Original subtitles

Hi, John. Good to see you. Jason, yes.

Where are you calling from?

I am calling from near Pontefract and we last met in August 2019 at the

Cat Club.

The Cat Club. Yeah, what a place. That was an interesting gig.

Well, an interesting thing for me. We were just talking, wasn't I? Talking

about stuff.

The Cat Club. This is pre-COVID-19.

I was about to say that because it just is very much a before and after COVID

type situation because everything stopped for two or three years and it

wasn't a great period. So it is before and after.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, good to see you again.

It is. And it's kind of one of the reasons why it's good to talk to you now

because the film.

The Crime of the Century film at Hammersmith Odeon, absolutely fantastic.

The quality of it is absolutely outstanding.

The sound, the visuals, and it's never had a full, proper home release before,

has it?

Oh, not at all, no.

The sound has never been... Yeah,

the whole thing is completely redone after so long.

Yeah, I saw it towards the end of last year, sitting in a little theatre in

London at the record company.

And I was so blown out by the sound and the drum. The drums sound amazing. Ken

Scott's done such a good job.

But what struck me, it was interesting, which you don't have it when you're 80

-odd. It's like the youth, the power of youth and the five of us on stage.

We were, well, I was 30.

Young,

you know, 50-odd years ago.

But what struck me was the vibe of it all and the way we were really, really

going for it.

It's absolutely wonderful.

It's one of the best sort of music-related things I've seen in a long

time. And you mentioned the power of the group, but I think this was towards the

end of quite an extensive, was it a UK tour? So you guys must have...

just being in the zone in terms of you played together so much live during that

period yes we'd had that great period we got the five of us got together in july

in 73 and then we rehearsed a lot and we did a lot of rehearsing before recording

and then we did all the crime recording and then out on the road yeah trying to

get this album out to the public and um yes we We played a lot, and we really

seemed to gel together, you know, for the recording and for live gigs.

So, yeah, it was done just before we went to the States, where we kind of

stayed there.

And your role as a frontman really comes out in the film, although not one of the

two credible songwriters.

Your role in being an MC, keeping the crowd in order, the humour, looking

a far now.

looks like an essential part of the Supertramp show.

Well, it became, yes, it became that. What happened initially was we didn't

really think about talking to the public, but we decided to go out and

tour crime.

So we played the first side of the record live. We just played that kind of

straight through without any announcements.

And we were on this stage with all the black curtains and everything. So it was

kind of heavy.

heavy duty stuff and serious and then it came time to play some other numbers and

then we do the second half of crime so in the middle there it seemed that

somebody should talk to the audience and nobody else wanted to do it so i said

i'd do it that was it yeah basically and you've got that moment of humor there i

think it's the intro to dreamer then you go into uh a you're adorable oh well

that was so stupid yeah that that's um i'd really like to learn how to play

that number when i was um when i was nine i had some piano lessons

and my cousin barry gave me this music gave me the sheet music for a year

adorable when i was when i was little and i just i just kind of had it and i

thought oh this is an interesting tune and uh so it was just in my head that's

it So we just wanted to lighten the mood, I guess. And so that was the

result. I must learn to play it. When we spoke again back before the pandemic,

you mentioned that when you did shows with the big band Supertramp Project

that often your solos were kind of based on the record or the live shows of the

period. At that time, 1975, was there still elements of more improvisation or

were you more set to what you were recording?

Well, it depends on the number, but trying to think of the solos back then,

pretty much improvised in the moment, really.

For example, Bloody Well Right is on there.

It's not something that's a stock solo of mine. It was later, maybe with The

Logical Song, for example, where I did a solo on the original recording that was

kind of, that people really...

liked it and it seemed to work that I did something a bit like that live you

know still putting bits of re-impro into it but basically

we like to just give it a free reign you know so I'm trying to think what the

other numbers there's the big solo on Crime of the Century which has a story

behind it well 95% of the solos on the recordings

are just totally improvised at the time.

For example, I know we're talking about 75, but when I recorded the solo for the

logical song, we did the backing track recordings and we had the saxophone

playing to give it the vibe.

Basically, we were just listening to the sound of the piano and the bass and the

drums on the logical song.

And I did the solo on each time we did it. So that day we had about six or

seven different recordings and everybody took the recording of the backing track

home with them to listen and we'd have a vote the next day as to which was the

best backing track.

