The English band Starry Eyed and Laughing had a great sound a little late. With albums like Same (1974) and Thought Talk (1975), their sound was unmistakably influenced by the Byrds.

Their guitar player Tony Poole tells all.

Robert Pally: Was there any particular song that
inspired you to start music?

Tony Poole: It has to be "Mr Tambourine Man" by The Byrds - up to that point, I was likeany other teenager following the charts - everything by the Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Animals, all the english bands - but after hearing the Byrds, I got a Fender bass just to learn the intro! Ross pretty much showed me my first chords - D, G and A - (he'd had lessons) and soon after, we formed a band called The Chymes - Ross had a Hofner Verithin guitar which he tried to make sound like a Rickenbacker, and I played bass. Our first concert (at school), we played "Tambourine Man", "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"...and "Wild Thing" by the Troggs !

Robert Pally: Were you or anyone else of the band in a band before SE&L? If yes, in which one?

Tony Poole: Only Iain Whitmore, who was in a band called Patches with Leo Sayer - who went on to have lots of hits as a solo singer. Apart from that, it was the first professional band for all of us.

Robert Pally: Starry Eyed & Laughing took its name of the Bob Dylan songs "Chimes of freedom". Were you a fan of him or did you just like the phrase?

Tony Poole: We were big fans of Dylan - Chimes Of Freedom was always one of my favorites, and one day during the period we were searching for a name, that phrase "Starry Eyed and Laughing" just popped into my head. It seemed perfectly to describe the experience of being in a band - you have to be an optimistic dreamer, and also take it all with a sense of humor.

Robert Pally: The early 70ties were the time of prog- and hardrock. What made you play 60s inspired music?

Tony Poole: We hated that 70s music - glam-rock, prog rock.. ! Looking back, some of ithas stood up better than you'd expect, but at the time it was horrible...glam rock was just showbiz, rather than music, and I preferred the Syd Barrett Pink Floyd to the 70s version, though I like it now, and can see how it had evolved into a valid English rock music with Dave Gilmour...our hearts were with west coast music - Byrds through to Crosby
Stills Nash & Young - I can't explain why...except to say that even today some english bands still try to sound american - so-called "americana" - in spite of the most success going to resolutely english-sounding ones - Radiohead, Coldplay - just as it did to Pink Floyd back then... ..and though we were somewhat rockier or heavier, we never took any influences from the Black Sabbath school of hard rock..

Robert Pally: Your 2 albums sound a lot like the Byrds. How concious was that?

Tony Poole: It was very conscious - the sound of the Rickenbacker 12 string was so powerful for both myself and Ross (he owned one that used to belong to Pete Townshend briefly before I got my own), and the spirituality of their songs was what we aimed for. Though we did start out doing covers of those songs, we were never just a copy band, as we wrote our own songs, and they took precedence, both on record and in concert. Also, we had other influences - Beatles, Who, Stones, Moby Grape - that made us much rockier then The Byrds,
especially live.

Robert Pally: The SE&L lyrics talked about obsessions, desperation, suicide and oppression. Thats quite an contradiction to the beautiful music. How conscious was this contrast?

Tony Poole: It was a conscious thing, the idea of say "Nobody Home", which is a put-down song like "Positively 4th St", but done in a very light way - it made it more sinister! With Ross's songs, the gentle way he sang about
relationships gone wrong, and the melodies he wrote made them more effective - that resignation. It's probably something we unconsciously learned from the Byrds - they rarely, if ever, made ugly music, even when singing about terrible things..there's the same resignation and stillness in
something like "I Come And Stand At Every Door".

Robert Pally: What inspired the lyrics?

Tony Poole: We had three writers in the group, so there were different inspirations. Ross almost always wrote love songs from a broken heart point of view, Iain wrote about real situations he'd experienced in a down to earth way, and I was probably most inspired by Dylan - I wrote about personal things too, but with a distance from them - One Foot In The Boat really is about thedarkness of "to be or not to be", but each verse has an ironic punch line..and my lyrics were probably the most surreal. None of us was really writing "pop" songs, lyrically, though mine were used as singles because they seemed the most catchy, that was a mistake ! We'd probably have done better with Ross's love songs - my lyrics were too weird..

Robert Pally: Your 2 albums were remixed for an US release. How come?

Tony Poole: Our producer - Dan Loggins, brother of Kenny Loggins who was a big star - thought we needed a different mix for american radio. As he was experienced in that US market, we guessed he knew best. Personally, I'd been unhappy with the original mixes, so it was great to get a second shot at them.

Robert Pally: You played a lot live (299 concerts between 28th may 1973 - 5th april 1976)). What is the best and worst memory from that?

Tony Poole: Best memories are some amazing shows - the Zigzag 5th Birthday Party at the Roundhouse with Mike Nesmith and John Stewart is one, another at The Nashville in London when we were at a popular peak (supported by Last Exit - with Sting on bass !) is another, the New York gigs with Flo & Eddie - we actually had many more great gigs than bad ones, there seemed to be a lot of goodwill towards us - even a memory of The Smiling Dog Saloon in Cleveland playing to the bar staff and a handful of customers isn't a bad one - we just laughed at the situation. The worse memory, really is of all the time spent traveling in cold vans that broke down - no luxury tour buses at that level !

Robert Pally: How much money did you get for one concert?

Tony Poole: In the beginning, we hardly made anything, and I don't think it ever got up to a good amount - even though we were always re-booked for more money. I don't remember actual figures, but for example, our US tour earned $28000, but cost $41000 ! CBS paid the difference..which would have been peanuts to them ! We've never made any money from the band, CBS only paid for the recordings, no personal advances - it was a licence deal, after all.

