“I worked with Roger [Waters] on the second Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking tour, the When the Wind Blows soundtrack and the Radio K.A.O.S album and tour,” Stapley told me last week.
“It was an honour for such a young musician, I was 28 at the time, to work with such a rock legend and was a massive learning experience too.
“He was, as expected, demanding, but he allowed me plenty of freedom.
“His first instruction to me was, ‘You don't need to copy Dave Gilmour's solos: just play the way you play.’
“Roger was generally good company, funny and intelligent, although he could also be difficult at times.”
Working for Mike Oldfield, he of Tubular Bells fame, was another artist Stapley worked for.
“He could also be quite difficult at times, but I learned from both him and Roger that the pressures of being the one whose name is on the tickets are very different from just being one of the boys in the band,” he said.
“I don’t believe this excuses poor behaviour, but I understand why it happens better.
“Moral of the story: never work with your heroes.
“You see them at their best (onstage), but you also see them at their worst (treating work colleagues, employees and sometimes even family badly.)”
Stapley toured Australia in 2024 as part of the Tubular Bells 50th anniversary tour.
“We were doing ‘hub’-style touring: staying a week in a major city and driving out to do gigs a couple of hours out of the city, returning each night,” he said.
“Thus, I got to see Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, and Perth.
“I remember standing on the beach in Fremantle on the last day of the tour, realising that I’d seen more in a month than most visitors get to see of this vast land ... and was being paid to be there.
“I've had a blessed life in this regard.
“Probably my favourite big city was Adelaide, and my favourite smaller city was Bendigo.”
Stapley remains active with a busy schedule that also includes live touring and composing for television and film.
“I love my studio work and still do remote sessions for people all over the world, but live work has always been the mother-lode for me, and I’m happy that I’m still able to do it,” he said.
“I’m currently touring in a show playing The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, and it is a joy to see how much this music means to the people who come to the shows.
“I’m used to seeing people cry when I play, but it is such a wonderful feeling being able to give this gift to people for whom these pieces of music mean so much because it affected their early lives so profoundly.
“I'm still blessed to be able to do it, and I'm blessed to have spent my entire life doing what I dreamed of doing when I was a kid.
“I never wanted to be a star, just a working guitarist.”
For more on Jay Stapley, visit: https://jaystapley.co.uk/
Music news
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Are nineties alt-rockers Hole about to reunite? In a cryptic Instagram post recently, Hole lead singer Courtney Love wrote, “So do we tell the kids about the tour?” The post was tagged to Love’s former band mate Melissa Auf der Maur.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, former White Strips frontman Jack White admitted he found the style of songwriting used by Taylor Swift – turning relationship break-ups into chart material — as “a little bit boring”.
Dogstar, the band that features actor Keanu Reeves in its line-up, has announced they have a new album coming in May titled All In Now.
Backstage pass: Smokie, 2006
In Australia during the later part of the 1970s, one of the bands that were hugely popular at that time, were English pop-rock four-piece Smokie, who became better known for their signature song, Living Next Door To Alice that rocketed all the way to #1 in 1977, not only in Australia, but in many countries across the world.
When the band ventured to Australia for a tour in November 2006, it had been 15 years since they had last toured here, and on this particular occasion when I first met them for an interview, they were performing at The Central Club Hotel in Richmond.
On the evening, I was formally introduced to the band’s long time bassist Terry Uttley who invited me backstage into the band’s dressing room where the interview would take place.
During the interview I queried him on whether the rumours over the years were true that their Montreux Album in 1978, where original and former lead vocalist Chris Norman and former drummer Pete Spencer, had started taking over the bulk of the songwriting did cause a rift that eventually led to the band splitting in 1982.
“No” he affirmed, “absolutely not true”.
Regarding their former songwriting team of Chinn and Chapman, he said working with them was a wonderful experience.
He held much respect for his former songwriting mentors, whom he told me, allowed the band much input into their songs.
He even revealed that Smokie once supported heavy metal band Metallica too.
The band later played a superb set that evening which featured all the band’s hits and more.
I kept in touch with Uttley over the years and even caught up with band again in 2012 in Hamburg, Germany during one of my own tours. Sadly, Uttley passed away in 2021.
Music charts 50 years ago
The top three singles on the Australian music chart this week in 1976 were:
No.1: Convoy by C.W McCall
No.2: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
No.3: Slipping Away by Max Merritt & The Meteors
Fun fact
The title of The Clash’s 1979 album London Calling was a reference to the famed BBC World Service station ID, “This is London calling ...” which was used for its broadcasts during WWII. It was phased out in the 1980s as the company began modernising its on-air branding.