And the backing track that we all chose, when we turned the saxophone on to

listen to it, see what it was, it was that solo, for example. So there must

have been some...

nice vibe in the room so going back in time to uh to recording crime of the

century i did all the solos on the album and then we took the backing tracks

from that album and gave them to the string arranger

richard hewson and he put strings on one or two numbers including crime of the

century

And we got them back into the studio and we listened to them. They sounded great.

And then we said, well, let's listen to the Crime of the Century solo that John

did. And it didn't go with the strings at all.

It was a good solo before, but the inclusion of the strings, because he

didn't write it with the saxophone, hearing the saxophone, I suppose he did

well. So that one track I had to redo.

And I sat with Rick.

sort of constructing a solo to go on it so that's a constructed solo and so I

pretty much played that you have to play to get it in with the number of bars and

everything so that's a solo that I kind of I did compose it myself but then I

had to replay it all the time but it's nice to be able to play something

totally improvised at the time that's basically my excuse

Do you remember the discussions in the group in 1975 in terms of capturing the

show on film and the reasoning behind it?

Yes. It's a guy called Derek Burbridge, I think, that did the filming.

Yeah, we just wanted to capture the show because after playing it for six months

or whatever it had been, we realised that we'd got...

quite a good vibe going so it was our manager i guess dave margerison that

that sorted out who who was going to film it and ken scott was there

recording it so that was the best thing so it was it was ken that redid this the

sound 50 years later but i was really surprised when i heard it more recently

the power of the recording especially the drums drum sound

Awesome with it.

And then just watching the film and everything, just our youth and the

energy that we had there. There were just five of us playing that kind of

complex music.

I think we did quite well.

More than quite well.

Why wasn't it released at the time, whether in film or even on record?

Because obviously in later years in Supertramp, you had a great live album.

Was it just that it was kind of almost too early?

I don't know. I can't give you a definitive answer for that, to be

honest. I don't know.

It's been there. There are other recordings. We haven't got too many, but

there's some good recordings from 1983 as well. We did recordings in 79 that

eventually produced the Paris album and the some from 83 before

Roger left.

So, yeah, I can't remember why, but it's just been mouldering in the vaults.

There's been some sort of poor examples of it out, you see occasionally, but at

least we've got this the best it can be.

And the challenge of recreating the album live, did it take quite a while to

assemble the live set? Because the attention to detail, certain groups can

do it now with the technology, but then you're playing everything by hand.

Yeah, everything's played. There might be just like the noise of the train or

there might be something just something we can't physically produce.

But yes, it took ages. So we make the album and then we go into rehearsal for

that.

You've got to re-listen to the music and pick the bits that you have to, you

know, and you have to leave some out. But we did our best with it.

Some of that extra stuff.

fell to me to play on string machine or synthesizers and everything.

But there's good moments where, for example, I have to hold a note on and

then pick up my saxophone and then Roger will come over and take over the same

note on the strings and I go and play.

And so it was a good effort because mainly the extra parts are played by me

because the others are either sitting at a keyboard or Roger at a guitar.

Dougie on the bass is always on the bass and Bob's always on the drums.

Yeah, so it's quite interesting how you've got to re-listen to it and pick

out the bits that make it into a live performance.

I think we did well with it.

And there's songs on it as well which would later feature on What Crisis.

Were they all songs like Lady, for example, or Sister Moonshine that were

part of that?

Crime of the Century era, or were they very new when you were playing it in the

show? A few were new, but when we originally were rehearsing

before we made Crime of the Century, we were rehearsing about 25

numbers, you know, different numbers. Some were old, some were new. It was all

a real mixture. And so it was quite difficult picking the numbers that went

with Crime of the Century when we were...

beginning to record it but so there was a lot quite a few more that we we knew

were left over which obviously as you say became went on to the other albums

some some we waited four or five years to record like breakfast in america was

has always been around since i joined the band and there's some other numbers

that never even made it and well actually there's some numbers that made

it when we're recording in the 90s so It's just whatever seemed to fit at the

time for the project that we were doing.

Yeah, because you had like, I think you said when I spoke to you, they had 42

demos or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was quite a lot.

We'd just get together and play and we'd just keep playing all of these numbers

and altering them as we thought fit.

