Two Big Egos in a Small Car
A passionately laid back overview of the arts and culture scene in York and Harrogate with observations on journalism. This podcast is hosted by Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers and regular guests.
Two Big Egos in a Small Car
Episode 262: Interview Special with DRUM author Rob Chapman
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Charles and Graham catch up with former music journalist, now an author of intriguing fiction, Rob Chapman as he talks about his new book, Drum. Set predominantly in the alternative comedy world of the 1980s, Drum documents the rise and fall of Malcolm Drummond, a former jazz musician who takes a less than conventional route into stand up.
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Good evening, Graham. Good evening, Anthony. And above all, good evening, Mr. Rob Chapman. And apologies for my slight delay. Welcome, Rob, to the Graham's shaking his head. That's bad news. So welcome Rob anyway, despite Graham's frowning look, uh, to this latest edition of Two Big Egos in a Small Car. And Rob, it's our absolute pleasure to have us uh to have you as our uh guest for this evening. We're going to be looking at your new book, Drum, which came out in January. And um, if I may, let's first of all just introduce you. I like to use the about the author. This is from your own site. This I am a writer of non-fiction, brackets, Sid Barrett, Psychedelia, Pirate Radio, two memoirs, and fiction. I used to be primarily a music writer and music journalist, but I'm pretty much done with traditional music writing now. Good evening, Rob. Um, why are you pretty much done with traditional music writing now?
SPEAKER_02Sorry, what was your question there?
SPEAKER_03The question was why are you done with traditional music writing now?
SPEAKER_02What's made you make that's we that's such a long way to go. Uh such a such a long answer to that, really. Because I've done it for years, and because as I said in the introduction to Psychedelia and Other Colours, um second book with Faber, um, it all seems to have reached a point now where the orthodoxies are entrenched, where everyone tells the same story, the narrative, however you're talking about, whether it's about punk or the Beatles or Wallet or Brit Pop or whatever it is, you you pretty know what much know what's coming now. And I either want to find completely new ways to write about it, which I'm going to actually, or I don't want to say anything at all. It gets to the point when you're writing this stuff where you think, if this has been said a hundred times before, then either find a totally new way to say it, or don't bother repeating it because it's been said a hundred times before. And of course, once you get to that sort of state of things, you think, well, yeah, I am, I am done with that kind of style of writing. Um, I've just been reading a uh another music biography by just because it was there, it was on the free, it was on the three books on Tommerton Station. And it was someone who I quite, I won't say I like, I admire, but I, you know, I got into it in the early, as so often with these things, the early pre-fame stuff is always fun, you know, the bit before they're famous. But by the time you get to page hundred, uh page 200, it's always, and then it was time to make the third album. You know, we got we got Johnny on board again who would produce that very first EP, and we went down to a lovely studio in Bath, and Y, you know, and you know music's become history today.
SPEAKER_00The the sort of people who like myself who buy all these biographies and buy Moji Uncut, 40-50 years ago, at the same point of our lives, had we been around at that point, we would have read history today and books about the Second World War and war comics. Music's become war comics.
