All language subtitles for Rockfield.The.Studio_1

This programme
contains strong language.

Rockfield Films, Ozzy,
A/B camera marker.

MUSIC: Love Spreads
by The Stone Roses

Everyone's phones off?

Ah, OK.

Oh, fuck off.

# Yeah, yeah, yeah... #

Thank you. That is very sweet.

# Yeah, yeah, yeah... #

It's all about you, this.

I can't remember a fucking thing,
to be fair.

Recording. One, two, three, four.

MUSIC: We Can Take You There
by Hobo

# If you're lost and you can't
see through things... #

REPORTER: A pop group on their way
to a recording session, heading not

for the stifling pressures
of a London or New York studio,

but to the peace of the Welsh hills
near Monmouth.

Kingsley and Charles Ward
are farmers

who've gone into the pop business,
converting the outbuildings

of their farm into one of Europe's
best-equipped recording centres.

Before we start,
are you going to ask, like,

how did I personally get into the
music business, what influenced me,

or are you going to start when
Charles and I got the band together?

There's me when I went to school
and got into rock and roll,

and three years later
I left school, I was 17,

and that's when Charles and I
started to go around together

and get a band going.
You can start either way, see.

So where did it start?

The start of the story,
we were brought up playing Chopin

on this piano -
on this very piano.

We come from a family of farmers,
you see,

so we're used to cows and things.

We bought this farm in 1958,
my parents bought it,

and it was a stud farm
for Shire horses

and we converted it into
massive piggeries and things

and we had a milking herd as well,
so we were basically farmers.

There's no money in farming, there
never was, we never made money

out of it, and my parents
obviously thought we'd end up

taking it over, but in reality,
we weren't having any of that.

I just could not believe
when I heard

Elvis Presley, Heartbreak Hotel,
and all that stuff coming out.

I was in Abergavenny Grammar School
at the time

and we were into music
and that's what changed me really.

When Rock Around The Clock
came to Monmouth...

# One, two, three o'clock,
four o'clock, rock... #

..that's how everything
in my life changed.

In 1956,

I bought myself an acoustic guitar.

I learned a few chords, three finger
chords and this sort of thing,

and gradually came into
playing the guitar that way.

Rock and roll, man. Cool.

Eh?

Charles and I are obviously
brothers, you know,

and we started a group.

We borrowed this little tape machine

and Charles strummed his little
songs out, which were good,

good little songs, and that
was our first little venture

into recording something,
in my mum's front room.

We were already very ambitious,
but we didn't know what to do now,

so we were looking at the record
label and it said EMI Records,

Hayes, Middlesex, so off we trooped
with our little tape machine.

When we arrived there,
it was the wrong place altogether.

It was EMI's present factory.

But the gentleman who manned the
barrier going into the factory...

He said, "I'm here to get rid
of people like you."

He said to us, "You should have
gone to Manchester Square,

"where the main music company is",

and he very kindly rang up
the doorman over there for us

and said we're coming over,
so we go to Manchester Square.

Out we get with our tape machine
and there's the doorman

and there's this secretary,

and eventually we went in
and saw George Martin.

We said, "You've got to hear it
on this tape recorder."

We were on our hands and knees
under this table.

I don't know what sort of plug
we had in there

but we couldn't get the bloody plug
in the...in the thing there.

I think he was fascinated with us
because it was the first time ever

somebody had walked into his office
carrying a tape machine.

It's like booking the greatest
restaurant in the world

and taking their own sandwiches.

But he didn't sign you?
Well, no, he didn't.

And I left my cup of coffee, too.
I never touched it.

But that's where it clicked to us
that if we got some equipment,

with all the space we had,
we could do something with it all.

Upstairs is the attics where we
built our first recording studio.

Oh, God.

It's a right mess up here.

In those days, you must remember,

that there were no commercial
studios outside the major ones,

which was RCA, EMI, Decca,

Philips, they had their studios,

but there's nowhere to record
anywhere,

so the best you can do
is do it yourself.

Oh, my God.

