INTERVIEW!
FROM SOUTH CIRCULAR 1980!
THE TEENBEATS
“More than just soppy young lads”
Interview Heatwave 1980
From darkest Hasting, Sussex we present…..The Teenbeats! The Teenbeats were one of the first mod bands of the current revival, though only because they don’t come from London they’ve been mostly ignored, and this was only their second ever interview.They’ve been together since last year and have been playing London regularly during the last few months. So if you get the chance to go and see them go because they are great.
Here’s the line up
Huggy Leaver Lead vocals
Dave Blackman drums and vocals
Eddie Mays bass
Ken Copsey lead guitar
Paul Thomas rhythm guitar
And the story goes like this : from April 1978 Huggy wanted to form a 60’s band and he put an ad in their local paper (and as they say that’s proof they were one of the first). Dave and Eddie got together with Huggy because they were into 60’s music too. Then they found Paul, and soon after that Ken who had previously been in a R&B group. And it all came together around September/October last year and the Teenbeats and their entertaining brand of pop/R&B music were born.
Heatwave: We’ve heard Hastings is a rockers stranglehold?
Ken: Yeah, there’s some in Rye, about 12 miles away that’s where they all hang out. There’s a few in Hastings.
Heatwave: So what’s the reaction to you as a mod-type band?
Ken: There was no trouble. There was a few fights but not with us.
Eddie: We’ve never had any trouble at our gigs.
Heatwave: When you started did you know about the mod revival?
Dave: Well , Huggy wanted to form a 60’s band and we all liked the idea, so we did it. We still regard ourselves as one of the first, though all the later bands are in London and they got heard of before us. Then we heard there was something happening in London, and groups were forming there, so we wanted to get up there and see what was going on.
Eddie: The relations between the bands are generally good, there’s competition but we’ve got nothing against any band cos we don’t really know them.
Dave : The only thing we don’t like is bands that rip off the Jam, you get a few.
Eddie : We say we don’t like it because it takes away from what we are trying to do. You get a hell of a lot of bands all doing the same thing and sounding the same. We’re trying to be original, we know that we’re absolutely into it and we just wonder whether the other bands are really into it.
Dave: We feel a part of the mod thing, the clothes and that, we regard ourselves generally as a mod group, but we try to be different and original.
Eddie : We know we are original because we just do what we want to do, we don’t let anybody tell us what to do. As far as music’s concerned we write our own songs and do them in our own style. That’s how we wanna do it . It’s so innocent but that’s how it is for us. Lots of people like it which is good cos it’s catching on.
Dave : I think we can survive the mod thing.
Eddie ; We’ve got a good set.
Dave : Because we are original, we’ve got a good producer and he’s very keen on us, so I think we can survive. Our producer is Ray Fenwick ex Spencer Davis Group! He produced our first single.
Eddie : Which is out now on Safari so buy it!.
The Teenbeats describe their music as pop and r & B which hits the nail right on the head, despite some paper completely inaccurately calling them soft punk and Chuck Berry boogie. (This remains a complete mystery to me) Not that they let it worry them. The punk thing they say is because some people slag Huggy because of his rough voice, but he says the only person he sings like is Lee Grilleaux.
It doesn’t take long to discover that the whole band love 60’s pop and R&B . Ken loves Tamala Motown, though he doesn’t think that effects their music. And they feel partly inspired, though not actually influenced by The Jam (Huggy knows Paul Weller) and Ken hasn’t got one single Jam record!!
The bands songs, with one or two exceptions such as the anthem like “Strength of the Nation” are love songs because as Eddie says We’re soppy young lads we’re all very romantically minded.
Dave has written the lyrics to the songs in their set at the moment, though they all write songs.
Eddie : We all write songs a t the moment, if they’re good enough we’ll do them, if they’re not we wont. As it stands , Dave’s written a lot of the ones we do..
The band are, as I said playing mostly in London at the moment, as well as a couple of recent gigs in Huddersfield and Manchester, and they used to do a lot of gigs in Brighton. But they were banned from Hastings after the mod festival with the Purple hearts when a load of kids smashed the windows and the street and caused 12 grand worth of damage to the pier!!.
The liveliest part of the interview was when we asked the band if any of them were actually mods individually.
Huggy : I ride a scooter Ken’s got a scooter too, and sometimes I wear Dr Martens and levis and I ride a motorbike. Why should we be labelled? I’m not trying to revive 64 no way cos it’s not 64 and expressions have totally changed. There’s not the depression that there was then. The things they were singing about, that got them wound up then, we haven’t got we’ve got other wind-ups now that they didn’t have. So define it. I mean we all dress like this and we all ride scooters and I wear a parka when I’m not on a scooter.
Heatwave : I think it’s more of an attitude than an appearance?
Dave : Yeah it is, you’re right, not actually being a mod, it’s an attitude of a mod at the moment.
Huggy : We’re all into the 60’s I’m into 60’s music and I wear 60’s clothes so I suppose yes we are mods. We all like 60’s pop music.
This is born out by the covers they do “Hippy Hippy Shake”, the single “I Can’t Control Myself” and an excellent version of “Circles” just as good as the Chords version and in fact closer to the original because it’s slower.They’ll probably drop this soon though since the Chords are more well known and the Teenbeats see no point in them competing.
Dave : A lot of bands do the same covers don’t they “Hey Girl”, “Stepping Stone” we’re trying to get away from that. We’re the only band that does “I can’t Control Myself”- fortunately cos that’s our single.
Heatwave : What are your ambitions?
Dave : I’d like to get on TOTP we all would.
Eddie : Screaming girls and all that it’s true, it’s my ambition. We all wanna be famous.
Huggy : We all wanna be professional pop group, get paid for something we like doing. My ambition is that the single makes it, before anything, and if this one doesn't we’ll do another one and so on keep trying.
The Teenbeats music as they say is a mixture of pop and R & B but it’s best described by their name tuneful youthful dance music. They have an original and classy sound, all their songs packed with hooklines and energy, and a steady rhythm from Ken , Dave , Eddie and Paul, with Huggy out front, the bands visual focus with his great voice and lots of charisma. They like everyone to have a good time at their gigs, and everyone always dances from the first song to the last encore.
They’re a fun band but they also have the class and ability to survive the mod craze and stay around into the 80’s. We here at Heatwave will be bopping away to The Teenbeats on many occasions in the future and you wont be disappointed if you try it too.
Original article Heatwave Modzine 1980. Thanks to Julian Leusby for this great article.
Stevethemod@hotmail.com
Anyone with any more info/pictures whereabouts of any of the members please get in touch.
Page added June 18th 2003