It was a nice democratic way of making music because we could all...

put our feelings and suggestions in that was i think that's what made the

supertramp sound is like the two different songwriters and then with each

songwriter and each number then the other four people would be really

contributing to the total sound so that it became a more of a supertramp thing

putting everyone everyone had this their say those first few years when you the

classic lineup of supertramp got together as you say was it 73 onwards to

me on the outside it would feel like a magical time when things just clicked

and the the chemistry amongst the group was there the songwriting's coming in

and everything's flowing yes exactly i felt that right from the first day of

when i went down to have a blow with them and back in 73

I felt, oh, these songs are great. And then everybody seemed to gel. And so

just right from then, it seemed like we were the right five people to be making

music together.

And then I think it was good that we all were able to work very hard.

It was just, you know, it's a 24-7 job, really. All those 70s years,

we were recording and touring a lot.

So, but that's good. It got us at a good time in our lives and we were able to

put in the work.

The combination of songwriting styles as well, Roger and Rick, in that period,

they seemed to sort of bounce off each other.

Yeah, there's a real yin and yang there.

Roger the dreamer and Rick the pragmatist.

Basically, that's how I saw them. I sometimes have a simple view of...

but no doubt they could make it more complicated.

For me, there's a bit of an added poignancy of this as well, is that when

we spoke, I think you mentioned Russell Pope, the sound engineer.

Yes. He's no longer here. Obviously, Rick has relatively recently passed, so

it's kind of a way of remembering their work with the group as well.

Yeah, I think this film is dedicated to Rick.

Although, interestingly enough, both Rick and Roger...

have been against putting films out of the band.

Neither of them wanted the film Paris to come out.

It's peculiar because it's such a good slice of

what we were doing back then. I'm very, very proud of it.

So anyway, but yes, rest in peace, Rick, and rest in peace, Russell.

You also mentioned this is an absolutely crucial period for Supertramp.

You've kind of made it in the UK and you're about to go to America where

you're going to be one of the biggest bands in the world and then ultimately

base yourselves over there.

Tell us about that period where just after this, you're going over to the

States.

Yeah, well, we knew we were going to California because that was the next

stage, really.

We'd sort of made it.

as much as we could at that time in the UK and made a couple of little forays

into Europe.

But it seemed like we were working for A&M Records.

They were the main record company and their headquarters were in Los Angeles.

And we thought that the next stage would be to try and have some success in the

USA. And so when we had some great help from the record company and various

people there so we went over quite soon after making that Hammersmith video

and we had to more or less start at the beginning again there but we always did

good shows so even if we conned a lot of people to come in to see us the first

time they'd tell their friends and come back eventually you know that we we

ended up staying we didn't really realize what we were doing at the time

but we stayed in Los Angeles and then

Just for a few years, most of us stayed around that area.

Was there pressure to come up with a new album relatively soon, given what crisis

came out?

Was it a year or two later?

I think we recorded that later on in 75, and that was out in, I think it was out

late in 75.

There must have been some pressure, yeah.

We had a really good manager, Dave Margerison.

He was so instrumental in getting the group together because he used to work

for the record company.

And then in 73, he left the record company just to manage us.

And he was with us for the next 10 years.

And interestingly enough, he died last year. He died in September last year.

So, yes, it was him that he would shelter us from the sordid

financial.

aspects of stuff you know and we would pursue our art but but obviously people

at the record company would be saying yeah let's let's do it so maybe crisis

was rushed slightly but we felt good about the recording we started recording

it in the A&M studios in in Hollywood which used to be Charlie Chaplin's

movie studios apparently yeah and we came back to London to mix it with Ken.

They were good times.

Everything seemed to be gelling with the people in the band.

There's a song off even in the quietest moments that would be good to ask you

about, and it's how you put together Fool's Overture, because it just seems

like quite an ambitious piece of music.

Yes, the most ambitious, I think. Well, there's two big tunes.

There's Fool's Overture from Roger then, and then there's Brother Waybound from

Rick. in 85.

yes it is it is an ambitious project and and then using all that those

soundtracks of winston churchill and yes it was just well it was just a concept

and we thought it's roger's idea of is poking fun at the world sort of thing

and saying what's happening like crime of the century really although that of

that was any enigmatic as to exactly what it meant there's always always this

thing with both of the songwriters of anti-establishment

stuff because they both both of them hated their schooling i love my

schooling i was i was quite happy but roger went to stow and didn't like it

the private school rick went and rick didn't like his schooling in swindon i

guess he would go to a more normal school there yeah so they've always been

rebelling against education

especially Roger.

