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Badfinger : after Nilsson and Bangla
New Musical Express - February 5, 1972 - by Julie Webb


Joey:
When I joined 2 years ago, if we did anything harder than Come And Get It people came up afterwards
and said, “We didn´t expect you to play like that.”
I don´t know why we are labelled “teenybob” - it could be because we´re regarded as a singles act
rather than an album one. At one stage we played for six months solid around Britain, but we were
always fighting the Come and Get It battle - that´s all they wanted to know about. So we jacked
the whole thing for a while.
We´re not bitter, we´re not a big success in Britain. But it would still be nice to make it, and be accepted.
We´re at the stage now, here, where we´re still a semi-unknown big band. We´ve never really
been promoted, and publicists were something we didn´t bother with because we didn´t feel we
wanted one. And when we did interviews, we did things like “Jackie” - the music paper weren´t really
interested.
We virtually lived in a Greyhound couch for three months, and we were taking acid at the time. Mainly
for curiosity reasons - it really showed me up. Generally I write about things going on around me,
or things I can realise myself - when I was taking acid I wrote a song called “Feel Like I´m Flying”.
I wouldn´t encourage anyone to take acid or smoke dope, because it slows you up and puts you
in a different world. Drugs just complicate things. You get all these freaky responsibilities - like you
think you´ve got to save the world.

I know we´ve been accused of sounding or trying to copy The Beatles, but I think people are beginning
to let it go now. I wouldn´t mind sounding like them if people would just drop the subject and not
keep on about it. We´re getting more objective now - getting a lot more into each number. And the
arrangements are improving.
I´m all in favour of progressive music, but it takes time to really progress. It´s not progressive to go out
and play what is considered by the vast majority “progressive” muisc. That kind of stuff´s been
around for at least three years. So many people today are highly rated and yet they´re a load of
rubbish. Millions of underground groups go on stage and don´t say anything . . . Maybe they´ll
yell a “La la la la.” I don´t know how they can get away with it.
A lot of our act is with the audience - they´re important. Usually we start off acoustic, then go to electric
acoustic. We do one freaky number and we like people to react.

We rented the place ( their castle ) originally for six months but by the time we leave we´ll have been
using it for over a year. When we come back from our June tour of the States we´ll sort out our
own houses and flats. I keep reading about groups buying houses for thousands of pounds and
I just don´t know how they do it. I certainly couldn´t afford to buy an 80.000 pounds house - I´ll be
lucky if I can get one for 5.000 pounds.
For the first two years with Badfinger I was in debt - a new PA cost us 3.000 pounds, and you always
need some new equipment or another. It´s only now I´m starting to make any money.
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