RONNIE LANE INTERVIEW

Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!


RONNIE LANE INTERVIEW
BY ALLAN VORDA
(APRIL 5, 1987, HOUSTON, TEXAS)
From the Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette No. 14

A.V.

What did you do musically prior to the Small Faces?

R.L.

I knocked about with a couple of bands that played in public houses or drinking taverns. We could never get a bass player. Down on the East End of London it seemed nobody wanted to play the bass unless he was a real loser who couldn't playa lead instrument. They thought they could play the bass cause it only had four strings. That was the attitude toward the bass. I was a mod at the time and I was listening to Booker T & the MG's and I was into the bass. I started listening to the bass. So I thought, fuck it, I'll play the bass! I had already learned to play guitar - not very well - but I could get my hands around a song. So I talked myoid man into buying me a bass guitar in 1963 or 1964. Strangely enough, that was the turning point. I went to this shop to buy the bass guitar that I had seen in the window and this little guy came up to me who was serving. I said "I'd like to have a look at that bass over there". And he said "ah that's the best bass in the shop. That's a great bass!" He was very enthusiastic and keen about Tamla Motown. I liked him. Anyway, that's how I got to meet Steve Marriott.

A.V.

Was Marriott with another band at that time?

R.L.

He was with Marriott's Moments, but it was kind of an on off situation. We started talking about music and what we got out of it. He had a great record collection at home including stuff on the Sue label. It was an independent label in England that did some pretty cool records. I think they did some stuff by Ike & Tina Turner. He also had Bobby Bland, James Brown and lots of Motown. This was an education for me because until then I had been hand-strung to the English music scene which didn't have the depth the Americans had. This opened my ears considerably. I had just bought the bass and I suggested we start a group. That was it.

A.V.

How did you get the name Small Faces?

R.L.

We used to go out with this chick from Kensington. We used to go over there and smoke some dope. You know what I mean1 Anyway, we had a gig up the Cavern Club in Leicester Square, but we didn't have a name. So we smoked a bit of dope and wondered what we should call ourselves. She said 'Why don't you call yourselves the Small Faces1" You see we didn t have the money, but we considered ourselves mod-oriented. A mod in those days was a face. We weren't very big and she said we should (all ourselves the Small Faces. Actually I was a bit pissed off with it. I was pissed off at being smal anyway and then to have the band named that also.

A.V.

What was the name of the girl who named your group?
R.L.

I can't remember, I think she was a girlfriend of Steve Marriott or maybe Jimmy Langwith, the first organist of the Small Faces.

A.V.

You mean Jimmy Winston?

R.L.

Ah, his name was Jimmy Langwith, Jimmy Winston was a load of bollocks!

A.V.

How did the other members join the group?

R.L.

I had been playing with Kenny Jones in those loser-type bands that played the public houses. My brother, who had a job in a public house, spotted Kenny Jones. Kenny would sneak in on Saturday and sit in the drummers place. He was fourteen and not supposed to be there at all. Stanley Lane said I should come and see this guy because he was good. So I did. And he was good. So Kenny Jones was the drummer and I was the bass player. I told Steve Marriott I had a Grech Tennessean guitar that myoid man had signed an H. P. agreement on.

A.V.
Is there any connection of the Small Faces name to the High Numbers/Who song I'm the Face?

R.L.

That was part of the whole mod thing. I'm a Face

A.V.

Any connection to the Byrd's song "Eight Miles High" which states: In strange places/small faces are known"?

R.L.

No. It came left wing and had nothing to do , with me. You'll have to ask the bleedin Byrds.

A.V.

There is also a reference by Robin Trower in the title track of his Bridge of Sighs LP to "Itchycoo Park" that rates: "Over Bridge of Sighs." Any knowledge about this?

R.L.