Now, typical farmers,
when we first built this studio,

we knew nothing about
acoustic material

so we actually got a load of
what was feed bags for pigs, look.

BOCM, they were.

We used those stuffed in the wall
to get a separation

from the control room
to the drum room.

We bought a little mixer, we bought
a little Ferrograph tape machine,

we had some microphones.

And that's where we learned
how to record properly

with our own group,
the Charles Kingsley Combo,

and many other local
little Welsh bands.

# As I look, I can see... #

# Lucy, hynod a hyfryd wyt ti

# Lucy, hynod... #

We used to get bands in to record
and charge them £5 or £10

to make an acetate.

In the other building, we had
500 pigs. Can you believe it?

But up in the attics
is miles away from the farm

so you couldn't hear anything of
the animals, so that was fine, like.

May I introduce you to Ann?

A picture of loveliness
if ever I've seen it.

I first met her when she was 17,
three months older than me,

and I couldn't believe my good luck
because I'd never had a girlfriend

in my life before and Ann turned up
and I was so happy.

Her father wasn't, but I was.

It's just that you came from
the one side of town

and I was from the other side.
She's from the posh side of town

and I was from the other side
of the tracks, that's what

you're trying to say. Well, you
were a farmer, weren't you?

Ann was a bank clerk, right,
which was very handy to us

because she does accounts and
she could type and do all that.

The main farmhouse
where my parents now live,

that was my grandparents' house,

and in the farmhouse, there's
a flat, so we lived in the flat.

Our sitting room doubled up
as the office

but also it doubled up as the place
where the bands

would come and have tea and coffee.

Lisa and Amanda, they knew how
to operate the telephones.

The band member would phone us
in the office.

Whoever was there, myself, my sister
or whatever, would answer the phone,

and they would quite often
be quite shocked.

"Yes, tell us the number.
We know what to do."

How old were you doing this?
I was probably only five or six.

All of my childhood memories
are linked up with being here

and bands, and some of them
lived with us.

Spring are a band from Leicester
originally.

They were living in Nan's
front bedroom,

but living with us
and eating with us.

So I'd have these five lads...

..and Lisa and Amanda,
and the only quiet time I had

was at 1:45pm...

..when Trumpton came on.

The boys would be sat there,
and the girls on the floor,

all watching Trumpton.

SHE LAUGHS

Here is the clock,
the Trumpton clock,

telling the time steadily, sensibly.

TRUMPTON THEME

They stayed with us
for quite a few years.

I can't remember how long now.

And that is when Rockfield
became the world's first

residential recording studios.

Aston was working-class,
terraced houses,

and it was just hand to mouth,
you know.

I went to school with Tony,
Tony Iommi.

Although we weren't mates in school,
I knew of him,

and he would bring his guitars
to school.

My mum got me a job,
factories and different jobs.

I wouldn't last more than
a week or two.

I'd go, "Mum, I've got a job."
"Oh, great."

"Mum, I quit my job."
"What? Again?!"

I could never hold one down.

I'd go, "Is this it for my life?"

I was like a racehorse
wanting to run,

but I had nowhere to run, you know.

I said to my dad,
"Dad, can you sign for a pay bund?"

A pay bund was a money lending
of £250,

and I got me a microphone,
a microphone stand...

..and a 50-watt Vox PA.

Had he not signed for me, I would
not be sitting here right now.

Cut a long story, we all managed
to get together and form a band.

Which was horrible.

What do you mean? At the time.

Because we got this band together
and we'd never played together.

I didn't even know Ozzy could sing,
to be honest.

# One for the money,
two for the show

# Three get ready and go, man, go

# But don't you
step on my blue suede shoes

# Do anything but don't you
step on my shoes... #

We used to rehearse

in a community centre in Birmingham.

We could only get in at nine
in the morning

and we had people going, "Keep the
noise down! You'll wake the dead!"

Come on.

Oh, blimey.

Oh, my God.

Right, we're now in
the Coach House studio,

built in 1968-'69
by Charles and myself.

It was stables before.
It's changed very little.

