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Andy Scott: Your office is a bit like the dark world of Shaquira then, is it? 

Shaquira Hobbs: Yes, a little bit.
Andy Scott: Where are you?

Shaquira Hobbs: Newcastle, Australia.
Andy Scott: Do you know the Newcastle, is it Town Hall? Used to be one of our favorite gigs way back.

Shaquira Hobbs: Yeah, still there.
Andy Scott: I remember it was closed for quite a while after Jimmy Barnes’s concert when part of the roof collapsed with all the things hanging off it. So, you know, but I’m sorry. Ted, give it a break will you? Sorry it’s our dog.

Shaquira Hobbs: That’s okay. So what inspired you to embark on a farewell tour and why did you choose now is the right time to say goodbye?
Andy Scott: Well, look at me, I’m old. The spring chicken era has moved on. We’ve been trying to talk, trying to find a promoter. We haven’t been as fortunate as Suzi Quatro, for example, who has always found or stuck with the same promoter for years and years and years. We seem to have bouts of going to America or going to Europe or and we’ve been doing these out of Sydney, the rock the boat cruises, you know? And finally somebody popped out of the woodwork and said, I’d like to put some dates on after you’ve done your rock the boat this year. And I immediately thought, yeah, a couple of weeks going around would be great. It’s more like a month now, but even so, I think the dates have started to sell really well. And…I’m not saying I’m amazed, but I am a little, shall we say, uplifted by it. And the word farewell comes from, in Europe, I’ve said I won’t do any of those slogging tours going from Scandinavia to Latvia and Poland and Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Holland. I won’t do that anymore because of my health as much as anything. So we tend to do six or eight shows in a month and we try and concentrate them over a weekend or something like that and then we usually have like a month off and it seems to work so this idea of farewell to touring maybe but not to actually playing shows because it’s one of the things that keeps me going performing but it’s as simple as that. I think promoters like to have a hook to hang their hat on. And this is ideal because it might be the last, but it might not. But if you want to come and see the band and you want to see us perform all those hits, then now’s the time, you know?

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Shaquira Hobbs: And speaking of your hits, you have such a big catalogue. How did you go about choosing the songs for the tour?
Andy Scott: I have been asked that one before. Yeah, over the 50 odd years, we’ve probably got a catalogue of over 300 songs now. Some of them are definitely destined for the album, you know, with some titles that are a little bit dubious. But I think that the set almost writes itself. There were something like 15 or 16 big hits around the world, you know, really big ones.
So that kind of writes itself, you’ve got to perform them. And the rest of the set is interspersed with people loved our B-sides, you know, back in the seventies. So we’ll throw one of those in. We’ve had some new recordings of which one of them is in that list behind there called Everything, which was a number one in the heritage chart over here in the UK. So we’ll probably do that. And we’ve got some heavy metal tracks like Set Me Free that will get thrown in. There’ll be something for everybody. And if you can walk, then come to the gig.

Shaquira Hobbs: Well, you do have a special connection with Australia and you’ve had numerous hits here. So what does it feel like to perform your, well, as you say, farewell tour in a country that embraces your music so well?
Andy Scott: I’ve always loved the antipodes. We don’t go to New Zealand so much, but we’ve been to Australia a little bit more. And I have to say that we speak the same language, which is good, which is a good start. And the wide open spaces that you have are absolutely phenomenal. I’ve been fishing out in some of the creeks there with, you know, with guides and things like that. We’ve met some incredible people along the way, you know, in places like Darwin and Cairns and things like that. And a few years ago, the band QSP with Suzi Quatro, Andy Scott, and Don Powell from Slade.
we had a band called QSP and we came to Australia and Suzi was doing her tour and we were the support act, you know, playing first. And one of the gigs that we did was the Sydney Opera House. So she ticked a big box for me by putting us in there. The only time I’d been to the Opera House was a long, long time before when it was just being finished in 1974, maybe, 73/74, when we were shown around the place. And I remember asking one of the guys there, well, when will bands be able to come and start playing here? And he went, not in my lifetime, I hope, is what he said, because I think he thought it had been built for opera and classical music and, you know, kind of upbeat, upbrow, kind of art. And I think within a year, the guy who was probably Australia’s biggest icon back then, who had a hit, that hit that everybody talks about, that there’s one massive hit that he’s done. Say that again. Would it be John Paul Young, Love Is In The Air? No, no, no, it was more of a rock tune that just shuffled alone.
I want to say surfing, but it’s not that. Anyway, he ended up playing, he was the first artist to play there and it just then opened the door for lots of different artists. But it’s taken me 50 years to play there. Well, you got there? We did, yeah.

