Project Description

Interview With

LES MCKEOWN

of the

BAY CITY ROLLERS

Interviewer: Matea Jozić

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After last year’s amazingly successful tour Bay City Rollers are coming back in July! Keep that tartan pressed and your dancing shoes polished as these Scottish exports, the Bay City Rollers Featuring Les McKeown, return in 2018 to whisk you into a 1970’s frenzy all over again! Les was more than happy to have a chat with Amnplify Interviewer Matea about the upcoming tour.

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Hey Les! How are you?

How you doing? I’m fine, yeah!

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What are you up to today?

Doing interviews for Australia!

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How’s that going for you so far?

It’s going good, it’s been good chatting about the upcoming tour and all that!

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That sounds so great! So, you guys have been performing as a band for a very long time, is there anything that you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?

Life goes by, we’ve been playing with the original band from ’73 through to ’79. The band I’ve got now is the band I’ve been touring with for the last 25 years. Well, there’s been a few changes here and there and it’s really happening. We tour all over the UK six months of the year, we tour Japan every year, we’ve come to Australia, last year and this year, we’re going to Canada early next year and again back to Japan so it’s pretty busy all the time. Fans seem to enjoy reminiscing the good old days and singing the old songs that they sang when they were kids so, it’s a pretty good life.

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That sounds so good! You seem pretty happy doing that…

Yeah, I’m over the moon!

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I’ve heard a lot about your infamous tartan outfits from over the years, especially the pants. Can you tell me a bit about those and where they originated?

When we sort of started getting famous in the UK we sort of stole little bits of ideas from other bands, one of them was a band called Slade, they use to wear rolled up jeans with a Doctor Marten boot. So, we kind of copied the rolled up jeans but we wore Adidas trainers instead of those big boots and so that was part of the image done.Then of course in Scotland we were Scottish so we thought we’d put some tartan on our shirts and that became an instant success and that’s the way we were dressed for a little while.

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They were some pretty fancy outfits! I know someone who made their own tartan pants once and skipped school to attend one of your shows in the 70s, do you ever hear fan stories similar to that that bring back any fond memories?

I mean, The Bay City Rollers outfit was pretty easy to make yourself. You know, you just needed to get an old tartan scarf and colour your jeans in and people did that a lot. And of course in the UK we also had a company called CNA they started to sell the complete outfit and you could look like your favourite Roller. So, it went a wee bit crazy like that.

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Do you ever think about putting your outfits from the 70s back on? Do you still have them around?

No, most of that’s all gone. They’ve gone to various hand bagger shops all over the world. Hard rock cafes and stuff like that. I think I had a 23 inch waist back then!

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I’ve seen a fair bit of footage from you guys were on Countdown with Molly Meldrum back in the 70s, he’s a bit of a music industry legend here, do you have many memories of him?

Yeah, I mean last time I saw Molly was 2007 when we were on tour with a whole bunch of other acts had been on, it was called The Spectacular Tour and so Molly was there introducing people backstage. There were lots of other acts that were famous for being on that show. So, that’s the last time I think I saw him, he’s still around, yeah?

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Yeah! He’s totally still around, he had an accident a couple years ago he fell off a ladder and hit his head and was in a coma for a fair bit. But, he’s alive and kicking he’s doing alright now but there was a very big scare a couple years ago!

Well, I’m glad to hear he’s doing well now, that’s great!

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Do you have any favourite songs to perform live now compared back in your younger days?

I still enjoy singing the songs that I made famous back in the day, I mean people still want me to sing it. Things like Shang-a-Lang and Bye Bye Baby that’s at the end of the show every night. We sort of do all Bay City Rollers songs and that’s kind of what the public wants really from me. They want to reminisce back when they were young and free and they were in love with a famous boy band from Scotland called The Bay City Rollers.

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Do you think that fan favourite songs have changed over the years or are they still the same even now?

I think probably they’ll want to remember the songs that were you know, in the charts at the time. When we were going through so many physical changes and mental changes, when they were just young girls. So when I sing something like Bye Bye Baby that’ll conjure up people’s minds as to what was going in their life at that time. And, thank god that they’re always good memories!

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I can tell you that even I have memories from that song, I’ve grown up with my mum listening to your music and it’s very surreal…

Great! Great mum!

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When I told her about this interview, believe you me she was more than ecstatic and started playing your music live from our TV…. You wouldn’t believe how happy she was when I told her about this….

See that’s great, that’s what The Bay City Rollers bring back to people, nice memories! That’s great, I’m glad to hear that.

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Do you ever hear some of your earlier works and wish you’d created some songs differently? Like, do you hear them and think I wish I’d adjusted say – that guitar or that piano sound, or anything like that?

No, I’m pretty happy with the way things sound. We had some pretty good producers back then, I’ve done some of my new stuff. Songs that I wrote when I was a kid with The Bay City Rollers in 1974, 1975 and I released an album and I called it The Lost Songs because they were more of less lost for about 30 years. It’s taken me a while to get them on a record, but I’ve got them on the record and it’s getting good reviews.

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What’s it been like working in the music industry for 40 odd years, are there any major things that you’ve witnessed that have changed?

It all seems to have gone very quickly, that’s the only thing! I was invited to join the band and leave school at 15. So, I’ve been singing now, singing for my bacon for 47 years.

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That’s so crazy! Not many people get that opportunity. Is there any advice that you’d give to your younger self? Would you have stayed in school, or would you have done exactly what you did?

I think I would do exactly what I had done. I’d do it again. Even the bad bits were good.

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You’ve had a pretty successful career to say the least and even now you’re going really strong! Thank you so much for your time!

That’s okay! Say a big hello to your mum from me!

I shall! Thank you so much, enjoy the tour!

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Connect With BAY CITY ROLLERS:
Website       Facebook       Twitter      Instagram

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AMNPLIFY – KH