Charles and I bought
an 8-track machine

which means our new studio was equal
to any studio in the world.

# Ah-ah-ah

# Baby, I love you... #

REPORTER: That sound,
already way up in the charts,

started its upward journey here
in a derelict barn in Rockfield,

Monmouthshire, Wales,

140 miles away from the gloss
of London showbiz.

The barn used to house half
a dozen horses and their hay

but is now crammed with £50,000
worth of electronic hardware.

It's the sort of armoury
you need these days

in the battle to reach the top.

And from that moment, we never
went that way, we went that way.

TELEPHONE RINGS

We had a phone call
and it was Black Sabbath,

who we'd never heard of because in
those days, we didn't, you know,

and they were one of the first bands
to use our new studio.

Just to go from Birmingham
to Monmouth was an adventure.

We'd never... You don't understand,
we'd never been in a studio.

We'd never been on a farm!

We'd never... So everything was new.

You know, coming in and seeing
a cow in a field.

We were from the streets of Aston.

The only thing we ever saw
was a police horse.

It was brilliant.

I remember Ozzy outside.

He had a bow and arrow,
I remember, with a target,

and I remember the band.
A good band, by the way.

But we were all starting off,
weren't we, like, you know?

But they were an introduction to
what was a really heavy rock sound

which is what Rockfield
is famous for, you know.

MUSIC: Paranoid
by Black Sabbath

# Finished with my woman

# Cos she couldn't help me
with my mind

# People think I'm insane

# Because I am frowning
all the time... #

We were loud.

We were very loud for that time.

This has still got basically
the same sort of thing

that they've always had.
Which is what? Basic.

# Nothing seems to satisfy

# Think I'll lose my mind
if I don't find something to... #

That's what it allowed
is the freedom,

because nobody was playing
as loud as that.

# Occupy my brain... #

The roof tiles would rattle,
you know.

# Yeah... #

CHARLES: I came up the drive
and rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

To tell you the truth, I thought
the roof was going to come off.

We didn't realise
what we were doing.

We didn't go, "I know,
let's invent heavy metal."

It just happened.

# See the things that make
true happiness... #

But when Black Sabbath with
all the amplifiers turned up,

they were deafening, really,

and it was different to what we were
used to, because, back in the '60s,

it wasn't that sort of
heavy rock sound anyway.

Kingsley was like one of the lads.

He was a nuisance.

He'd come in and start talking away

and you'd go,
"Kingsley, we're rehearsing."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, OK, OK."

"We're rehearsing, then."

"All right, I'll be quiet."

What did you personally make
of heavy metal?

Well, I was brought up, you know,
with pop music, really.

Hiya.

Over there are my Jersey cows.

COW MOOS

See? He's even talking to me
over there.

He wants feeding.

What used to happen was,
they had this studio working here

and Charles and Kingsley
both had a milking herd.

Hello, girls. And boys.

I've come to say hello.
I've come to feed you.

So they'd go up to milk the cows
in the morning,

then the band would turn up
for recording,

and we'd have to get
a message up there

and say, "Come on, quick,
the band's here."

So they'd come down one side
of the house, go in, change,

and come out looking like
respected businessmen.

We still smelt of cows though,
didn't we?

I just thought I'd...

I just thought I'd look after you.
You like that, hey?

Hello, Amber.

I think a lot of pop groups
are used to staying in flats

and things like that in London
and it's very claustrophobic,

I should think, whereas down here
it's very spectacular, you know?

We all lived together,
they come and fed us.

We could make as much noise
as we want,

mess around on the river.

We used to build rafts.

And I would be shooting
my guns around.

Do you remember waking everyone up?

Oh, yeah.

I had my repeater and go...
Boom, boom, boom, boom.

"What the fuck?!"

And then Ozzy got up in the morning,
light the fire,

so we'd have a big fire roaring away
which, you know,

he was known for setting
chimneys on fire.

People can't build fireplaces
like that.

It was like a smelting factory.

The heat was horrendous.

Rockfield Studios,
it was an interesting place to be.