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Shaquira Hobbs: The current line-up of Sweet includes some talented musicians. How do they contribute to the band’s sound and live performances now?
Andy Scott: Well, there is a kind of template that you have to have and the drummer is very important to play with the guitar, the bass and guitar and drums have to lock in. The keyboard parts are that shimmer on the top and you need four vocalists. and two guitarists. So I’ve got a guitar player who also plays keyboards. And as long as everybody plays the way the template is, it locks in and it sounds fantastic. I’ve heard so many people play Sweet songs wrong because they just don’t get the accents and they don’t get the dynamics. They think that it’s a pop song so you can just thrash through it. And it’s not like that. It’s a lot more. And the thing is, if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll never be able to perform it properly. And I’ve got guys in my band who love it, you know, in fact, they’re the ones that are on my back telling me, “Why don’t we play this song? Why don’t we play that one?” And I’m the one going, “God, that means we’ve got to rehearse and all this,” you know, but, but it’s, it’s good to have people who are driving you a little bit, you know.

Shaquira Hobbs: Do you have any advice for anyone that is trying to cover your songs?
Andy Scott: Go back to the original record and have a listen to how we did it. One good example is Def Leppard. They covered the song “Action” and their version is equally, quite different, but equally as good as the original, as it would be with a band like that.

Shaquira Hobbs: And what has been a part of Sweet Meant to you personally and how has it shaped your life?
Andy Scott: It’s been a roller coaster. There’s been incredible ups and incredible downs. I would say that I really wish there was still a possibility for the original band to still be around and get up once in a while and do things. I think that the singer, Brian,
lived his life at a hundred miles an hour. And sometimes if you don’t have a break, you know, you end up… He was in his early 50s when he died, you know, it’s just… But you hear… This is a story that is quite… I hate to say it, but quite common in the music business. You know, there are people who should have been on this earth for a hell of a lot longer and aren’t. And…
I hate the idea of someone being sanctified for a kind of willful, destructive lifestyle, but the music that they made is the thing that for me keeps it in the focus. I would like to say that the music comes first and the people behind it come slightly second because the music is the landscape and the backdrop of your life. You will have things that you will remember things because you heard that piece of music. And we’re all the same. You know, the first time I saw the band, The Shadows, Cliff Richard’s backing band, and I looked at their guitars, their red guitars, and went, “What the hell is that?” And that for me is a moment that will never leave me. So, you know, I just hope that you can’t have people who are perfect and people who are so, we don’t do this, we don’t do that. You’ve got to have some rogues in every aspect of your life. And Rock and Roll certainly has had its share of what you might call rogues and artful dodgers and little bit of, you know,
look what I did. And without that, it would just be very, very mundane. But do you not find music becoming a little bit mundane these days?

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Shaquira Hobbs: Yes, definitely. Yeah. I hang around with the old school rock and roll bands.
Andy Scott: So, yeah, like what the Screaming Jets or so?

Shaquira Hobbs: Yeah. I actually found out just before I got on this interview that Brian used to work for my partner’s grandfather back in the day. Yeah, that was interesting. And my father -in -law  did sound for you guys about 15 years ago.
Andy Scott: Right. OK, so that would have been, yes, that would have been the tour.
What’s his name?

Shaquira Hobbs: Malcolm McEwen.
Andy Scott: Yeah, I’ll dig back. I usually keep a note of who we’ve worked with, you know, when we come back to countries. I’ll have to dig that out. But yeah, is Dave, still the singer now with the Screaming Jets or is he still with the Angels?

Shaquira Hobbs: So he’s left the Angels and he’s now just with the Screaming Jets.
Andy Scott: Right. OK, because I really liked him. He was a good lad, you know.

Shaquira Hobbs: Yeah, he’s great.
Andy Scott: Yeah. And if you see him, pass on my best.