I know that on some of the, at least some of the Super Trampounds, Rick and

Roger would bring in demos and then you guys would work on them. Was that

generally the case?

Yeah. The thing was, they'd bring in their number and then the other four of

us, including the other songwriter, of course, and the other three of us would

be playing the songs continually.

And we'd play them the next day and then they might alter a bit and then the

writer, maybe Rick, might go.

home and Roger might go home and then come back and make an alteration with it

and then we would suggest something and everybody would have their say and I

think that's what it was good for their tunes to get those different

perspectives of the people that were could really play well together so I

think that gave them all the tunes a sort of super tramp sound

Which of the albums, if any, would you see as having concepts or themes running

throughout them? Because I know that, I think at least in the start of some of

them, there was a concept, but sometimes that wouldn't come to full fruition.

Yeah, I think the most sort of concept album is Crime of the Century, and it's

enigmatism. Then maybe Breakfast in America became slightly as a concept,

which just is a sort of... our reaction to living in the States.

Crisis What Crisis is more of a collection of tunes.

Yeah, I mean, we didn't set out to make it at the beginning to think, oh, let's

make a concept album. It just seems to be that the tunes that we chose, there

was something that kind of fitted together, kind of loose, a loose thing,

really. When did those...

different approaches between rick and roger start to rub against themselves i

think in breakfast in america there's differing opinions on how it works

between them and obviously that would continue over the next few years was it

around breakfast in america still relatively harmonious or had the tension

started to come through or difference of approaches that is yeah the tension has

got greater as the years progressed there was the time after

Breakfast in America, when we did Famous Last Words.

And the tensions were really sort of getting up there then.

Roger had moved to the sort of countryside.

He'd moved to Nevada City, which is not in Nevada, but it's in California. But

he moved up. He joined a cult.

And the person that was running the cult had put him together with Karuna, his

wife. And he started his family and he was living up there. Rick had met his

wife through A&M Records New York.

And then they were living in North Hollywood, Encino.

And so Rick was kind of down where the rest of us were. And Roger was up north

and we had to go to one place or the other to record. And so tensions started

to arise, which eventually culminated in Roger leaving the band.

He said at the time that he wanted to leave to record more of his own music

and look after his family, whatever.

But things just got to that point where he decided that he would have to leave.

And is it true the title of Famous Last Words is a nod to the split, given that

they weren't... Yeah,

Famous Last Words. Yeah, it is.

And so...

Yes, I was quite happy. I quite liked going up to Nevada City.

Rick hated it, going up there.

I didn't mind.

And then Roger really hated coming down to record at Rick's place.

But then we had to go somewhere to mix it, and it was interesting times.

But I was quite happy in either place.

I'm pretty easygoing.

How was it for Brother Where You're Bound? Because obviously Rick is able to

fully...

be himself in terms of the songwriting yes the whole band moved to be

less of a democracy started on the other path of an autocracy

really but i mean we still could contribute but obviously it was a lot

more more centered on rick and what he what had been his ideas and that got

even stronger as time went on You mentioned it before, the title track of

that album as well. It's got Scott Gorham and David Gilmour as well.

Again, it's quite an epic track.

Yes. Yeah, we enjoyed doing that.

Yes, I think it was a real good move to get David in playing guitar.

It gave it a nice... It seemed to fit in with the spirit of the track there.

Yeah, that was good.

Yes, and so we made a film of it too, which was a complete flop when we played

it for the critics.

We had a big opening in Venice.

Not a big opening, it was an opening with just a few people there.

And people were a bit nonplussed by the film.

But I think the concept's kind of an interesting concept, you know, the Cold

War and the effects of all that.

We have these voices at the beginning.

that form a basis for the... We

call them the Russian soldiers.

I can't remember where that music's from.

Maybe it is Russian.

Very much of the time, though, you kind of almost forget about it now, but the

Cold War, the potential of nuclear attack, the East-West dynamic.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so that was a slightly more overt criticism of society.

When did you come back to the UK then?

I came back in 92.

We'd been working all the way through the 80s and then 88, 89, we stopped

playing and Rick took some time out.