SPEAKER_02The the nostalgia end of it certainly has. Again, I'm not against evocation of the past, I'm not against looking. Memory is a fascinating thing to me. It's something I come back to time and time again. But again, if you are just trotting out the same old, it was great to be young and everything was possible, and you know, that story yet again. You're right, it's like war stories, you know, it's like how we survive the blitz, you know. Again, yeah, you've told us that one, grandma, you know. That's far. In fact, how we survive the blitz is far more interesting than how we survive Britpop, actually. So there you go. Since cynical old way, I'm off already. We haven't even got to drum yet. I'm already showing them that much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you know your new book drum. Yeah, your new book drum takes you the furthest on this journey because you know, if if Sid Barrett, a very regular head in 2010 and Faber and February was you taking apart the myth and the cliche and getting to real honest facts and truth about what really happened in a in a unhyperbolic way. Well, drum is like the biggest step on that journey towards the new truth because your last book, Unsung Unsaid, was like it was a fiction book based on fact, but this book feels like fact turned into fiction. You've you've you've turned things you know into a completely fictional story.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know who drum was when I started writing. I mean, you're right in a way, I seem to like writing about outsiders, don't I? There's a pattern there. But when I start unlike Unsung Unsaid, where I had a very clear idea of where I was going with it. And I remember when we did the last one of these podcasts on that, on that very book, um, I I knew what to say about everything. This book has been far more exploratory for me as a writer, and I'm not sure I do have him down pat. There's part of me that when I wrote it, I thought there was always this feeling of who am I creating here? Who is this person? Um, which is why now it's out and it's been out a couple of months. I'm I'm getting the first kind of audience responses in, and they intrigue me because, in some ways, they're they're telling me what I don't actually already know. One person said to me, um, he said, I quite liked Ron, but I'm not sure I'd want to hang out with him. And I thought, oh, is he that much of a bastard? And I thought there is a bit of an anti-hero aspect to him, but there's also a bit of a damaged and tortured aspect to him, which again, here we go down the Sid and Nick route. I'm I do seem to be attracted to that kind of character.
SPEAKER_00It's typical Euro. You've decided to do a fiction book, and rather just doing a straight novel, it's a fake biography which seems to contain elements of your own life, so it's almost an autobiography. It's a history of comedy, it's in the world of jazz, it's in the world of critics in the media, there's bits about World War II and post-war social change, there's the military life, there's issues like gender, men and women, racism, anti-Semitism, and you also write long comedy routines for drum the central character where you write whole scripts from which appear in the book. You don't do anything by halves, do you?
SPEAKER_02No, I don't suppose so. I suppose uh yeah, I kind of kind of overreach. But again, the comedy bits, it's very interesting because if you read that um not a blog piece, and I will plug this as we're here. I um there's a piece on my website under the not a blog section, and it's called um Cinepa and Comedienne, and not This Is Not a Comedian, which is a play on the old um This Is Not a Pipe, the McGreek painting, because what he's saying is this is not a pipe, this is a depiction of a pipe. And in the piece, I make the point that when you write a novel about a comedian, it's not an actual comedian, it's a portrayal, a fictional portrayal of a comedian. And I mentioned a book I read called Um A Horse Walks Into a Bar. Can you hear me alright? Is everyone first? Yes, absolutely, yeah. Okay. Um I I I cited a novel called Um A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman, which was um translated from um Yiddish, from Hebrew, um some years ago. And it's a fascinating novel. But what struck me when I was reading it was although I love the central character, when they when he went into his comedy skits, I thought this guy wouldn't have lasted five minutes on stage, he'd have been bottled off by now. In fact, he does get kind of heckled and bottled off in the end, but it takes the whole novel. And I'm thinking, no, this guy wouldn't have lasted five minutes with this. And so I'm very aware when I'm writing these sketches, these skits, or whatever they are, as you put them, um part of me is thinking, always thinking, do they work on the page? Not would they have worked on an actual stage in real life? Because again, as I make the point in that piece, when you read transcripts of um people's comedy sketches, they're often quite flat on the printed page, aren't they? Because they need to be there in the room, in the moment, with them, with an audience, hearing it. I mean, I've you know, it doesn't matter whether you read back the goon scripts or round the horn or a modern comedian scripts like Bill Hicks or somebody, if or you know, or Lenny Bruce, who gets cited in the book as my you know, as my overseeing muse through the whole thing, they don't always work on the printed page, but why should they? That's not a com what a comedian does, does it? You know, it's the same with Shakespeare, it's meant to be said, not read. You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I was going to quote you back that line from from that article that you know Shakespeare's meant to be said, not read. And and actually, I think he's he's a great example of that. I mean, Shakespeare's comedy does not work when read, it just doesn't. And not, including, for example, in Mc in the in the Scottish play Macbeth, when the porter does is there in some ways as light relief, uh it seems out of place, and people are going, well, why is suddenly why is there this joke going on in this? And actually, then just to read it would make even less sense. And so comedy absolutely is something that is said, not read. But nevertheless, you have a character here who you have uh made, you know, written about, created, so we are reading, and yet we're we're trying to create his voice in our heads so it becomes not just read but said. So, from your point of view, when in particular, with you know doing his his skits and his sketches, etc., how what kind of voice was in your head in those moments? Because if it is better said than read, what were you envisaging?
