A pattern emerged very quickly. Phil Mogg had a tendency to ‘Baby, baby’ after almost every line he sung and it irritated me intensely. The first line of ‘Move Over’ is, ‘You know that it’s over, baby’, and even that was followed by ‘Baby, baby’. I found myself stifling an irritated grin every night. Phil and I were on a collision course from day one, really. He never passed up the chance to exert his position as number one, not that I ever wanted it, but I did ask more questions about running a band in that first month than Andy or Pete ever had. I wanted to learn about this business of being pro, and fast.
I soon gathered a following, much to Phil’s acute annoyance: we played about five shows a week and I received £15, increasing to £20 when we were in Europe. Doing a gig almost every day of the week undoubtedly hardened my character. I was becoming very resilient. It wasn’t long before I realised the job was much more than playing the guitar.
My first trip abroad – my first-ever flight – was on a Lufthansa plane to Frankfurt, Germany. We played the Zoom club, the Frankfurt equivalent of London’s Marquee. I was amazed when the audience really took to me. Everything made sense that night – my decision to join had been vindicated. Here was a whole new audience for me to conquer: goodbye north Bucks, hello northern Europe. I never underestimated all the hard work UFO had done in Germany, which helped me to build my own name. We were headlining for audiences of up to a thousand a night and thousands more at festivals. It was a far cry from the couple of hundred fans I might have seen before. I appreciated that, still do today.
We got to play alongside If, with Geoff Whitehorn on guitar, a great player; the Scorpions, Klaus Doldinger, Hackensack, Supertramp, Climax Chicago, Can, and Atlantis. It was wonderful to meet so many great musicians from different countries. I did a lot of reminiscing about Skinny Cat – it seemed a very long time ago, particularly when I was experiencing avant-garde bands such as Can. I liked their guitarist, Michael Karoli, as a person and, as a musician, well, I thought he was a quiet genius. He was the David Gilmour of Germany, playing a white Stratocaster and using an Echoplex tape-echo machine with loads of distortion pedals. Everything I never had. I’d watch him as he stood right in the middle of the stage for about fifteen minutes just playing a single chord with effects pouring from his army of pedals. I was totally fascinated by his approach. I had never been exposed to music like theirs. I realised that being a pro guitarist was a long-distance race rather than a sprint.
The other UFO boys were totally incredulous. Phil Mogg thought it was demeaning for the headliners to watch the support. Sod that! I watched everybody I could. Posters began to appear in Germany that promised, ‘UFO featuring Bernie Marsden’. I’m quite confident it would be a good thing for most people, but not UFO. Phil Mogg ended up screaming at the promoter. I just couldn’t understand what the problem was – wasn’t I in UFO? The others resented my growing fan club and I couldn’t help but wonder if the same thing had happened to my predecessors Mick Bolton and Larry Wallis. Sometimes I had to fight back both verbally and physically. Chelsea had to pull Mogg and me apart. We laughed it off, but there was an undeniably negative vibe.
The beginning of the end of my relationship with UFO was a double-headliner with Supertramp at the London College of Printing in 1973. UFO opened and Supertramp guitarist and writer Roger Hodgson watched in the wings. I didn’t have a guitar tech and when one of my guitar strings broke I quickly put down my Firebird and switched to my spare Les Paul Junior. I felt something hit me in the side of my face. The lights were in my eyes and I presumed somebody had thrown something, until I saw Pete Way laughing. My suspicions were aroused.
Mogg looked at me with a grin on his face, ‘Try to be more professional, country boy.’ He had indeed just slapped me on the face onstage. I lost it, big time.
I flew across the stage as Phil caressed his mic stand and hit him squarely across the back with the very solid 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior. He staggered forward still holding the microphone stand and managed to carry on singing.
Cue pandemonium.
Phil charged with the mic stand swinging in my direction. I parried with the guitar, Pete Way soon joined in, and Chelsea came on stage, trying to break it all up. Drummer Andy Parker just kept playing, blissfully unaware that anything unusual was happening. The crowd thought it was part of the show.
Roger Hodgson was still in the wings, open-mouthed. He later asked if that was a regular occurrence. I said it wasn’t usually so violent.
I saw Supertramp a lot in those early days. They were a very good live band and all really nice people – unlike UFO. I began to get familiar with some of the new songs Supertramp were playing, most of them not yet recorded. I liked them a lot. I heard ‘Dreamer’ and ‘Bloody Well Right’ in very early versions. The entire world now knows those songs and I feel lucky to have heard them in development. They released Crime of the Century in 1974 and became a worldwide success, selling millions. I smile every time I hear the harmonica intro of ‘Crime’ on the radio or ‘Dreamer’. I always feel a connection with Supertramp. Good days.
As for UFO, Wilf Wright had practically vanished and this was a major factor in what was a looming break-up. It was a shame: I had enjoyed recording demos at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth with Dave Edmunds. He was a kindred spirit, a fellow blues-orientated guitarist. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the others instantly hated him because he was a), Welsh and b) very famous. Some of the basic tracks later appeared on Phenomenon: ‘Rock and Roll Car’, ‘16’, ‘Oh My’ (songs that I had written with Skinny Cat) and an early working of ‘Doctor Doctor’.
I got to meet the Schenker brothers, the guitarists in the Scorpions, through gigging with UFO, and I was immediately impressed with Michael’s playing. I thought he was everything UFO could do with. I told Phil to check him out. He, of course, refused. Back in England, band relations worsened and I soon realised I wasn’t happy at all. My dream of turning pro wasn’t quite living up to my high expectations. I hadn’t imagined I would be considering quitting my first pro gig, but I was dreading my shows.
I called Wilf and told him I couldn’t face another tour in Europe. I don’t think he knew how serious I was. The guys left the UK and I didn’t follow. For years the official story was that I missed the ferry because I lost my passport, which was utter rubbish. I didn’t want to go and it was the only time in my entire career that I have missed gigs. Michael Schenker took over on guitar while Wilf and Chelsea persuaded me, rightly, to finish off the tour. I eventually arrived to find I was not the most popular person in the dressing room. I was petulant, unprofessional and ego-ridden, but I had been the odd one out for too long.
Those final gigs were filled with tension, which only eased towards the very end. We made a deal – an extremely strange deal. We just didn’t like each other and so I denied ever having been in UFO and they denied that I had been in UFO with them, despite the fact thousands of fans had seen me playing with them on stage between November 1972 and July the following year. This crazy ‘secret’ lasted until the Whitesnake days.
I knew that Michael would be approached to have the gig on a permanent basis, which was exactly what I had suggested without any response a few weeks before. In no time Michael became a bona-fide guitar hero, and that still makes me proud. The moment I saw him, I knew he was bloody good and he only got better and better over time.
I now realise that those gigs with UFO across Europe made me the musician I am today. I still think the music I inherited from the former guitar players was crap and that UFO improved in leaps and bounds with Michael Schenker. But the experience for me on a personal level was invaluable. I took the baton with both hands and I’m still running with it today. Phil, Andy, and Pete, I wish you well.
6.
I met Gary Pickford-Hopkins, the excellent lead singer with Wild Turkey, in Berlin, when I was still with UFO. Doug D’Arcy of Chrysalis managed the band which had been formed by bassist Glenn Cornick after he left Jethro Tull.
Gary