No. The term "Bridge of Sighs" came out of an lid British magazine that was In the hotel room when we were on tour. I was reading it because I was bored. The \ridge of Sighs is a place in Oxford where people used to be I'd across before they were executed. Actually, it has nothing o do with the song, but I thought It was a great term to use 'II the song. I was just digging for some lyrics. They also had II the same article the Dreaming Spires of Oxford,but Itchycoo Park wasn't in Oxford but down on the East End of ondon. It's known as artistic license.

A.V.

Rumour has it that the Small Faces did not play Instruments on the early releases, true or false?

R.L.

Absolutely false. We never did a Monkees. If we hadn't played, they would have been much better records.What you got was what was happening.

A.V.

In retrospect it is so strange the Small Faces were so popular in England yet virtually unknown in the United States. America never really got to know the Small Faces?

R.L.

They never did because the manager obviously did not have the good of the band in his heart. He was just taking it for what he could while he could. We lived pretty good, but we could have gotten better as a band If we had come over. Speaking personally, playing in America made me a better musIcian. The intelligence of the audience was higher. The American audiences know what youlre doing more than English audiences.


A.V.
By 1967 your songs began to have psychedelic or drug overtones. How did this evolve?

R.L.

We went to a party and got spiked with LSD. We didn't even take it voluntarily. Blew my bloody mind! The lyrics for Itchycoo Park came from that experience where I wrote, 'It's all too beautifull' I couldn't believe it! Where had I been all my life! The whole thing is all laid out there. And it is all too beautiful! I went out Into the street and people were coming past me with these long faces, and I cried! I couldn't believe all these people didn't realise what a fantastic gift they had. I burst into tears. Thatls when Glyn Johns came to my rescue. He took me out in his E-type Jaguar and drove me around to help straighten me out. It was a bit of a long drive. I had been scarred deeply by what I had seen where all these people were ignorant of their gift.

A.V.

Ogdens Nut Gone Flake - tell us about that?

R.L. "Wouldn't it be nice to get on with my neighbours." All that came about because Steve Marriott had this flat down by the river Thames. He did aggravate his neighbours. He played his records loud all night long. He had lots of cats who would shit everywhere in his neighbour's gardens. Marriott was a terrible neighbour. "Lazy Sunday" came about when Marriott got stoned and wrote the song in the toilet. One of the lines are, 'Sitting in the carsey, while I suss out the moon". Another true story. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake is from a well established tobacco company in England called Ogden's. We were thinking if they ever legalise this stuff we smoke then Ogden's would definitely want to market it. Ogden's used to market this tobacco call Nut Brown Flake, but we sort of fantasised they would call it Nut Gone Flake! It would be good dope and your nut would go! The round cover, which I think was the first ever used, was a disaster because it would fallout of the record bins. You said the album is a sort of cult classic. So it should be.

A. V.

After Marriott left the name become shortened to the Faces, why was this?

R.L..

Because I wanted to drop the Small! I was tired of always being small in person and on stage.

A.V.

What about making the Faces LP A Nods As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse?

R.L.
Nods As Good As A Wink was an album when we were hot! We had been playing a lot in America and it had really tightened us up. The Faces got to be so good that I myself would stand on one side playing the bass and I was in awe of the band I was playing with! We had a good time on the road. There was a lot of good living and a lot of bad living!

A. V.

How did the Faces break up?

R.L.

I don't know how the Faces broke up because I wasn't with them then. I had fallen in love with this woman, madly in love, by the name of Kate. I had the audacity to break the band's rules and take her on the road with me to America. So the band sent me to Coventry.

A.V.

You mean the city outside london that was bombed badly during World War II The band actually sent you there by yourself?

R. L.
No, not actuallly. It's an expression in England. If you're "sent to Coventry " it means nobody talks to you. I don't know why the band did this, but no one would talk to me. So I said, "Fuck this! I'm leaving this group." They didn't take me seriously because we were earning quite a lot of money, but I did.

A.V.
So the band pretty much kicked you out even though you were a founding member of the Small Faces and the heart and soul of the Faces.

R..L.
I suppose I was. Yes, I was. You can say that but I can't.

A.V.