SPEAKER_02That is a very good question, because and and I'm not gonna reveal the answer because that no, it's a great question. Because when I wrote, of course, very early on, I thought I've got to have a voice in my head, I've got to have a delivery voice. Yeah, and I did base it on a certain comedian, and I'm not gonna reveal it now. Maybe in a year or so's time I might actually tell everyone. Because, see, what will happen is if I do it now, if I say, Oh, it was based on X, everyone will go, Oh, yes, it's X, isn't it? And I no, it's not, I just used his voice. Yeah, because I do use a certain comedian's voice. Actually, there are two comedians, I used one for the outer voice, one for his delivery, and one for his mind. And the mind is a whole other thing, of course. And I thought, yes, this is someone with the mind of X and the delivery of Y. Um, and I'm and I'm not gonna reveal it simply because it would overload it with, you know, everyone will go, oh, it's based on him. No, it's not. I just use that voice. But you're absolutely right. In order to create that, you've got to hear a voice, a delivery voice, in your head. It you can't proceed otherwise, but you know, that's why that is such a damn good question, and I'm not going to answer it. In not in full, anyway, but in terms of the process, you're absolutely right. I I couldn't have worked in any other way without giving him some sort of voice. Like I had to Sid and Nick, I mean, a lot of in the in the last book, it was partly emulation of getting those cadences and their both their methods and modes of delivery. And it's the same sort of thing, you've got to have his delivery. The other the other character, of course, is Foil in that book, what um Wallace Castle, is also based on uh well, a very well-known comedian. And um, that one's probably not so difficult to work out when you read it, but there you go.
SPEAKER_00You know, border like bordering on offensive. And the book itself is uh pretty biting and acerbic and and very honest. And it's almost verging on biting the hand that feeds you or has fed you in the past. Are you aware that that what that your book is written like someone who's uh taking things on and isn't particularly impressed by the state of things or the state of the nation?
SPEAKER_02Um you mean the character or me? Because it's not that there's not a lot of me in drum, you know. I mean, I I would hate to think that drum actually there's my wife read it recently, and of course, when your wife reads it, the the main comment a lot of the time is oh I've heard you say that. And of course, there are certain bits little one-liners, oh I've heard you say that, but there's certain bits I couldn't have I couldn't have done that and based it on me. I'm very good at free associating, I'm very good at taking an idea and running with it. And um so again, I'm I don't want to give any examples unless you bring any up specifically and ask me about them, in which case I will. But surely I've always I've always had I've always had the key, I've always had a keen sense of humour. As verbose as it sounds, I mean, from very early on it was my survival mechanism. I am one of those kids who got by on humour. I I'm your archetypal kid who, when I was at grammar school, where I was a complete grammar school failure, I hung around with a bunch of older secondary modern kids. When I was 14, I was hanging out with kids who had in their last year or just left school because you could still leave school at 15 then. But so when I was 14, I was hanging out with kids who were a year out in the world of work. And they tolerated me, and they must have tolerated me for a reason because I didn't have anything material that they wanted. They must have tolerated me because I was fun to hang out with, you know, and I could hold my own in that kind of company. And I've always been that person, I'll I'll freely admit that. I've um I've always been able to fall back on my humour. I've always had a quick and ready and acerbic wit, always.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but everything you do is packed with thought. So when you write a sentence, there's a couple of ideas and a couple of deep thoughts in almost every sentence. You're not one to do like a nice line because it's it's witty or or intelligent. You're always everything's got a point. There's loads and loads of content. It's really rich in content. There's there's no nothing there that's just pretty or helps the story move on. You know, there's a lot of information.
