So who is Status Quo’s keyboard player – y’know, the guy who some fans think ruined the band?
Bob Young considers him “the glue that held Status Quo together during some difficult times”. But not everyone shares that opinion – to a very particular fan, his keyboards brought the much-loved Frantic Four to an end. Say Hello! to Andy Bown.
It’s hard to believe that Hello! turns fifty this year.
I had a blank about my first contribution, so I looked it up and I now realise, thanks to you, I haven’t been with Quo for forty-six years, it’s fifty. Fifty fucking years! There’s much worse things I could have done with my time, but…
How did you come to join the band?
At first I preferred being as I was, still a hired gun. Quite early on, Bob told me: “You really should do this,” but I didn’t want to. I had my own thing going, and I didn’t want to do Quo for ever. [Laughs at the irony]. And look at me now. But I did the right thing by joining them.
How did their offer come?
There wasn’t really an offer. It just morphed, tied into the changing over of personnel. “You’ve got this share, and [if you join] you get a bigger share.” There was never a conversation around: “Are you in or are you out?”
It’s peculiar that nobody said to you: ‘Welcome to the club’.
Well, it was very difficult. Francis really, really wanted me in because he thought I added something. He comes from more of a Jeff Lynne mind-set, sound-wise. Alan [Lancaster] didn’t, he just didn’t. He didn’t really want anyone else in the band. So there was a lot of trouble there. But he [Rossi] is Italian; he doesn’t really take no for an answer, and in the end he got his way.
Although you were not ‘officially’ a band member until 1981, the increased role of keyboards from Rocking All Over The World in 1977 onwards changed the course of the band.
That was a seminal moment. It was the first album I was involved in from the start because it wasn’t happening, apparently. Pip [Williams, producer] told me that. I got a call asking: “Can you come to Sweden now? This afternoon?” Pip asked whether I had an intro for the title track, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Things changed very quickly. We had played the Glasgow Apollo [in 1976, recorded for the following year’s double album Live]. Five thousand blokes, all in denim. At that point you didn’t see any women. The balcony nearly fell down due to the jumping.
Because of that sea change, to a very particular type of fan you are see