I mean, you know,
it was a bit rundown really

cos a lot of the buildings were just
full up with hay and bales of hay

and straw, and, of course,
used as stables as well.

The essence of space rock music
is having all these wonderful

weird electronics with relentless
rhythm that used to pump away.

Dum-dum-dum-dum, you know.

# I

# I just took a ride... #

When Hawkwind originally turned up,

of course, they were this rebellious
sort of band, very famous they were,

and I thought, "God,
what are they going to be like?

"Bad boys?" I wasn't too sure,
really.

And I was in the studio
awaiting their arrival

and Lemmy was the first in
and he said, "Hello. I'm Lemmy."

I said, "I'm Kingsley."
"Hello, Kingsley. I'm Lemmy."

Lemmy was heavily into, sort of,
pills and things.

It was in those days. It was all
pills and whatever, like, you know.

And he said to me...

"Where can I hide my stash?"

I thought, "Oh, blimey", but anyway,
he put them in the corner.

About 20 minutes later, Dave Brock
turns up. "Who are you?"

"I'm Kingsley."
"I'm Dave." "Hello, Dave."

He said "Is anybody here?"
I said, "Lemmy."

"Oh, is he?
Where did he hide his stash?"

"Blimey," I thought,
"here we go!"

Hawkwind, yeah. Dave Brock.

Yeah, they loved it.

When they came for accommodation,
we only had the bungalow

at the end of the drive and there
was one single room in there

and we shoved about six beds
in there

and the lot of them slept
in one big room.

And there was one toilet
between the lot of them!

But, after 1967,

the summer of love,
it was what they wanted.

Everyone knows of Lemmy.
What was he like at Rockfield?

He did the same as what we all did
there. We used to smoke marijuana

and smoke a bit of hash
and play music.

Sometimes record under the influence
of organic mescaline

and we used to take LSD
down there sometimes

and record tracks on LSD and so on.

We were renowned for doing that.

# Space is dark,
it is so endless... #

I'll just show you the E chord,
which is the famous E chord,

if this guitar's in tune.

It's, erm... So it's in E.

So...so anything...

If you go, like,
it's barring things, so.

Barring it.

And that was of the essence.

So if you play Opa-Loka,
it would be...

STRUMS OPA-LOKA

I mean, if you listen to Opa-Loka,

basically, it's just
a rhythmic sort of drumbeat

and us just clonking away
on the guitars behind it

with weird sounds going on.

In one key, I might add.

We were good at playing in one key.

You could play half an hour in
the key of E and not be boring.

MUSIC: Opa-Loka
by Hawkwind

I mean, sometimes, you'd think,
for God's sake.

I was in the Quadrangle once
and we'd done some recording

and I thought it was two different
bands playing at the same time.

I wondered what was going on.

So how much time did you spend
in all? Years.

HE LAUGHS

Not playing music
but just doing other things.

We were all drinking
and doing some drug or other.

We started off being a rock band
dabbling in drugs,

then we ended up being a drug band
dabbling in rock.

I mean, drugs fuck everything up,
you know.

We never troubled the local police.

It was only, the fact was
there was famous people here,

and in those days, you know, it was
damn sex and drugs and rock and roll

and I think the local drug squads
used to view Rockfield

as being a place where they should
direct some of their attention to.

We just noticed that
there would be cars parked

at the bottom of the drive
and we realised there was people

just watching this place,
taking numbers and things.

We always knew that tree by there
was a parking place for anybody.

You can see what goes on
in the studios, can't you?

Drugs and this sort of thing.

Unfortunately, my brother went
in there one night to clear it

and that sort of thing

and the police who had busted
Monmouth Grammar School,

they knew all about us all right,

and out they came
and they caught him red-handed.

It was the stuff that he was
going to dispose of.

And they put him in prison...

They took him in for the night,
in Monmouth.

Jailhouse Rock!

We personally never got
involved in it

but we can't help what
the clients do, can you, like?

We were just onlookers, really.

Very exciting, very interesting,
but that's what it was.