SPEAKER_02A mate of mine said recently, Sonny, you should say that actually, a mate of mine said to me recently, went for coffee, and he's again, he's a hard, he's he's a harsh critic of my stuff. He won't just soft soak me. And he just said, Your trouble is, Rob, you have too many ideas in your books. He says, It's much better to just have one idea and flog it to death for a whole book. And you're you're right, I I overload stuff with thought. You're you're quite right. I don't know, I don't know if that's a fact.
SPEAKER_00You must have read Thomas Pynchon. You'll have read Thomas Pynchon.
SPEAKER_02No, I haven't read any of these guys, no.
SPEAKER_00Well, he he chucks in everything and every sentence he's got, uh, page after page after page. So it's it's not it's not a completely rare approach, and it is a successful approach in the hands of a good writer.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, I learned my conceptual language years ago, I suppose. Again, I I was that self-taught I wasn't an art I wasn't an art student, but I hung out with other art students, and art students of all the different kinds of students you can hang out with, they're always the most conceptually astute. And I I learned a lot of that from the art people. When I was in a band, the guitarist in my band was art school. Uh we weren't an art school band, but again, I learned all Glaxo Babies. I was yeah, I was a concept. Yeah, Dan, our guitarist, Dan Katzis. Um, he went to art school in Bath. I mean, even the very name of the band, Glaxo Babies, was based on a um a Xerox he did of one of those adverts, 1950s, smiling one-year-old Glaxo Baby, which was a milk substitute, you know. And of course, what he did was he Xerox to Xerox, a Xerox, a Xerox. So you end up with multi-layered versions, and the more you do that, the image distorts. So in the end, you have this really grotesque looking baby, but the caption underneath still reads smiling one-year-old Glaxo baby. And that, if you if you get that instinctively, you get where I'm coming from. And that's been there since I was in bands. It's like as soon as Dan explained that, I thought, yeah, yeah, I get that. I know where we can go with this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's very good. I'm not I haven't finished the book yet, but it's very, very good. And if it was the debut novel by a 28-year-old, I I think that publishers and the general audience that still reads books would think this is a brilliant first novel. But bizarrely, because of the technique of the book in mixing comedy routines and oral history and description and then straight narrative, because you jump backwards and forwards, because drum, the central character, is so strong, it also feels to me almost like a potential script for a channel 4 TV comedy series like Toast of London with Matt Berry. It's it's drum's a memorable character. I could see something developing from that.
SPEAKER_02I'd love it if anyone did. I mean, again, I I don't want to sound like I'm sort of sore or you know, but I do think publishing the publishing industry does seem to be finished with me. I I mean I realised that after on Sung Unsaid, because I knew that would find an audience, you know, and it's sold at the moment speaking, it's getting it's sold about 850 copies, you know, and with an actual publisher behind it, would have it would have probably done 8,000, you know. And I thought, and I still think there's a film in that, but I'm I'm out of that loop now, you see. So you don't, you know, you don't get the reviews, you don't get to do the festivals, you don't get I I'm relying on people like you guys to actually just give me a bit of space, you know. And uh yeah, when I was writing it, I I and when I was writing drum, I just thought, yeah, I can I was kind of musing on who might play drum, even you know, thinking I can see them, I can see this being done on stage, I can see them breaking in at certain points into his routines. I could see how this would work as a film. I do think some of my stuff without being I don't do that self-consciously at all, uh at all. I don't contrive that, but there does seem to be a filmic aspect to my approach, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Rob, would you but would you write a script? Would you would you would you or would you give it over to someone else to do that?