Tony Poole: Your friend from school Ross McGeeney was fired from the band (75/76). What had happened?

Tony Poole: The US tour was a real melting pot for us - things were very badly organized by Columbia - and the pressures caused some serious disagreements, the worst of which was between myself and Ross, who were the leaders of the group. Strangely enough, I can't remember what we argued about now ! I'm sure we both wanted the same thing, and were frustrated in the same way, just couldn't find a common way to achieve it. Ross was a pretty overpowering
character in some ways, sometimes contradictory, and the rest of us thought it would be easier to continue without him - a bit like Crosby and the Byrds, to draw an inevitable parallel...we were wrong, though.

Robert Pally: Your last 3 songs were produced by Flo & Eddie. Was this a kind of a last try to get some kind of recognition or success? How was it to work with them?

Tony Poole: Well, it wasn't thought of as a "last try" at the time, but it was an attempt to get a hit ! Totally misguided, but no regrets, because it was fabulous to work with those guys - they'd really seen it all, been ripped off, larger than life - and they were there in the 60's right in that West Coast scene, getting hits along with the Byrds. I remember Mark Volman (Flo) saying when we were recording my Rickenbacker parts, it was a dream come true for him, because he loved that sound ! He was quoted in the press as saying "This is the best thing the Byrds have ever done !" We'd supported them at The Bottom Line in New York, and hit it off - one night they had Lou Reed guesting, the next we had the Flying Burrito Brothers, they responded the next night with Patti Smith ! - it was a great atmosphere for those three nights. In London, they stayed at the most hip rock'n'roll hotel, I'd go and pick them up for the studio and they'd be breakfasting with Leonard Cohen, all kinds of famous groupies - once Harlan Ellison (a science fiction writer I was a big fan of) - it was mind-blowing..

Robert Pally: At the end what made you change the name to Starry Eyed?

Tony Poole: That was a record company decision, though I like Flo's explanation: "Laughing" left the band ! It was a pointless thing to do, really - but the British pop scene is such a superficial thing, the publicists probably thought it would make a difference..

Robert Pally: "That was now and this is then", that contains both albums & xtra tracks, was released on Aurora Records as a CD-R.
Didn't you get the permission from Sony? No worries I am not going to tell them!!

Tony Poole: Don't worry about snitching ! We got the rights back from Sony in 1996 - luckily our deal was through our own production company called Panda, who only did a licensing deal with CBS, as they were at the time. So they are out of the picture...the fact that we've only done a CDR so far reflects two things - 1) we weren't sure enough of the demand to invest in manufacture, and 2)these days CDRs are as reliably played in modern CD players as manufactured disks, and a lot of people rip the CDs anyway onto mp3s and hard drives - the actual CD is just a passing storage medium. We did want the artwork and booklet to be special, so that's pretty high quality with lots of info and history. We're probably going to manufacture sometime soon this year, as the demand has been amazing...

Robert Pally: Why did the band split?

Tony Poole: Mostly for economic reasons - we couldn't sustain the band without hits - but also for personal reasons. We had a very intense 2 years playing and living together, and the different pressures effected us in different ways.

Robert Pally: What are the memembers of SE&L doing / working today (including you)?

Tony Pool: Mike Wackford (Drums) is an astrology expert, still a big music fan though I don't think he plays much; I believe Ross McGeeney (Guitar) still does sessions but I've lost touch with him - he did have a drug problem for a long time, so I hope he's clear of that now; Iain Whitmore (Bass) is a musical director and actor with the Chicken Shed Theatre in London, as well as playing in The Falcons with me; I've become a record producer mostly - recently worked with Steeleye Span, Maddy Prior and done some folk albums, the latest of which is "Avebury" by Abbie Lathe. She did one of my songs on there, and I helped her out with a couple of others. It's been getting some great reviews...

Robert Pally: If you could start again with SE&L, what you make differently?

Tony Poole: With all I've learned about the record business, probably used more resources on payola ! Seriously, I think the main thing would be to have released Chimes Of Freedom as a single, and possibly do more songs by some hip american writers - it would have pitched us more as a US-type rock act, rather than a British "pop" act. We simply weren't that, and so lost out in both areas.

Robert Pally: Can you tell me more about the Falcons? When came they together? How come Ian Whitmore plays in the band?

Tony Poole: Iain and I have played together consistently since those days, both as a duo and in bands, other peoples' and our own - we made some records as a trio called The Sun in the 80's. In 1998, we started writing country songs together as a project to get them sold in Nashville, but after playing some demos to people like Pete Frame and Pete O'Brien (Omaha Rainbow) who were very enthusiastic, we decided it would be more fun to form a band, and probably more rewarding than trying to break into that writing scene - and the internet has made it so much easier to connect with fans. So we started doing some small gigs, sometimes as a duo, sometimes with a drummer and another guitarist - that's how we met Tod. I'd known Dean from a spell I'd had in Holland playing with The Guitar Orchestra, and he was in London at the time. We came up with the concept for an album ("Fallen"), and finished the songs for it - the recording was done over quite a long period - and started selling it at gigs and over the net. One american fan was so excited, he bought 2 copies and sent one to Roger McGuinn, who, amazingly, has made some great comments about it ! We've since talked about playing with him when he's next over in Europe... We're not gigging at the moment, but are planning another album this year,
and organizing a European tour around it's release - the first album has helped break some ground for that, and it's gaining momentum sales-wise - though we won't be troubling Coldplay just yet !

aurora_music@hotmail.com (CDs)

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