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Status Quo star Andy Bown says he never wants to have to listen – or play – “the first three or four” hits by The Beatles, admitting: “I’ve just had enough of them”. The 1963 smashes From Me To You, She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand were followed the following year by Can’t Buy Me Love – setting a musical template for bands that still resonates today.
But at the grand old age of 79, keyboard maestro Bown says he’s had enough of the iconic tracks and never wants to hear them again. He revealed: “The first three or four Beatles songs – particularly I Wanna Hold Your Hand – I’ve had enough of that.”
Bown revealed on the latest edition of The Keyboard Chronicles podcast as he delved into his fascinating 60+ year career playing alongside some of the greatest musicians of all time.
His first band The Herd saw him joined by 16-year-old Peter Frampton and they scored three top 20 hits before Frampton left to form Humble Pie with Steve Marriott.
Bown then performed at the legendary 1970 Isle of White Festival with short-lived prog rock supergroup Judas Jump – featuring among others Amen Corner’s Alan Jones, before working as a go-to session musician primarily as a bass guitar player before starting to work with Status Quo in 1972 – a band he admits he wasn’t that keen on at the time “but needed the money”. And now, 53 years later, he has been responsible for writing many of the band’s greatest hits, including Whatever You Want and Burning Bridges.
Bown was also the man who played the opening solo notes to the iconic piano intro of Rockin’ All Over The World at Live Aid, but insists that is not his best musical moment.
Instead, that came when he took part in Pink Floyd’s epic The Wall tour as a “surrogate Roger Waters,” playing bass while wearing a Waters face mask to create the illusion of two bands on stage.
Bown reveals that at their first rehearsal Waters hit a mammoth bum note that prompted him to make a joke that he feared could have seen him kicked off the tour before it had even started going.
He said: “I was a surrogate Roger on The Wall tour. And we did a two or three wek rehearsal. David was in charge and we were getting it together and then Roger’s coming in. Everybody was like “oh.” Roger came in and I thought ‘oh dear, it was quite nerve wrecking really. And we were playing bass together, this was on the first day of rehearsal, I’m really quite nervous because it’s Roger, when hehit this really dreadful bum note – really bad – and I said to him if you’re going to play like that I want smaller billing. And I got away with it. He did laugh, and from that moment on we became quite firm friends. And we, we were very close for quite a long time. We are not in touch anymore, but we went on holiday together with our families. He invited us to his place in France, we spent Christmas together with the children. I used to nip round and we’d play snooker all night.”
Bown, who is estimated to have played said the Floyd shows were “far and away the best, most satisfying work I’ve done. Definitely. It was really perfect for me, bit of acting, bit of this and a bit of that, a few changes. Fantastic, amazing staging. It was just awesome, the whole thing was jaw-dropping, The Wall, the way it all worked and the amount of money spent.
“I was stood at the back of a stadium in Culver City with Floyds manager who was telling met it beter work because they wre $2.8m down – which was a lot of dough in 1979 – and I just thought, ‘this is amazing’. And then ABBA walked in!.
Recalling how it worked Bown also revealed that he played more than Waters on the show.
He added: I played the bass, Roger played a little bit but I’m not sure much went out front (to the audience) . I played the bass on the shows.”
When asked of his recollections of Live Aid – where he famously played the first notes of the iconic intro to Rockin’ All Over The World – Bown joked that he hadn’t washed his hands since.
He added: “It was very exciting. I’ve never seen so many people but I wasn’t really processing the fact of how big it was. I knew I had to count it in, I knew I had to play the first few bars all by my own, but I wasn’t really processing the fact that 150 million people would be listening. So, it all went quite well. Jesus sort of. and just we just did it – or I just did it. I think everybody was feeling different stuff but, yeah, I just treated it like another session, another gig. I got away with it.
The Keyboard Chronicles is available to listen to across all platforms now.