SPEAKER_02I'd I'd give it over to someone, hey, I'm open to anything. I'd give it over, I'd give it over to somebody who could make who could use it. Um having said that, unsung, unsaid, a few of the chapters in that I did originally didn't script out, but I did map out chapters there as if they would be a film. And then I thought, no, I'll do this as a book. So again, you're quite right. I didn't do that with drum, I didn't map any any of them out. I just went from skit to skit, you know, or and from backstory to backstory, because as Graham mentioned, there's a lot about his there's stuff about his parents and what happens to them, and there's there's a lot of backstory, and there's a lot that explains ultimately why he is so dysfunctional as well, you know, why he is so screwed up.
SPEAKER_00There's a line that reminds me of you. There's a line, there's a line that says, If you praised him too much, he lashed out, he couldn't abide compliments. And I thought that sounds like Rob.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that's in the very first chapter, isn't it? Because you know, yeah, the book starts off, and this isn't plot spoiling. I do start off with a kind of vox pop. So I I start off with a kind of documentary. The very first chapter is called Whatever Happened to Malcolm Drummond. And it's all his and it's talking heads, it's all his old colleagues and friends saying, you know, what and of course that that gives you a way in to explain stuff for the audience already to lay some groundwork for them to say this is what other people think of him. And um I mean, I'm I am a Scorpio actually, and that's supposed to be a Scorpio trait that they're they're their own worst enemies, you know. They have a they have a thing in their tail, but the sting, if you corner a scorpion, it stings itself. So maybe there's a bit of maybe that maybe there's a bit of that. I I don't exactly lash out a chorus uh compliments. It'd be nice to be patted on the head once in a while, actually. That's that's all I require. You know, just leave me in a corner to get on with the work and come over occasionally and say, You're doing a good job, Rob. You know, that that'd be nice. I used that when I, you know, for the five minutes or so when I had publisher's attention, I I had all that, you know, and it's it's nice. I do miss it, you know, because you are just like pushing that boulder up the hill all over all over again on your own. Each new book you start, you just have to create the momentum from the start. Because you haven't had the teacher page Sunday Times pull-out saying, you know, Rob's new novel, you know. You you just it's like here we go again, you know. And um, sales for drum at the moment are fairly slow. I'm not despondent because it's early days yet, but it hasn't taken off yet in the way that unsung unsaid did. But you know, I'm I'm gonna carry on doing this whether I sell 10 copies or a thousand, so you know, you're not getting rid of me.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's a line in the book, there's a line in the book I like, which is comedians are architects of the implausible. And maybe you, as a music writer, now a fiction writer, you're an architect of the implausible yourself.
SPEAKER_02Well, Jerome says that when he's pissed, and I thought I'll give that him as a line. And if you read that, of course, his mates do then take the piss out of him a bit because he's being a bit grando eloquent, you know, about the whole thing, you know. And um, but that is what comedians do, they have to create an implausible world but make it plausible. That's what comedians do. I love the craft and the art of comedy, and this is where I'm a writer and I'm not that comedian because I couldn't get up night after night and do a tight 20 minutes or half an hour disciplined material night after night. I've always known that wasn't in me. And I've I've interviewed comedians in the past. I've met other comedians who have said they always knew somebody when they were growing up who was funnier than them. Frank Skinner said Frank Skinner said that to me. John Thompson said that to me. He said, But it's one thing being funny in the pub with your mates, it's another thing going on the stage every single night and doing that all Over again, and and the architect bit is you have to create the the infrastructure again, you have to lay the foundations and build on the foundations and build a plausible world, and that's what I meant by that. It's a bit grand architects of the implausible, but in the end, I thought, yes, that's what comedians are, because you've got to apply equally you've got to be taken out.