You then started a new group called RonnieLane's Slim Chance which included a troupe of jugglers and fire eaters call the Passing Show.

R. L.
I was trying to make Kate's dream come true.She was part of that group, but I lost all the money I had made with the Faces. Mick Jagger once called me an incurable romantic and I think he was right. Kate and I aren't together anymore. She's in Wales with my two sons.

A.V.
How did you become afflicted with multiple sclerosis?

R.L. I left home when I was sixteen to get away from my mother who had M.S. all my life. She took it very negatively. My dad had encouraged me to play the guitar before I had even thought about it. He said, "If you know how to play the guitar, you'll always have a friend." I did learn to playa little on an acoustic guitar and he was so tickled with It that he went out and bought me a cheap little Broadway electric guitar. He brought it home and was bursting to give it to me. My mum said "Why did you buy him that1 He's never going to do anything with it!" She was so negative. It made me determined to do something with it and I bought her a house five years later with the money learned from playing the guitar. I was always told all my life that I wouldn't get M.S. like mum because the doctor said it wasn't hereditary. Then my father died. I was still under the illusion that men don't cry, so I didn't cry. Nine months later I got M.S. My mum also got M.S. when her mum died. I decided I was going to go to America to get to understand this bloody disease. My mother said, "You'll never walk again." So I thought, ' Yeah, it's going to be just like the guitar." I can't walk yet, but I think I'll get there. I've found out a lot about M.S. It's aided and abetted by the mercury in the amalgam filling in your teeth! The fuckin' doctors in this world! It's unbelievable! When I had all my fillIngs changed to plastic the effects were remarkable. I'm left now with the weakness of someone who has had M.S., but I don't have it anymore. I'm not slurring my speech and I'm not as easily fatigued. It's all pretty much gone because my fillings were changed and I stopped eating food that I was allergic to.

A.V.
What was the Faces reunion like at Wembley Stadium?

R.L..
That was Rod Stewart's idea. He paid for my ticket and also paid me well even though I dldn t really do anything. We had Rod Stewart, Ian Mclagan, Ronnie Wood and myself.

A.V.

How did you come to live in Austin?

R. L.
I came over to Houston to give this lady the million dollars to start up ARMS Foundation. I used to talk on the phone in the office and get on the line to the poor people and try to rally their spirits and to hang in there.Which was all hard because I was finding it very hard to hang in there myself. I had such an unfortunate experience In Houston because of this ARMS problem. I remember a black guy on the ARMS board yelled at me during one of the hearings: "Who are you? King Lane! King lane is it! King lane are you!" What an asshole. I thought I just want to get out of here. I ended up in Austin because of Chesley Milligan. I knew him when I was in the Small Faces and he was real bad and ,we were real bad together. He was the manager of Stevie Ray Vaughan in Austin, but he used to come see me and say, Keep the faith, Ronnie!" It was great and I needed that.

A.V. What are the former Small Faces and the Faces doing?

R. L. Ian Mclagan has a band in L.A. Kenny Jones is out of the Who and flying his helicopter: Obviously he's got a lot of money servicing and gassing his helicopter. Steve Marriott had a band called Packet of Three with Jimmy Leverton and Jerry Shirley which is very subtle. A packet of three is how they sell condoms in England.

A.V.
Steve Marriott and Humble Pie came to Houston about five years ago and had to cancel because of Marriott's "health:' problems. He just recently appeared in Houston at Cardi's about six months ago as Humble Pie with Jimmy I leverton and Jerry Shirley. He looked pretty good and really, sang hls guts out.

R. L.

Steve was his own worst enemy. I've always told him that. I hope he has got it together this time around. He always could sing.

A. V.

What about Ronnie Lane and the Tremors and any future recording plans?

R. L.

I will probably play with the Tremors as well as with other bands. There are a lot of musicians in the Austin ii area that are really good. Something called a kettle of fish. .This whole trip is a learning experience. It's all too beautiful!


Back to Interviews
Back to Odd & Ends
Back to Main