Frankie says…
…give it loads! Loads of verbal, that is. These lads have more rabbit than Sainsbury’s —
OTHER BANDS
“I think Echo and The Bunnymen are brilliant. They deserve all their success.”
Holly.
“He doesn’t like us, Nick Beggs. He thinks we’re morally wrong.”
Paul.
“If you see someone like Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, he’s got a Fairlight but when it comes to playing gigs and you ask him if he knows how to work one, he’d say, ‘No.’ Same as us.” Ped.
“I don’t like Lloyd Cole & The Commotions because they don’t like us.”
Mark.
“Cyndi Lauper’s obnoxious.”
Nasher.
“Culture Club have definitely wimped out. The Thompson Twins are really wimpy. Duran Duran used to be really brilliant but they’ve wimped out too.”
Nasher.
“I used to watch lots of bands like The Who and Led Zeppelin on the television and wished I could be there.”
Ped.
THEMSELVES
“He was a skinhead and I thought, ‘Oooh! He’s weird!’ He had this blond skinhead cut with ‘Psycho’ sprayed in black on his head. I hated that. He was wild but he’s not any more. He’s been tamed by age.”
Nasher on Holly.
“When Holly was in Big In Japan I used to think, ‘God, he must be dead famous.’”
Mark.
“He sounded like Johnny Rotten.”
Holly on Paul.
“Nasher always gets up earliest, the little egg, but then he’s usually in bed first. He bangs on Ped’s door but Ped’s taken the door knob off so he can’t get in.”
Mark.
“He’s a great one for asking everyone, even the cleaner, what they think.”
Mark on Frankie producer, Trevor Horn.
“You used to get people writing in to the Liverpool Echo saying, ‘Who is this Martian walking round town?’ I used to get battered. Going out for lunch was like running the gauntlet.”
Holly.
“I suppose we’d have to buy individual gaffs and a communal gaff ‘cos in twenty years we’ll be a phenomenon.”
Mark.
“Usually, I’m friendly and gregarious, but there are times when I wonder why anyone would want to speak to someone as boring as me.”
Paul.
AMERICA
“It’s been a dream come true for us. America has always been the place to succeed.”
Holly.
“You get lonely so you turn on the telly and there’s some news about cab drivers getting shot in the head for five dollars. All the TV makes you paranoid.”
Mark.
“I love New York and I hate it. New York is ‘Hello I love you, give me some work!.’”
Holly.
“Beware, the Big Apple is full of maggots.”
Paul.
“I have little doubt that America will be as beguiled by us as Britain has been.”
Holly.
“Like I phoned up me ma and everything sounded dead normal at home, you know they’re watching ‘Corrie’ and I’m on Madison Avenue!”
Mark.
TELEVISION
“I used to like ‘The Avengers’ and ‘The Champions.’ ‘The Champions’ were the ones who used to wear polo necks.”
Mark.
“John Noakes (Blue Peter presenter) was brilliant. He had loads of bottle doing all these things that no-one’ll do anymore like jumping out of planes and getting stuck on mountains in Scotland. He was a bit of a plank like, but he was dead funny.”
Nasher.
“I still love ‘Corrie’ —
Paul.
“You were either a Jackson cartoon fan or an Osmonds cartoon fan —
Mark.
“‘Brookside’ is a brilliant programme, it’s far too subversive to be called a soap.”
Paul.
SUCCESS
“This is harder work than any other job I’ve ever witnessed.”
Holly.
“The playing side is great but the non-stop Press!”
Paul.
“Showbiz is a very strange thing, I’ve got a love-hate relationship with that. In Liverpool your mates say, ‘You’re there, Holly, you’re there’ but they only see the end product, not what that entails.”
Holly.
“It’s brilliant. I mean, a year ago. I hadn’t even been to London —
Mark.
“Course we like making money but we like working as well.”
Ped.
“We are here to stir things up. Even people that hate us have to admit that we’ve already succeeded in doing that. Love Frankie or hate it —
Holly.
“When you become a public figure you cease to seem ordinary.”
Paul.
“We’re only rich on paper. Maybe we’ll become tax exiles on the Isle of Man. Imagine the three lads as millionaires!”
Mark.