If you hear a lot of stories
about the past

and a lot of stories about some of
the bands that have been here,

the one thing that has probably been
central to most of it is my dad.

He's been in the middle of it all.

He's just a big kid, you know.

I can't say... No, he's not
getting into trouble.

Give him a long enough rope
and he'll strangle himself.

I'll say no more.

SHE LAUGHS

Good old George, you've got
a walk-on part now.

We're not ready yet.

This is where we built
the Quadrangle studio in 1973.

There's all echo chambers
down there.

We have three natural echo chambers
which are fantastic.

Hello?

You can hear the echo.

It goes on for about
three and a half seconds.

What used to be in here?
This used to be the pig sheds.

We had nearly 500 pigs
down here at one time.

# How long

# Has this been going on?

# How long... #

Ace, How Long Has This Been
Going On, was recorded here

and that went to Number One.

We have guitar booths
for the separation,

we have a drum room there
and Charles built moving walls

in there in 19...middle '70s.

He built some walls which actually
move, which was a good idea,

and so we always progress,
you know, bit by bit.

Well, in 1975,
when Queen were here...

HORSE NEIGHS

Oh, bloody, I can't think.

Shall we say hello to Amanda?
Amanda. Get that camera off me!

THEY LAUGH

In 1975, when Queen were here,
I very well remember

Brian May and Roger, Frisbee was
the in game, throwing Frisbees.

I remember mentioning to Brian,
"You're not doing very much".

He said, "Well, Freddie is in there
playing the piano doing something."

So I walked into there,
which is now an office.

In those days, it was a food store
with horses' saddles and all.

And Freddie was sat in the far
corner. I stood next to him.

And I didn't realise, he was
probably doing the finishing touches

to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Which was called Freddie's Thing
by the way. Amazing. Yeah.

And that's when the farming side
took a step back

and then the music business
took over.

This is a live room -
a big drum room, here.

This originally was built
as a games room

but Brian put his amplifiers
in here,

Rush put all their equipment
in here,

because they loved the sound of
the room, because we have curtains

which you can open and you can
change the sound of the room.

A lot of other studios
spent millions on this

and they've all gone.

We spent sod all and we've survived
the lot of them.

From the age of 19 to the age of 32,

I was on board a mysterious vessel.

And...

..it finally ran out of steam, air,
reality and everything in 1980.

When we lost John,
Led Zeppelin was no more,

so there was no doing anything else,

but moving on, you know.

There was thousands and thousands
of rock singers with no shirt on...

..so I was already a cliche.

I didn't know what on earth
I was going to do,

but I knew if I was going to
find out what it was going to be,

it would be in a place like this.

It's just space.

There you are.

It's pastoral...

..but it's pretty, it's got...
It's full of history.

Once we got rid of the pigs, then
we moved on to the music business,

so it's more or less the same,
except that the use has changed.

But... So you've got musicians
instead of pigs.

Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

It's got drama and success
and failure.

But it's all in this great,
sort of, arboreal,

this green, pleasant land,
you know,

rather than going into a city
and grinding it out.

We were in the first year
of our recording career.

We had made one album.

We recorded some of that
album in Abbey Road.

Now, when you think about it,
to be 19 and being in Abbey Road,

who wouldn't love that?

I just shrunk.
You know, I thought...

"..Abbey Road?
What are we doing in Abbey Road?"

We'd hardly been out of Glasgow,

we'd hardly been
in a recording studio,

so to be in Abbey Road, it was
just a step way too far for me

and everyone who worked in there
was called Hayden and...

You know, it was very proper
and very English

and very middle-class

and it just wasn't rock and roll,

so I couldn't wait
to get out of there.

All we wanted to do was play
and our producer John Leckie

had looked for residential places
and he said, "There's this place

"called Rockfield.
You'll love this place."

And we said, "Where is it?"
And he said...

.."Wales."

HE LAUGHS

I do remember, actually,
I think when we drove in there,

I think we passed by Kingsley
and he looked mental

and I remember thinking,
"All right, we're in the country!"

