March 25, 1972 - Electric Light Orchestra

NME'S DANNY HOLLOWAY found talking to the Electric Light Orchestra a bizarre experience. Occasionally verbally-swamped by the nine strong band, Holloway writes that "I think the outfit is led by Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne. At least, they're the ones who do most of the talking. As our conversation defied all bounds of logical description, I figured it might be best for me to print print it as it happened. And let you draw your own conclusions.

Who recorded the ELO al-bum?

JEFF LYNNE: Well, it was just me, Roy and Bev. We got a couple of tracks with people playing violin and French horn, but basically, it was me and Roy playing all the instruments. Roy mostly, playing celloes and that, and me doing the piano, guitar and bass.

The three of you made the album, right? Well who came after that?

JEFF LYNNE: We decided we'd better go on the road pretty quick, so we got Richard Tandy. Say hello Richard. (The entire band was present).

Others in group: Hello Ri-chard!

WOOD: Bill Hunt played on the album as well.

LYNNE: He just played French horn, and we got these cello players from London and one from Birmingham, after a lot of searching which took months.

WOOD: We'd been through four or five sets of string play-ers, because it was difficult to find classically trained blokes who had the same sort of thoughts that we had, being group blokes. They couldn't really comprehend with our way of life.

He was playing with Rick Price, who used to be with the Move. We'd known him for years anyway. What we really wanted in the beginning.

Danny Holloway charts a long day's journey into night

Then we got Richard Tandy, who plays piano, bass guitar, and who used to be in a group called the Chantrells. We plucked him off-stage.

was a bass player who was a good lead singer and who could take the weight off Jeff and my shoulders. We couldn't find one, so the next thing we want-ed was a bassist player who was an all round musician and we found Richard.

How much will you and Jeff be singing on stage? WOOD: Jeff and I will be doing all the singing except a little bit. Richard's got a little number he's gonna do. He's gonna sing lead on that, but he doesn't know that yet.

What will the stage line-up be?

LYNNE: The stage line-up will be nine people. Three cellos, one violin, Roy playing various assorted toiletries, a saw, French horn, oboe, clarinet, pancakes, and I'll be playing assorted dustbins.

WOOD: You gonna be playing cello?

LYNNE: I'll be playing cello.

What do you think of the ELO album?

LYNNE: The album was a step towards what we want. We were experimenting on that. We were pleased with it, but now we're gonna do much better things.

Are you thinking about your next now? LYNNE: Well, we've got

ideas yeah. I think the next one will be as a theme, you know a complete story. The whole al-bum will be a story.

Do you have any ideas about what the story will be?

LYNNE: Yeah, but we'd rather not say at the moment. We'll tell you that at a future time.

Won't it be a bit difficult for you, with nine people on stage? OTHERS: Nearly impossible!

LYNNE: It is impossible really, that's why we're not really doing it.

WOOD: We're having them all hanging by tight-ropes and swings and things, 'cause when we've got the gear on stage there won't be any room.

LYNNE: We're thinking of getting the audience on the stage and we'll be playing in the hall.

I've heard that you've got strong feelings about your loyalty to Birmingham and that you hate London a lot.

WOOD: We don't hate Lon-don at all. We just enjoy living in Birmingham.

WOOD: We were born here. All our friends are here, and we don't see why we should live in London. Managers in the past have said to us "You've got to move down to London, every-body does it. You can't be in on the scene unless you're in Lon-don". It's only a couple of hours down the motorway. You do what you wanna do and then you can retire to the virtual peace of Birmingham. Hasn't your songwriting taken a turn recently? You've been writing more popular songs.

WOOD: Which ones are you on about?

Well, I've heard that you...