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(from scrapbook 2, page 62)

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The band with four heads, eight arms and legs and a stake in piledriving boogie history

Pete Makowski's definition, but as he did the feature I suppose he can say what he likes

"IT TOOK me a long time to accept that (missing) a rhythm guitarist because I think quite a lot of people look on a rhythm guitarist as a very secondary sort of thing, y'know if you don't play lead guitar or bass what do you play?" asks Quo's Richard Parfitt.

The rhythm guitarist is almost becoming extinct in the world of rock, which is strange when you consider that it's the sole core of rock and roll. Of course there are your innovators like Keith Richards who'll keep kachunking those strings for ever and rhythm is always prominent in black music.

Maybe that's half the secret to Quo's success, those swaying heads accompanied by a solid backbone of rhythm makes it impossible to keep your feet still. If you've ever been to one of their gigs you'll know what I mean.

But that's only half of it. The band's music seems to endure all t?me. okay we all know it's based around a regular twelve bar format but they've taken it, worked it and once they play a tune it becomes their music.

"Our music has got a good life span," agreed Parfitt, "it's not directed solely into one thing so that when that thing dies the music dies with it. It covers everything because it's honest and if you're playing honest music then time's limitless."

Parfitt looked healthy almost rampant in the confines of the band's recentlv acquired office. Dressed in regulation denims he made himself comfortable behind a management desk, cracked open a bottle of Blue Nun and proceeded to eat a gargantuan hamburger.

Quo have completed recording a new album which should be out in February and their single (their best yet) is currently nestled comfortably in the charts. The band have had a very erratic career which only really settled itself in the last couple of years since they switched record labels. Now the band's following is continually growing and spreading worldwide.

It seems hard to believe that the band have been plodding along for almost a decade, their first hit "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" hit the charts in '68 - a far cry from "Piledriver". I remember Francis Rossi once recalling the days when the band played the Cafe Des Artistes, a seedy joint with the accommodation and comfort of a Swan Vesta matchbox.

"Well the thing is, around that time I wasn't with the band. I knew them but I wasn t playing with them. They were doing the Des Artistes around that time and I was with another band, just a little nothing band that weren't doing as well as The Spectres (Quo's former name). Course I used to know them and go on a couple of their gigs down the Des Artistes and things like that.

I used to like the whole scene, what the bands used to do round those clubs. They went away but we still kept in touch. We kept that up for three years and then I was asked to join the group, that always sounds terrible, but was."

What about Parfitt's band?

"Oh yeah that was called the Highlights which was a dodgy name, it was basically a cabaret thing playing the hits of the time.

"I played the only guitar or whatever, so I could be anything I wanted to be really which at the time was pretty good, but I never used to think about it. I didn't realise what sort of guitarist I was until I joined the band (Spectres) and even then it took me a long time to realise my role as a guitarist.

"It's funny but I've found out in the last eighteen months there's an awful lot to get out of a rhythm guitar. I've really (missing) into playing my guitar (missing) more so than ever before. Experimenting with tunings... things like that have helped me broaden my whole outlook on guitar playing."

Were there any influences?

"Well Cliff Richard... sounds terrible but Cliff Richard, Hank Marvin, all of them. This is going back quite a long way, let me see... the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and watching other bands down where I used to live in Woking.

There was this local Co Op gig where everybody used to go in their Mohair sweaters and winkle picker shoes and they used to have the local bands there. At that time it was Jackie Lynton and the Teen Beats, bands like that. I used to go along with all me mates in a gang, they were all off pulling birds and dancing and I used to find myself standing in front of the stage looking at the guitarist.

"Every time I watched the guitarist, and this is the God's honest truth, I used to look at the particular chord shape he was doing and I'd go home remembering it, try it and I'd get it. Christ knows what the guy's name was... but I suppose he was one of my influences."

The original Status Quo were more '67 psychedelic than the band that brought out "Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon", what brought about the transition?

"Well I can really tell you very honestly nothing made us change because we weren't aware of any change occuring, we didn't think 'well Christ we got to change the style of our music to fit in with what's happening'. We could only play what we felt... what we always felt.

"I think it was probably a lot to do with Roy the organist leaving, that obviously changed the style. I think the sound tightened up and it basically came from there."

The band still never really took off during their "Ma Kelly" blues period, a few hit singles helped them along but things never really took off until "Piledriver" hit the scene.

"We escalated from gigs like the Marquee... the club scene which we had a lot of fun... no joke, we were doing six or seven encores a night, gluttons for it we just wanted to get back out there.

"When you escalate up to the concert thing and you see the city halls and you know that it's sold out and you watch the people coming in, it's really a good feeling... I keep saying that... but it's really true, it's hard to explain what the actual feeling is... but you do feel a kind of power, you're made to realise that you're a wanted product."