My first impression
with Rockfield was...

..crikey, this is a bit rough,
I suppose,

because there seemed to be
more attention

going on with the farm
and the animals

and the general kind of
manure kind of stuff.

But the equipment was great
and you had a lot of space.

You had an instant feeling of,
hey, we can do anything here,

because of the size of the rooms
and stuff.

Well, in the early '80s,
Simple Minds turned up.

So did Adam And The Ants, you see,
and they were trend-setters.

# Well, I'm standing here
looking at you

# What do I see?

# I'm looking straight through... #

Music was changing because it
had come through the punk thing

and we were into what was called
the new wave.

# Until I learn to accept
my reward... #

And, of course,
new wave could be anything.

It still had to have the energy
and creativity,

but you didn't have the boundaries
that you had before

so when we did
Real To Real Cacophony at Rockfield,

we could drum up any fantasy
in our minds

and create a song out of it,

which is the kind of attitude
the band had, you know.

So we were in the Coach House

and, you know, that was a big deal,

but we were always curious to know
who was in the main studio

and there was a microphone set up
in the middle of the courtyard.

And we thought,
"What are they doing?"

Anyway, we could not believe
that none other than Iggy Pop...

..was booked. I mean,
we just couldn't believe it.

Can you hear me out there now?
This is our rehearsal,

this is my band and these
are the afternoon barflies.

One, two, one, two, three, four!

But actually, probably
it was that Iggy was...

..on the wagon or off the wagon?
I always get them...

He was on the wagon in as much
that I think he was down there

trying to be a good boy
and not to be drinking

and not to be doing anything naughty
and just be seriously getting on

with the work,
so they sent him down there.

There he was in the big studio,
and...

..within a couple of nights
he was creeping around

into our little studio
because we weren't on the wagon.

Not only was that mind-blowing,
but Bowie turned up

and he looked as you would imagine
David Bowie looking.

I always remember because
David Bowie was all in red.

He had red trousers and
a red shirt on and everything.

But he had this huge...
It was so Rockfield.

He had this huge bit of cheese
in his hand and a can of Heineken.

CHARLIE LAUGHS

We went over there and Simple Minds
sang some backing vocals,

we all went in the studio
and clapped,

and a good time was had by all.

The lyric before we come in is,
"You're so..."

# You're too simple minded

# Let's play it safe... #

What was the chorus, Charlie?
"What do we have in common..."

# What do we have in common?
Play it safe... #

# ..da-da-da. #

# What do we have in common?

# Play it safe

# I'll tell you something safe... #

Leckie, in his sweet way,
would always remind you,

"The record company
are coming up next week."

"Oh, God.

"Oh, God.
I haven't written any lyrics yet.

"We've been here a month."

The band hadn't really
found their footing.

It was still quite experimental.

We were already in a lot of debt
because the first album had tanked.

They hadn't really had a hit.

If you don't come up with hits,
if you don't recoup your money,

you'd get dropped,
the record doesn't get released

and everything stops
and the payments stop

and you're not going to make
another record after that.

I remember walking up
to the microphone,

we had a song called Changeling

and I think probably
the first time in my life

feeling, erm, a kind of, erm...

..a sober pressure.

John was like, "Track sounds great.

"How does it sound in
the headphones?" "Sounds great."

"You ready to go?" "Yeah."
And they hadn't heard a word.

Pretty good.

That's a cool riff.

It's nicked!

I had moved it along
and, "This is great,

"this is great, this is great,
but what kind of lyric?"

And at the time, these new clubs
were starting in London,

these, erm...

They weren't called New Romantics
but they were on the verge of that

and they were showing pictures
in the magazines and the paper

about all these stylish
changeling people

and I thought,
"I'm going to write about them,

"sitting here
in the Welsh countryside."

In the Coach House,
there's this corridor,

and at the end of the room
is a door to a toilet

and if you put a microphone
in this corridor

and open the door to the studio,

it picked up this great resonance
from the drums,

so the microphone in the corridor,
a secret weapon at Rockfield.

