JOHN STEEL of The Animals: When Rock’n’Roll Giants Walked The Earth
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
Classic band The Animals are due to play two shows in New Zealand this week and while the original line up may have undergone numerous personnel reshufflings, name changes and even a nasty court case; the songs themselves remain forever timeless.
This current version of The Animals features original member John Steel on drums and Mick Gallagher on keyboards (best known for his work on two of the biggest Clash albums ‘London Calling’ and ‘Sandinista’) who played with The Animals during the year 1965 after he replaced their founding member Alan Price. Paired together with lead vocalist Danny Handley and his good friend Roberto Ruiz on bass and what you have is a ‘tight little four piece’ that promises one hell of a night of ageless The Animals hits along with some rare B-Sides and even a few classic covers.
John Steel explains how the current line-up came about:
“Well I am the only original member from the very first lineup of The Animals and there have been a lot of changes and things over the years. We have got two younger guys who are only in their 40’s, one was our guitarist for a while but then he became our lead singer [Danny Handley]. The most recent change has been a year or so back, our bass player [Scott Whitley] left to join another band called Big Country and Danny had a friend who was actually a New Yorker but he had married a girl from the North of England. Anyways he’s an excellent bass player so he’s taken over [bass], he’s called Roberto Ruiz.”
Regardless of the line-up changes, John insists that the music speaks for itself:
“We’ve got a great repotoire because The Animals did some great recordings back in the day. The songs have got legs so they have lasted for 50 years and you never get tired of them because they are strong songs. You’ve got ‘It’s My Life’ and ‘Don’t Let Me be misunderstood’ lots of lovely stuff like that, so it’s a very exciting repotoire so you can’t get tired! It’s absolutely nothing like a cabaret band; it’s a proper in your face, enjoyable, rock n roll blues band you know? We do enjoy ourselves and the audiences do too so that’s good! [laughs]”
We go on to discuss the timelessness of the songs and how one in particular – ‘We gotta get out of this place’ – still speaks to the generations of today, especially many of the disenfranchised youth:
“Yeah it’s a song that’s just gone from generation to generation, it’s a song that seems to mark a change in direction for a whole lot of people, leaving school or leaving university or leaving a job they didn’t like. It seems to appeal to loads of people for different reasons. We are very fortunate with that because people sort of instinctively recognize the songs even if they can’t remember who recorded them originally! We play them at a show you know and when we are talking to people afterwards they will say “Wow man I didn’t realise it was you guys that did that song!” They will say “Wow I have been singing that song all my life!” You know so it’s really good, I have never actually been embarrassed by anything that we have ever played. I have never thought – Oh I wish we hadn’t recorded that – every song we did seemed to be a proper grown-up song”
And that seems to be the secret to the longevity of the songs. At the time that The Animals were recording them each of the band members was barely in the early twenties; but instead of writing songs about love and holding their girlfriends hand they were producing very cutting edge and moody tunes, quite far removed from a lot of the music that was coming out during the 60’s;
“That’s why those songs still stand up today, as I say I feel really lucky to have been a part of a band like that and it’s still so good to play even though it’s not the original lineup. Those songs speak for themselves”
Chuck Berry has just recently passed away and of course The Animals toured with him at a time when they were still only just playing small bars and clubs. All of a sudden they were thrown on this massive tour with the legend himself. It also happened to be around the same time that ‘House of The Rising Sun’ was recorded … so I asked John how big an influence Chuck Berry was to him:
“He was an influence on all of my generation, if you were in a band and you played the guitar or whatever Chuck Berry influenced you – even if you didn’t realise it! There were people who didn’t even know who Chuck Berry was – but they have been influenced by him! He was a giant and we were privileged to be on the road with him in 1964 when he first came over to tour the UK. It was a 3 week tour with two shows a night through May of 1964 and he just blew us away! I mean we were already big fans of Chuck Berry, but just to see him in action; he had a good backing band back then which is something he didn’t have in later years [laughs]
He was such a mean, mean guy with a dollar. He would turn up to do gigs with just his guitar and he would use a ‘pick up band’ from whatever town he was playing in, and would just expect them to know the numbers – and he never rehearsed! And so some of his later stuff; I saw him two or three times in later years and you would think ‘Oh Chuck what are you doing?’ it was only to save a buck you know! But when we toured with him we saw him at the absolute top of his game you know – and yes he was brilliant, lovely!”
Was there any one thing that stood out about Chuck Berry?
“Well I mean everything about him! He was a charismatic character; he looked great, he sounded great and he wrote some of the best rock n roll songs ever written. I mean he was a poet! Those lyrics are fantastic, beautiful little stories; you can read a whole story out of just one of those songs, they are just perfect rock n roll. There’s nothing about the guy, musically, that can go wrong you know – I mean he was a strange guy, he certainly had a rather checkered lifestyle but as a musician and as an influence he was just one of the giants!”
Just as time marches on, so does music itself – new artists are emerging on a daily basis. Did John try to keep up with the changing times, or pay attention to said new artists?
“I don’t try and keep up with everything that’s been going on; I mean every generation has to have its own music. But I have noticed over the past few years that what has made me prick up my ears when I hear it on the radio are female singers! Starting with Amy Winehouse, she made me sit up straight away and of course Adele who is just massive now. KD Lang was another one who made me sit up – generally, funnily enough, it’s always been female singers; possibly because of the kind of material they did. It had this kind of a throwback to the music that I loved anyway.”
It was obvious that John preferred his era of music. So I enquired as to what one of his favourite cover songs was to play on tour:
“Yeah well we have quite a repertoire and Danny our singer/guitarist he’s forty, but his favourite period of music was my time. So he keeps trawling around in The Animals repertoire and keeps coming up with numbers and saying ‘Here let’s try this, we should do this and we should do that’ and it’s like ‘Ok I haven’t played it for fifty years but let’s do it anyway! [laughs] One of the songs that we have just resurrected is a Ray Charles number called ‘Night Time is The Right Time’ and that is going down so well, it really is a show stopper. Also Bo Diddley’s ‘Road Runner’ – we recorded Road Runner back in 1964 and that’s done well. We also play ‘Boom Boom’ by John Lee Hooker that was featured in one of the recent James Bond movies (Skyfall). ‘I put a Spell on You’ by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins; we recorded that way back when and we have started to do our version of that now. So we keep changing the set, there are still the main hits, the obvious ones, but we keep bringing other stuff out which keeps the set fresh, it keeps us fresh.
It’s nice to kick around with them and say ‘Oooo I can remember recording this and I haven’t played it since!’ [roars with laughter] But my current favourite is definitely ‘Night Time is The Right Time’ because it’s going down so well with the audience joining in. The music speaks to you because it’s got heart. It’s got heart and soul.”
At 76 some would say that John should be looking at retirement or slowing down a bit, but John has other ideas about that:
“I guess I’m just lucky you know, people say ‘how long can you keep on playing’ and I say ‘well when the body says stop that’s all I can do’ [laughs] so I keep on doing it. This is what I enjoy so why should I stop? I mean when the body wears out and they say I can’t do it anymore well … but until that day comes I will keep on doing it! It’s what keeps me young I think!”
Giants indeed.
The Animals will be performing live at Christchurch’s Blue Smoke this Wednesday 3rd May and Auckland’s The Tuning Fork this Thursday, 4th May. Tickets are still available from Metropolis Touring (But get in VERY quickly as this is nearly sold out)!
