The Beatalls :: (Long awaited) interview

15 August 2003

Nina Douglas: How did the band meet?
Ian Watts: I met Andy many years ago when I was about 17 or something, and [to Andy] you were 24. In a sixties band, doing sixties covers.

[At this point, my tape recorder cut out... a full history of The Beatalls can be found on their website... www.thebeatalls.com]

Nina: What are your favourite songs to perform live and somehow, I don't think you're all going to agree on this?
Steve Heappey: She's a Woman
Andy Birkett: I like…
Steve: Honey Don't?
Andy: I like all the early stuff. I like doing like I Wanna Hold Your Hand and She Loves You. Things like that and yet they're not the songs I would listen to.
Mel Heappey: I would agree with that. She Loves You is my favourite to play.
Andy: ...For audience reaction.
Nina: To get people dancing along…
Steve: But we all like Honey Don't!
Nina: of course!

Nina: What is it about the Beatles that you all wanted to be in a band paying tribute to them?
Andy: For me it was because I went to see a tribute band, before I'd ever seen any other tribute bands and they did some Beatles and I don't think they were all that good but it was so exciting and everybody in the audience was so excited by it, I got excited and thought "wouldn't it be a nice thing to do?" And that's how it started - for me anyway.
Ian: It was the trousers for me!
Mel: Forty years ago when it was happening around it was just absolute magic.
Nina: You've been a Beatles fan all your life?
Mel: Yes!
Steve: I blame my brother!

Nina: What's the biggest challenge that a Beatles tribute band can face? What's the biggest hurdle to overcome when you're first starting out?
Steve: Working together. Really I think. You've got to work together and you've got to give and take.
Andy: Yeah I'd agree with that!
Steve: It takes personalities to work together.
Andy: Four very close people.

Nina: What's been your most memorable moment?
Ian: Just now when you're interviewing us! It's absolutely great!!
Mel: Well I managed to sell the Beatalls backdrop dirt cheap to a Rolling Stones Tribute band!

Nina: Are there any gigs that stick in your mind or anything like that?
Andy: Loads actually. You remember the ones that are either really funny or quite bad. And then the other extreme is the ones that are really ace like the first time we did a round of gigs in Liverpool was fantastic. Playing at Chavasse Park in front of several thousand people that was great.
Ian: The first gig in Argentina was great. Mel had to do a George Harrison tribute…
Mel: It was the anniversary of his death…
Ian: [to Mel] and you were really nervous. Yeah it was the anniversary of his death… the same night as the Albert Hall.
Mel: Louise Harrison was there
Ian: It was just a great thrill to do different songs. We did the Inner Light and stuff like that which was brilliant.
Nina: Was it a challenge to learn all those songs or had you done those before?
Ian: We'd never gigged them before we'd sort of just put the odd one in just to rehearse them up but just to do them live was great. Tracks that you never get to do live, you'd never get away with doing them live apart from something like that, a convention of some sort.
Mel: My gig would be the Cavern gig before McCartney's last concert in Liverpool.
Nina: In the afternoon…?
Mel: Absolutely fantastic!

Nina: What song has been the biggest challenge to learn, that you perform?
Ian: I think it's got to be The Inner Light.
Andy: That was a corker!
Ian: It was really difficult. We had a drone track and I just recorded a load of Indian instruments from a sampler and we put them on a CD. It was just a drone track going all the way through, one note. It wasn't exactly like the record but we did all the diddley-diddley [sings the sitar part!] bits on the twelve-string. It sounded great!
Steve: The hardest one for me was Yesterday!

Nina: What song that you don't currently play would you most like to attempt to do?
Andy: I think probably Strawberry Fields is one of the ones. We don't do it because of all the backwards music and orchestration on it but we have mucked about with it and rehearsed it and it sounded pretty good but it's just so difficult to do live when you really want to be a live band, and there's four of you, without a backing track. That's a challenge.
Ian: I'd like to do Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey cause it's great and the bass-line's brilliant. I'd love to do that!
Steve: I'd like to do In My Life.
Mel: While My Guitar Gently Weeps but it's not something that we can take to the sort of gigs we do.

Nina: If you weren't a Beatall - who would you portray in another tribute band (non-Beatles)?
Andy: It would be have to be Mark Knopfler or Pete Townsend for me, looking like I do… I prefer Pete Townsend so I'd do The Who!
Mel: I'd like to play in an Eagles tribute band.
Ian: It would have to be Wings for me, I'm sorry!
Steve: That doesn't count!
Ian: No, it's not The Beatles!
Steve: I'd play with the Stones…

Nina: If you could be your respective Beatle at any time, when would it be.
Steve: When I went up the high street in London with George after getting pissed on Coke and Whiskey. In the carriage.. "Shit kickers from Liverpool".
Andy: Obviously there's a time I wouldn't be… as John. I think I'd have to go right back with John. He was probably much happier in his very early days. 62, 63, 64 and then things got difficult for John, in his personal life. So very early sixties.
Mel: I'd like to be making the Help film, with George.
Ian: I'd do Paul right in the beginning. Right when they were just cracking onto the scene. It was really exciting, you know, great new suits and all that sort of thing. That would be good. The excitement!

Nina: What are you looking forward to most about Convention next week?
Steve: Playing!
Nina: Anything else you want to see while you're there.
Steve: All of it! Everything about it!
Andy: Other bands.
Ian: I'm looking forward to seeing Johnny Silver again. That will be good.
Nina: Are you going to play with him at all?
Ian: He's invited me to but I don't know how it's going to go because we've got quite strenuous sets ourselves. He wanted me to do Helter Skelter which is just a throat killer so it depends when it is!

I'd like to thank The Beatalls for taking the time out to talk to me and apologise for the technical difficulties and for it taking so bloomin' long to get this interview done! Cheers guys!

Nina Douglas