It was fantastic.

Changeling is probably the best
track on the record for me, yeah.

# Changeling

# Well, changeling for you... #

It came out.

The record company hated it.

Didn't think there was anything
radio-wise on it,

and they were right.

But the journalists liked it
and started to say, "You know,

"Simple Minds are worthwhile
taking serious."

The residential idea was,

you didn't have to break the train
of thought or creativity,

you could stick around.

Really quite a neat way...

..of people being almost prisoners.

I had no idea of writing techniques
with anybody else,

but I didn't have to consider,
really...

..anybody else's opinions any more.

I was free to fail.

I tried to embrace more or less
everything I could,

from contemporary sound,
bit by bit by bit.

And I suppose this was
the first time I used

any kind of mechanised rhythms
at all.

The famous TR-808 handclaps.

And bass drum.

Dreadful. Terrible, really.

We wrote Big Log.

The whole thing about the structure
of the song and the way it's played,

it's turned a corner.

# My love is in league
with the freeway

# Its passion will rise
as the cities fly by

# And the tail lights dissolve
in the coming of night

# And the questions
and thousands take flight... #

Well, the Big Log was another
jazz cigarette, of course.

An African Woodbine...

..that was being shared mostly
by the rhythm section,

which was one drum box
and the bass player.

# In the secret that burns... #

It's a road song, though, isn't it?

Then, I could do anything, anywhere.

There was this kind of feeling
of a new kind of pop music

and we were gravitating
towards that,

but I think we still... There was
still going to have to...

What's the song
that's going to do it?

I remember being in the rehearsal
room, it was the Old Mill,

and I remember the first time
Charlie played the riff

to Promised You A Miracle
and I thought,

"This is going to... This...
This will do it."

I must say, I'm extremely pleased
to introduce this next act.

It's a band I've championed a lot
on my radio show

and here they are, making their
Top Of The Pops debut. Simple Minds!

CHEERING

# Promised you a miracle

# Belief is a beauty thing

# Promises, promises

# As golden days break wondering

# Chance
As love takes a train... #

It makes you feel good,
the riff makes you feel good.

It's full of optimism.

When I hear it, that's the emotion
I get from it.

It was kind of...
It was a funky pop song.

# Love sails to a new life... #

Well, it was Top 10, wasn't it?

That album, New Gold Dream,
people still talk about it.

It's a landmark album for us.

Erm...

And, you know, commercial success,

and, critical, it took us
into all the big arenas.

One of the key changes
that happened to us then

was that we'd changed record labels
and, lo and behold,

Virgin had their own residential
studio called The Manor.

A place for "pop stars".

And I think we thought,

"We're pop stars now
and this is the new shiny world."

The technology,
everything was moving on,

and I don't know the story
of Rockfield then,

but I think it would have been
hard for them to keep up

with Richard Branson's money.

Because Rockfield was a pioneer
and everybody copied us,

there was loads of studios
out there now, all residential,

and, of course, there's only a
certain amount of work to go around,

and then the dreaded dance music
turned up,

which wasn't quite what we did.

Well, Rockfield has always
been known for rock music.

For bands playing together,
loud electric guitars

and drums and stuff,

and I guess, as the '80s went on,

there was a lot more electronics
being used,

there was the sampler, you know,
the Akai sampler got invented

and the little cute bass computer,

and so you could programme things
and trigger things

and create new music, really,

so you didn't need a drummer
or a big room for a big drum sound

because you could use
a sample of a drummer

and loop that
and play along to that,

so, as the technology took over,
you know...

..I guess people didn't book
Rockfield quite so often.

LISA: Well, it did get tough.

I mean, it's always been feast
and famine, that is the reality.

You know, in the '70s,
it was back-to-back

and there was loads of work
coming in and it was fine.

My parents had nice cars
and we were off at private school

and all of that sort of stuff.

And then, you know, things changed.

There didn't seem to be
as much work coming through.

