Clipping details
(from scrapbook 2, pages 24-25)

Clipping text

FIVE BOYS SURE TO MAKE IT
...that's the STATUS QUO, new faces with a new sound to brighten up the rave scene.

STATUS QUO - a group of five long-haired, South London musicians. First hit record called Pictures of Matchstick Men followed by Ice in the Sun. They are friendly, talk easily about anything, get carried away over horror films they have seen, and laugh at silly, funny things that crop up in conversation. They are called Mike Rossi, Roy Lynes, Alan Lancaster, John Coughlan [sic], Rick Parfitt, and were formed six years ago by Alan.

"I was at school at the time, and once the group started I just didn't want to know about studies anymore. I'd always wanted to be in a group, and once I was I worked hard, playing until two in the morning sometimes."

Six months before Alan was due to leave school, he was offered a chance to turn professional.

"I accepted. Admittedly, for about three years after that we were pretty broke, and we did have to get the odd jobs to make ends meet, but we worked hard and we gained experience all the time," Alan said.

He owes a lot to his parents who helped him through those years.

"They got into a lot of debt for me. They bought me a car, and a new guitar, and they encouraged me to be a musician. I did have a job at a music publisher's for a bit, but I never enjoyed any work other than playing."

Pop, Alan claims, has changed his life.

"I don't get on too well with my old friends now because pop has given me a wider outlook. It has spoilt me in lots of ways, I no longer get pleasure from the simple things in life. I always did want to be a millionaire, and I want it even more now. The glamour bit of pop is all right, but you soon get used to the scene, birds chasing you around and everything, and really all I'm in it for is the money."

Alan is a thinker. He remembers how, as a child, he was misled with religion. "It was the bit about Adam and Eve and the apple that did it, I used to wonder exactly what Eve meant by it. Of course, now I see she was tempting Adam sexually. Well, why couldn't my teachers tell me so? I don't think there is a heaven or a hell, but I do know there is God."

Alan doesn't take drugs. "None of us do. Taking drugs is like a one-way ticket downhill. Who wants to ruin his mind and his body? We don't. We are healthy and happy, and we intend to stay that way."

He wears high-heeled boots, flared trousers, colourful jackets, often striped, and marvellous satin shirts.

Mike is philosophical about the long wait the group had before they had a hit record.

"It's useless expecting success to come over-night," he said, "if it does, you often can't cope with it anyway. If every group in pop had to wait a long time for success, they'd be better off. Mind you, I don't personally think of Status Quo as a big group. We had a wonderful hit, sure, but how about the next record that only got to number thirty in the charts?"

Mike writes the songs for the group, along with Ricki. His ambition is to write more hits. "We have formed a promotion company called Status Promotions, which we are all involved in. We hope to make a lot of money out of it."

Mike, or "Rossi" as the group calls him, has no steady girlfriend at the moment, but he would like to get married when the right girl comes along. He likes all sorts of girls, even groups who hang around stage doors.

When he was nine years old, he drove his father's ice-cream van through a fence and into the garden next door. "I fancied my luck at the wheel," he said. "My Dad was very understanding about it, but I don't think the neighbours were quite so good. We had a great big garden when I was a child, and all I can remember is hours out there and good dinners and teas. I still live at home, and my parents and I get on very well."

Mike thinks that this generation make a lot of problems for themselves, and then try to blame the era or the bomb. "They look for trouble. I hate the kind of people who go to the seaside and smash cars up along the front. Where is the sense in that? How would they like someone to do that to their car or scooter?

If you stop to think that what you do to others is what you would want them to do to you, you get on a whole lot better."

The group prefers ballroom dates to others because there is usually more room to move on stage. They are basically non-aggressive, but if asked to criticise a feature of the pop scene, they say that the conditions in ballrooms are very poor backstage.

John, the drummer, explained. "Dressing rooms are either too small and have no sink in them, or they are not there at all. We have often changed in part of the corridor. The public out front have paid good money to see us, and of course for our own sakes, we like to give them value. To do this, we need to wash, and relax after a day's travelling, before we go on stage. It isn't that we think we are great or special, but it's terrible to go on stage feeling dirty."

John dislikes being dirty altogether. "Before I joined the group five years ago, I was training to be a car mechanic, but I gave it up because it meant that I was always dirty."

He has many girlfriends. "I like big girls, the rounded, feminine type. I don't like flat-chested girls!"

He also likes animals, and owns a cat. He is interested in flying, but at the moment, is saving up to buy a Viva car. "The plane will have to wait," he joked.

Ricki is the other song writer. "I don't know where the ideas for songs come from, they just appear in my mind," he said. "Recently, I did one called Jagged Edges. I don't remember seeing any jagged edges." He likes all kinds of pop music. "Some soul music gets on my nerves, but I love Aretha Franklin and that kind of soul." He doesn't like anything classical, hates opera and laughs at ballet. His favourite group is the Beatles, and the person he admires most in pop is Tom Jones.

"Some people think I look effeminate, but I'm not," he said. "Long hair is difficult to style except like this," he declared, pointing to his head. "I get shouts of 'sissy', but I'm used to that. A year ago, I had short hair and I thought I looked all right, but now when I see photos of myself then I think I looked horrible."

He dates lots of different girls. "I look for attractiveness in girls, something feminine and soft. I don't always get what I go for, though. It sometimes helps being a pop star, because some girls think they will date you just because you are in a group. Some are the opposite, and play really hard to get."

Roy is the Daddy of the group at twenty-three years old. His ambition is to be a good organist, and to write good songs.

"So far I have had no luck with the songs, but I'm still trying. I never write one I think is a hit. I write quite good music, but I can't manage good lyrics. If I could find someone who could write the lyrics, I'd be very pleased."

His favourite groups are the Move and Jimi Hendrix Experience. He rarely dates girls.

"I don't get time. I have all sorts of hobbies, my 3.8 Jaguar car, and the electric organ I'm making. I do television repairs and my own car repairs, and I like mechanics and electronics. My ambition is to have an E-type Jaguar."

He lives in Redhill in Surrey.

"I like it there, I walk down the town and lots of people know me. In big cities you are just lost in the crowd, and no one cares about you."

Status Quo are a friendly lot, with a lovely road manager called John, a very sexy stage act, and a new, exciting sound. Surely they must be heading for the top?