Shaquira Hobbs: I will. So after the farewell tour, what are your plans? Do you have any solo projects or endeavors that are coming up?
Andy Scott: Well, we’ve got an album called “Full Circle” that’s literally there to go. It’s been there for a few months now. When you think that’s the album done and then they don’t release it straight away, you have a tendency to, I suppose it’s like doing a drawing. And when somebody hasn’t seen it for a while, you go back to it and you start drawing a bit more. And I think that that’s what happens with recordings. We’ve now recorded another song. So we’ve now got another song for the album that wasn’t planned to be there. And the one that we’ve just put there, Sony, our record company, have gone bats about. It was not a song because it was written very quickly. It’s not the kind of song that I would have thought, they’re going to pick that as a single, but they have.
and that’ll be coming out in September time, something like that, followed by the album. So we should have an album out by the time we come to Australia. And I’m hoping that Sony in Australia aren’t, should we say blind to the fact that we have this album and they should grab it and try and sell it while we’re on tour, you know?

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Shaquira Hobbs: Yes, definitely. The glam rock era was known for its flamboyant fashion and style. What’s one trend in the seventies that you miss and one that you wish would never come back?
Andy Scott: I remember looking at photographs of myself in the early seventies of wearing. We were one of the first bands to get these stack heels. And it took a little bit of a time to get used to the fact that you’re walking instead of being five foot 10, maybe.
you’re now six foot three or something. So it was, I don’t miss, you know, trying to shove my feet into things like that. And also the bottoms of your trousers that were like this, you know, flares. I think they’re called boot cut now in jeans. At the time, we thought we were fantastic walking around with these big heels and the flared trousers. But you soon realize that going on stage in those sort of big flared trousers, you can’t move with the can’t move that much. So we started to have boots made where we tucked and silver leather and all that all that kind of stuff. I don’t miss that because a body of my shape going to being tucked into a silver leather jumpsuit these days would not be nice. So I’m I’m very happy with the like a normal jean cut and a good t-shirt suits me. But going on stage is slightly different. You have to have something that makes you kind of stand out. And we’ve always gone for these American California shirts, which have got, you know, big painted or embroidered, you know, fronts with sparkle on them and stuff like that. But that’s as far as I go. You need to need to see our lead singer to get an idea of what a modern rock god looks like. Harkening back to a little bit of the glam rock days.

Shaquira Hobbs: So you’re not going to wear flares when you come to Australia?
Andy Scott: No, I’ll probably be wearing shorts. Yeah, probably at that time of year. And instead of having the white legs, getting some fake tan on there. Well, after going through prostate cancer, I’m now 15 years in and I’m a bit of an ambassador for telling guys, if you’ve got any feelings that things aren’t right, go and see somebody. Don’t muck about. But the sun has rejuvenating things and also destructive things. So me lying out in the sun isn’t going to happen.
So putting a little bit of the fake tan on to make it look like I have been out in the sun works for me. Sounds good.

Shaquira Hobbs: Always better to be careful.
Andy Scott: Definitely. And we seem to be having it over here, I know you’ve had it in Australia for quite a while, there is the melanoma thing over here now that’s becoming quite, it’s gathering pace as we say. But I remember years ago being in Australia and they’re saying it’s almost become an epidemic that because of the amount of sun that the people have had, there’s little things appearing on people’s skin and that must be scary as well.

Shaquira Hobbs: We’ve have plenty of fake tan here!
Andy Scott: All right, that’s absolutely fantastic. And I must say, so looking forward to coming over and see you in whichever one you come to.

Shaquira Hobbs: Yes, I look forward to seeing you too! Thank you so much for chatting.
Andy Scott: That’s all right. Have a lovely day.

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SWEET
The Farewell Tour:
Greatest Hits
Dates November 2024

Friday 8th MELBOURNE, Palms At Crown
Sunday 10th AIRLIE BEACH Music Festival
Wednesday 13th TWEED HEADS, Twin Towns
Thursday 14th TOOWOOMBA, The Empire Theatre
Saturday 16th BRISBANE, Princess Theatre
Monday 18th ADELAIDE, The Gov
Thursday 21st SYDNEY, Factory Theatre
Friday 22nd PENRITH, Penrith Panthers
Saturday 23rd THIRROUL, Anitas Theatre

Tickets On Sale Now From: HERE

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Follow SWEET
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Spotify

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Press Release 7th May 2024 (below) HERE

SWEET
“The Farewell Tour – Greatest Hits”
Australia
November 2024

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AMNPLIFY – DB