And then my mum was out
and she would,

she always did books for people,

she did accountancy...
well, book-keeping for people,

and at one point, she had seven
different jobs doing book-keeping

and that was to help
keep the place going

and keep money
coming into the house.

What happened to your and Kingsley's
doing Rockfield together?

In the end, I milked the cows
up until 1975.

We were frightened to go back
to where we were.

And I was left a bit behind.

That, there, is Rockfield Studios.

In 1987, we're a big company by now,

we decided, Charles took
one half of the company

and built Monnow Valley...

..and I kept the remaining
bit of Rockfield

and carried on with Rockfield,
so it was no problem.

It's not a case of falling out,
it was a case of two different ideas

and he did what he wanted to do
and I did what I wanted to do.

There was no problem in it.

I'm from Monmouth, so I grew up
just down the road from the studio.

Rockfield is like this mysterious
place that you knew about,

but you couldn't go out there,
but you would see bands

around the town and my dad
used to have the local taxi firm,

so he used to tell me about
this place and about Kingsley

so I knew little bits, but, yeah,

you didn't really know too much
about it,

but it was this great place that
everyone was proud of in Monmouth.

As soon as you get old enough
to go into the pubs,

people would say
"So-and-so was in last week,"

and you get sucked into
waiting to see

who's going to come in
to The Nag's Head, you know.

I was into music, playing in bands,
and I was recording my rehearsals.

I always had the 4-tracks out.
I was always more interested

in recording the rehearsals
than the actual rehearsing.

I never thought about working here.

I knew it was here,
but I was planning on going away

to university
and studying something else

and then the opportunity came up
through a friend of mine.

A pretty strange job interview,
as you can imagine, with Kingsley.

He had a moan about the music
business and then said...

He actually told me to go to college
and then university

and, "Think about doing
something else", he said,

"But if you still want to do it
when you get home,

"give me a call
and there's a job for you."

It took me the time, ten minutes
in the car with my dad to get home,

and I'd decided I wanted to
come and do it.

You know, I didn't know where
it was going to lead.

1989, 1990, there was
a massive recession

and the music business
suddenly caved in completely.

TELEPHONE RINGS

But life changed for us because
one door closes and one door opens,

I had a phone call from John Leckie,
a good friend of mine.

He had a band to produce
called The Stone Roses.

And I think they booked in
officially for a couple of weeks...

..but they stayed.

SHE LAUGHS

And they left, I think it was
13 months in the end

that they were here,
and that saved us.

The Stone Roses saved Rockfield.
I can easily say that.

Are you fed up that it's taken
so long for people

outside of Manchester and the
North West to catch up with you?

No. No.

# I hear you knocking down
my door... #

They'd signed a deal where
they had to make the record

at the record company's studio.

The band had to come down to London
and stay in a cheap hotel.

We worked mostly night times

and I kept telling them
about Rockfield

and saying this was a great place
and where we need to go.

Through the record company
and personnel

at the record company changing,
we got to go to Rockfield.

We did Waterfall,
a song called Waterfall,

which we'd attempted in London
and not really got the best take,

and most of all,
we did I Am The Resurrection.

We worked it out so that the band
could play it live,

so the whole of Resurrection
is one complete take, really,

from start to finish.

You all say that you expect to be
the best band in the world, so...

No, we know that we are.

We don't expect anyone else to think
anything in particular about us.

They can think and do
what they want.

If you're the best band in the
world, why aren't you Number One?

Because the record isn't out yet.

When the album came out,
they became...

They became really, really
special people.

You know, everyone loved them.

Well, you have to do better
the next time

or you have to do as good as.

All sorts of things can happen.

The single after that
was called One Love.

We booked into Rockfield to do that.

We planned to be there at nine
o'clock on Sunday evening for dinner

and start Monday morning fresh,
so I got there with an assistant,

then the roadies came down
with a vanload of equipment

and we set that up.
The band never showed up.

Monday came and went
and I'm making phone calls.

"Just wait there. Stay there."

So it got right round
until the Tuesday evening

and we were just planning on
going home,

and shall we pack up and that's it?
No-one seems to be coming.