SPEAKER_03Al Murray, the way he would construct a show, Ross Noble, the way he would construct a show. Uh, in particular, um Stuart Lee, how he constructs a show, where he's as much a philosopher now as a comedian. Um, that it and yet, of course, each night there's certain in the case of uh uh of Ross Noble, he he he he creates a new show every night. It's it's newly spun. Uh with uh more often with comedians, they are repeating material on a particular tour and seeing how it plays out to a different audience. Um, that's one of the things that I think is interesting for them, you know, going around with a suitcase on their own, maybe with a sound engineer or whatever. It's a strange existence as being a comedian, playing to thousands of people, in some cases now in these massive venues, playing to maybe 15,000 people, where the laughter is being the gag is being heard at a different time at the back to how it is at the front. So, in on one level, they have to be incredibly personal. And yet, actually, the experience, surely for them overall, is very impersonal, um, in that they're playing to so many people. It's from that point of view, the contrast with the small venue where they might do the 20-minute set to 40 people or whatever. It's a very strange world, is a comedy world from that point of view, how it grows and stretches the more successful someone becomes. And I and I I don't know whether that comes into your thinking within this piece at all as to what makes drum satisfied or dissatisfied when performing.
SPEAKER_02There's so much in there in that question. So I'll start off with Ross Noble. I wonder if it is all made up every night. I wonder whether he's doing that Eddie Isard thing where Eddie Isard appears to be making up, but it's not a sleight of hand. Yeah, I do wonder if that again, part of the comedian's gift is sleight of hand to make you believe they've only just thought of this. Um I again, you know, there's that piece I mentioned Max Wall, um I went to see in the early 80s. Again, it's in the blog piece, and um he did this beautiful little skit on Churchill on Churchill statue in Parliament Square, the one that's actually been recently vandalised. Yeah, and he and he does this lovely little kind of yeah, he appears to be standing going, yeah, you buggers, you know. And he he does this wonderful bit, and I thought it seemed to me like he was making it up as he went along. And a year or so later, early days of Channel 4, and there was a lovely Max Wall special on Late at Night. Max Wall by then was way past his fame, you know, he'd become a bit of a cult figure. And there was the Churchill bit again, almost word for word, how I remembered it. And I just thought, oh, you bugger, you know. You fooled me, you fooled me, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01You know, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So they they they can do that, and of course, I mentioned that to Ken Campbell, and he said, and he made it made it seem like it was all made up, you know, improvised. And Ken Campbell just replied, I bet it was once, and of course, that's the trick, isn't it? There was that initial what time when it was new to them, but then the craft is going out there and telling that night after night as if you've never told it before. Yes, now that's one point.
SPEAKER_01Comedians usually make dungeons.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no. Let me answer this question because there were so many good points in that. The second one, the difference between a small hall and a big haul. Yeah, um Victoria Wood said, you know, the difference is you have to learn how to pace the laughs because you know in the big holes the laugh will take longer to reach the back, like you just mentioned, you know. Yeah, and you pace you have to pace it accordingly, you have to wait for the laugh to ride itself out, which you can't do in a small hall. Now I've seen Eddie Izzard playing to 50 people upstairs in a pub um in at the buzz club in Cheltenham before he was really famous. And I saw him again two or three years later when he was mega famous playing the the free trade hall in Manchester. And the difference was immense, but he had that gift then when he was still really funny. He could shrink the free trade hall to the size of the buzz club just with his intimacy. I was 20 rows back, but I felt like I was sitting right next to him. Yeah, now years later, at the height of their fame, I saw Badilla Newman when they were just mega famous, and I was sitting at the back, and they came on and they were, I don't know, they appear to be projecting to a mirror, I think, to their egos, but they weren't reaching beyond the foot front row. In fact, they were doing a lot of stuff in the front row. The rest of us were sitting there thinking, hello, you know, audience back here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's the difference, but I've never forgotten that. The intimacy, and again, there is something wonderful about seeing some of those people in small clubs. I saw a lot of those people on the way up when they were really small. Jack D, I saw planes to 100, 50, 100 people, Sean Hughes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh uh Yeah, certainly we meet we saw them in the 90s, Charles, at the fringe in Edinburgh, yes, regularly.
SPEAKER_03Yes, we did.
