of it. "I was super lucky that I had a massive amount of success "in a very short space of time, "and somebody gave me a truckload of money for it." And I said, "Okay, I'm done." - That's great. - Yeah. He slightly has this weird renaissance 2007 when Rick Rowling becomes a thing, which you might remember is people basically, is an internet meme, where you send someone something, they think they're going to open whatever you send them, but it's a video for never going to give you up on YouTube. - Yes. - And consequently, he's the fourth artist from the 1980s to pass a billion views on YouTube. - That's incredible. - Because of all the Rick Rowling. - Michael Jackson, Ah-ha, Guns and Rose isn't Rick Astley. - All it takes is for you to watch the first three seconds of a song apparently then. - Yes. - It's not like people are going, "Oh, maybe quite a few people would have gone." Well, actually, this isn't what I asked for, but great song. - Yeah. - There you go. So, Stockett can water them and you're like, how could it get any better? By this point, they're the backlash has begun. Of course. - Because as we can see, they're kind of just turning stuff out. They're quite artless in, you know, a way they're quite happy to be described as. People describe them as, "That's your right disposable chip shop, "bwritten, fodder, targeted, "the board teenagers in shopping centers." That's kind of a horrible quote, isn't it? - I think the idea of targeting things at board teenagers isn't actually an insult. That is all-- - Well, I think so. - That's what the Beatles originally were. - Yeah. - The board teenagers. - Yeah. - That's why the teenager thing happens. There's nothing wrong with that, but I suppose the point would be you're targeting it rather than you're creating it for yourself. Blah, blah, blah. The guardian, oh God. - It's not a very snobby. - It's not a snobby. Describe them as schlock, aimless, and water down. - Week, week. - Week. - Knaff puns. - Mike kind of blames Pete for this kickback, of course. He says, "It was then that Pete, "amittedly as our mouthpiece, "started becoming a bit too vocal." We're all proud of our success, but soon Pete began saying things that were frankly preposterous, such as calling us the saviors of the music industry. We started making enemies, and it was the start of the backlash. The worst moment of backlash comes, and the disco mix club ceremony held at the Royal Albert Hall, when they were receiving awards for banana, or armadons remix, and they have lots of stuff thrown at them. Funny hat's whistles in the can of urine. - Oh no. I'll take the first two. - Yeah. Pete's so furious, he grabs the mic, and says, "I hope you all get needles stuck up your arses." - What an incredibly specific hope. - I know. - As in record needles? - I don't know. - Or was he hinting at the use of drugs in the music industry? - Right. - But I don't know if there was a huge heroin problem in the music industry. - Well, I think there's always been a heroin problem in the music industry, but possibly by this point, I had his one line of codecats. - We don't know. I haven't played my card yet. But you think is this when it all goes wrong? Incredibly, they're about to get even more successful, even bigger. They're about to have that absolute peak artistic moment, and that comes because the BBC have launched an Australian soap opera, and within it is one of the great stars of my life.
modern music. Steffan Dennis. Steffan Dennis and we'll find out more about that. It's not Steffan Dennis. Don't turn off. Listen to the next episode. It's someone really exciting. We'll find out more about that next time. ♫ Neighbours ♫ ♫ Everybody needs good neighbours ♫ If you'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 pop cast is actually hearing from the audience. If you've got your note, something we've got wrong, we've 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
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