I just was kind of searching for what to do. And I decided that I would like to

educate myself musically. And so I came back to my hometown of Todmorden.

And then I went to the Royal Northern College of Music to learn to play the

saxophone.

So, yeah.

So it was good, though. I met some good people there who I still play with. It

was good.

And it was a good musical education.

I learned a lot about.

Started to play in a big band for the very first time. That was good for me. I

couldn't finish my course, though. I just did three years out of the four.

And then I did some work with Roger and then I worked on a new Supertramp album

in 97.

I think since we spoke last time, you actually did a full release of that

Super Big Tramp band album.

Yeah, that originally started as a project from the man who was

the head of jazz studies at the Royal Northern College at the time in 2013.

And he called me and he said, I've got this idea. Let's get some of our friends

to write arrangements for the student orchestra, student jazz band.

of super tramp tunes and you come in and be the soloist that was mike hall that

organized that and it went really well with the students yeah and so some of my

friends there the guy that eventually became professor of the saxophone there

rob buckland he was always on at me saying we should let's record this john

let's do it let's do it so we decided just as covid was just before COVID

was started, that we'd record it. And so we tried to record it and it got really

messed up and put back by the COVID-19 stuff.

Anyway, we eventually did record it. I'll show you the cover.

Yeah, please.

Yeah.

There it is.

John Helliwell's Super Big Tramp Band.

Fantastic.

Anyway, so yes, it's... We did record it and we've... proud of it, yeah. I was

just talking to somebody about doing a gig in Mallorca in October and it's just

purely Supertramp numbers, no vocals, purely instrumental, all arranged by a

few different of my colleagues, a few different guys and with

the saxophone as the main solo, solo with it all, super big.

Tramp band. I thought it was quite a nice way to put it, without saying super

tramp.

Yeah, so it's one of my little projects. I've got one or two projects that I've

been doing.

I recorded an album with a string quartet and Hammond organ called Ever

Open Door.

And then I recorded an album with Dutch piano-based drums called Don't Ever

Leave Me, where I kind of played ballads.

I get more into ballads as I get older.

About 18 months ago, I had a chat with Leslie Mandoki, Mandoki's soulmate.

Oh, did you?

Yeah. Do you still play live? I'm not sure he's playing.

Yeah. Is that still going with you? Well, yes, there's some question about

that. We've got six dates this year, but just very recently, there's been some

question about them. So I'm not sure whether they're going to happen or not.

But yes, I was just talking to Leslie the other day because he's from.

He's from Hungary.

And I was asking him about the new chap that's taken over as prime minister

there. Because Leslie knows everybody.

He knows all the politicians. He's got an incredible story, hasn't he?

Yes, it's great, yeah.

And I've really enjoyed working with him over the years and meeting some such

good players, you know, jazz players and rock stars.

It's really good, good working with him.

Fingers crossed there'll be more dates because... Yeah, I hope so.

It is very much an all-star band that he has.

Yeah, and that's if I can continue. I feel OK now, but I can feel the effects

of ageing, you know, in terms of breathing and stuff and arthritis.

It's getting more difficult to play the clarinet because you have to kind of

hold it and hold it, so it affects your hands.

But we'll see.

But I think that if I find that my plane's going down, I've got to stop

because I don't want to go out and play and people to be thinking, oh, yeah, he

used to be good or something, you know.

I'd rather stop at the top.

You've got a website where people can find out more about you, haven't you?

I have.

JohnHellywell.com. It's just JohnHellywell.com.

Yeah, I've got to keep my finger on the pulse with that a bit more. But there's

some information on there.

Yeah, it's got details of the Super Big Tramp band album at the very least,

hasn't it?

Yes, yeah, yeah, and the other stuff, hopefully.

Yeah.

Good. Just to close, Super Tramp, Crime of the Century, in concert at

Hammersmith Odeon 1975.

Especially if you've got a good set-up at home, get your large screen out, get

your speakers out, and it's just like being there. It's an absolutely

sensational recording.

The sound is great.

All kudos to Ken Scott.

He did such a good job on it.

But that's because we did a good job when we were recording it. You know, we

played it well.

I'm proud of what we used to do.

It's good.

That's fantastic.

Thank you very much, Jason.

And we'll see you again.

Great. Bye-bye. Okay.