SPEAKER_00Who was that you saw? The whole bunch of them. They all came to the fringe in the early 90s. Edinburgh, when we used to go there religiously, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I was I was in Bristol. The first year I was in Manchester in 1990, uh, Steve Coogan and John Thompson won won the Perrier uh with their joint um thing. Again, Coogan had only just come out of doing voices for splitting image, he was still establishing himself, you know. And it was wonderful. I saw we saw all I see in all those guys, you know. I saw Bill Bailey when he was still in the rubber bishops when he was part of a double. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, all those people, and we've seen them all ride, you know, through the Sun. Saw Lily Savage again when you know it was you wouldn't have wanted to be in the front row at Lily Savage game.
SPEAKER_03My uh pleasant rob, my cousin, my cousin Robert Beaumont um had the experience of Lily Savage sitting on his knee um in a pub when uh this was in Lily Savage's pre-fame days, and there was Robert in this in this village pub in North Yorkshire with Lily Savage on his knee. So, yes, you know, you know, these these scales, how they start and how it all changes. Where would you see Drum being on that scale? Where does he where does he fit in?
SPEAKER_02He's kind of he ends up biting the hand that feeds him. He's in sort of you know, absolute rebel outside the territory. Um, I saw one or two people in the early in the 80s and early 90s who I never saw again. They just did it, they obviously just did it a few times and then get just gave up, you know. I mean, one thinks inevitably of you know someone like Jerry Salovitz, you know, who again I've seen several times, and he's one of the most dangerous live acts I've ever seen, you know. Um Bill Hicks, you know, I saw when he was still he could still really go off on one. And of course, a lot of people think Bill Hicks now is incredibly incorrect, you know, because of some of his material. But again, I you know I miss him. There's times recently with all these, you know, with Trump and everything, where you think I wonder what Bill would have thought of this, you know.
SPEAKER_03Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_02But um, but yeah, I've sort of forgotten what the question was now. What was the original question? Just drum where does drum sit? Yeah, yeah. He's he's very much at the edgy outside of things, and he'll only he'll only tow the line for so long. Again, in the Vox Pops at the beginning of the book, I have people say that you know, he was impossible to manage. He was, you know, people offered him TV such stuff, but he would inevitably he would bite the hand that you know fed him and he would get out, he'd get thrown out again. Tony Allen, I don't know if you remember Tony Allen, um a massive hero of mine. I saw him in the 80s, I saw him in the early 90s. Um, and he he was he was an outsider, he just went off and lived with the travelers after a few years. But he's one of the most original people I've ever seen. I saw Keith Allen, again, it's mentioned in the in the piece, which again I'm plugging endlessly, but I do want people to read it.
SPEAKER_01It's a good read.
SPEAKER_02Um again, I saw Keith Allen when he was in a theatre troupe in Bristol called Crystal Theatre. In fact, we used to play in the Glaxos, we used to play gigs with their musical offshoot, shoes for industry. And I saw Keith really early on when again he he had one of the most original minds I've ever seen. Again, it's hard to associate with that with the Keith Allen from you know in motion and all the rest of it and all the other later stuff, and hanging out at the ground grouch, and to all intents and purposes, being perhaps a bit of a knobhead, but you know, I saw I saw Keith Allen when he was one of the most inventive people I ever saw in my life.
SPEAKER_03That's interesting, that role of the outsider. I mean, that goes back to Shakespeare, and the the most clever character invariably is the fool in his plays, but is the position of the outsider, like a poet is an outsider, like a writer is an outsider, like a jazz musician might be considered to be an outsider. It is the traditional position to be in. I think where comedy comedians then get compromised is when they find themselves actually becoming more on the inside and losing that definition of being being an outsider. And I think someone like Eddie Azada is a very good example of that, where I think his his comedy fell away for me. I I no longer found him funny after a while.
SPEAKER_02Jack D was was genuinely sinister and menacing when he started off. And and a few years later, he's now cuddly sinister and menacing, and it's not sinister and menacing at all. It's just compromises it, doesn't it? It's just that character Jack D now plays.
SPEAKER_03Why do you think that happens then, Rob?