The band's new album features ten tracks featuring songs from all the members: "I've written a ballad that I've wanted to do for quite a while," Parfitt said with a tinge of pride in his voice, "it's a kind of song that means a lot to me, it's quite close to me. It's not fictional it's like whatever the opposite of fictional is... factional (laughter), silly!

"It's a nice change to have ten tracks on the album, it feels refreshing."

Why don't the band ever include more mellow numbers in their set? "We've talked about it an awful lot, we would like to but the problem we find is bringing the high energy thing down to that level, we've got to bring ourselves down mentally and we're on stage you've got that buzz, your adrenalin's high."

Have the band ever considered a change in format?

"No, I don't feel it's that strong at the moment if that is necessary we'll feel and it'll come naturally as I said before."

Don't you ever feel restricted in any way?

"I do feel that from time to time, I'd like to do some of the slower things and a couple of more melodic things where you don't have to punch it so much all of the while... I'd like to do that but it's not Quo and I think the only way I could get that is on my own. If I did my own album or something."

Has that thought ever crossed your mind?

"Well obviously it's been talked about but there's nothing solid at the moment... course not, no 'cause there's so much to do with Quo. I mean this year is ridiculous, everybody's looking forward to it but there'll be no time to think about solo albums, when the whole thing cools... when we've broken the States?

"Hopefully after this year we can start to relax more rather than still up hill striving for that big break in the States and the rest of the world. Then I think everybody will ease off a bit and we can just do the tours in bulk and then we can have a good holiday, we never get time for a holiday and it puts pressure on our writing and we're forced to write on the road, the standard of the writing has got to be maintained.

"If we had a bit more time we could get away for two or three weeks somewhere remote. I know everybody says that but it's really true, to go somewhere cut yourself off and come back with three or four songs would be beautiful."

Well, just say the time and facilities were available, what would Parfitt feature on his solo effort?

"I'd like to do an album of the kind of things I like, - I think everybody else would as well. But whether I'd get round to doing it I don't know. I'd like to think that I would.

To have an album released under my name would give me a great sense of satisfaction (sic), you choose your musicians and it's all your own thing.

"I think some of it would be my songs and I'd like to write songs that I like that are standards over the past years. I like songs like "Only You", there are a lot of songs I like. This sounds terrible but "Now Is The Hour", there's a way to do that and you can get so much beauty out of it and "Amazing Grace". I've got enough confidence in myself to think that it would come off but it's totally different when you get into the studio."

Quo, along with bands like the Purple, Heep etc, create a kind of magical electricity when on stage their fans are frighteningly loyal and every one of their concerts is an event.

One thing I noticed is the band haven't changed their set this year and I asked Ritchie if there would be changes on the next tour?

"There were numbers we wanted to do this time round, but we couldn't get them in. Next tour there should be five new songs in the set which will make all the difference in the world.

"It's not easy for us to put new songs in the act, making them feel right. The stuff that we do onstage now all feels right, it's natural, we know what we're doing, you put something new in and a stiffness occurs and you become slightly aware of what you're doing to the number.

"The time is right now to put new songs into the set, it is feeling a bit stale. On a good night the act is tremendous, everything goes well, but on a 85% good night they become a little bit of a drag.

"I shall be a lot happier when there's five new numbers in the act, there'll be a couple of rockers and maybe the slow thing we were talking about. Y'see Quo's hook is really the power of the hand, I mean nobody goes along to have their lives changed by the lyrics of Status Quo, but this one is a song and makes for a nice change."

A recent topic of conversation regarding Quo is audience hall destruction. I've never seen any damage done at any of their concerts but I can be believe a few seats must get a beating. Have the band in fact been banned from any halls?

"Cor Blimey, well it would be easier to explain the ones that we haven't been banned from. Yeh we've been banned... we've been banned from the Rainbow, we've been banned from Wembley, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff I think. But y'know this ban lark I don't know what to think of it really 'cause you go back there a year later and it's all right.

"I mean if we really wanted to do Wembley again we could do it, they're not going to pull the switch on us. But at that time it's all you'll never play again, it sort of wears off. I can see their point, I mean their seats get busted up and the management of course don't like it.

"Every other gig we've got the Biffo (security guard) on the side of the stage screaming his head off at Bob Young (road manager), who hands it very well, saying if they don't stop the plugs are coming out. And if the worst comes to the worst, Bob will just lay them out 'cause the plugs don't come out when we're on stage, no way. Cos if that happened there would be all sorts of disasters.

"The promoter doesn't want his hall wrecked, it'll take a fair bit of battering but if you pull all the plugs out and what sort of battering would it take then? They'd go fucking berserk. Our audiences don't (missing) couldn't sit down and (missing) us... I'd be up (missing) ping."