SPEAKER_02Because it's all new and fresh and original when they start off and um you turn into your masks, don't you? I guess they I I bet they all do.
SPEAKER_00I mean I think it's funny, it's easier to be funny when you're younger. The older you get, the harder it is to be funny.
SPEAKER_03Don't tell that Rob to Rob when he's got a book out about it, Gretchen's.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this this 71-year-old author, yeah. No, I no, I'd reject that. It's not it's not just about that. It's it's about the usual trappings of showbiz. I mean, to me, these they all want to just be on panel shows now, don't they? I see people who are really good, and I'm not going to mention them because there's some I still really think highly of, but I flipped round channel four or more four or something, and there they are on yet another panel show. And I think, is that why they do it? Do it do they start off doing comedy just so they can do is it because it's easier in the end? It's really hard.
SPEAKER_00It's easier.
SPEAKER_02It's hard making up new material, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And it's whiskier making up new material.
SPEAKER_02Because, you know, as as um, you know to start all over again. And he said I've for the first time ever I had to get in script writers because there's like I've done all this on my own all the time, and then suddenly TV is just it's just this voracious machine, isn't it? It just gorges it all up, and you've got to start again every time. And I guess in some ways, it's it's the same reason as Kenny Everett stopped doing radio and started doing TV, because on radio he was a really inventive genius, verbally, technically, and he suddenly realized he could earn 10 times more money for 10 times less effort, and um, and it's that in a way, isn't it? Several other examples of that. I think in the end, all I've all I've got to do is go on a chat show and just reprise a few of my old one-liners, and that's much easier than going out there night after night. It's like the old story, you know, but um that uh Les Dawson told John Cleese. Cleese said, Oh, if it all fell through, he said you can always go back to the clubs, couldn't you? When John Cleese used to write for Les Dawson, you know, in the late 60s, early 70s. And he said, Les's answer surprised me. Les said, Oh god, no, I could never go back to the clubs. It's like you've done an apprenticeship, it's bloody hard, and you've done your apprenticeship. And that's that's all, I guess, isn't it? It's it's hard that initial fight working your way up and going out there and bombing some nights, you know.
SPEAKER_03Rob, does writing a book like this give you the chance to have the last laugh as the writer?
SPEAKER_02Um it gets a few things out of my system, I guess. A few things I wanted to articulate. There is some polemic later on in the book, which is again, you know, I don't want to plot spoil, but there is some stuff later which one where one or two people have read it have got have kind of gone, yeah. I can see that that's you venting. And yeah, there is some venting later on in the book, but there's not much, and it's not overbearing. Uh you can't you can't write a novel on that premise, otherwise, people will just go, oh, this is some guy venting. But towards the end, the penultimate chapter is called Metallic KO, which is actually named after the um Iggy Pop bootleg where uh Iggy Pop is actually bottled off stage and knocked out flat by the Hell's Angels. And I called it that because it's it's drum's last real big sort of confrontational gig, and it goes and it ends very badly for him. But I got a few of things off my chest in that chapter. There's a few, there's some venting in there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Excellent. Graham, last question to you, and and um I'm sure how long.
SPEAKER_00It's not only a question, but I I think having read you know a large portion of it, drum is a brilliant book, and I I think it's the best book about comedy ever written. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I'd like to think people are still gonna pick up on this yet and and read it. And um, yeah, I was I was very pleased with it. There's lots we haven't talked about here, and I'm I'm kind of glad because it leaves it fresh still for the reader. It's not just one riff, is it? It's not on one level at all. It's multidimensional.
SPEAKER_00It's basically not one riff, it's more like a box set.
SPEAKER_02And it's multidimensional. Yeah, read but read the box set. Yeah, that's a good note to put on. Read from the box set.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm I'm I think we're coming to an end here now. So so, Rob, thank you so much for joining us. You've been listening to the podcast Two Big Egos in a Small Car. Your hosts were Greg Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson. This was a Baltic sub-production.