Rod Argent - Aiming for 8 Keyboards on Stage!

The only accompanying information for this article is an approximate date:  October 1973.

I added some details in brackets.  The article claims that Argent "didn't turn his talents to the organ till the latter years of the Zombies, around 1968."  Presumably, this refers only to the Hammond organ, which he first used on Odessey and Oracle in 1967.  He'd played Vox Continental since 1964.

Rod Argent - Aiming for 8 Keyboards on Stage!

What's been happening to Argent lately?  They had two consecutive hit singles, Hold Your Head Up and God Gave Rock and Roll To You, but they failed to gain a hat-trick with It's Only Money (Part 2) and their excellent last album [In Deep] failed to gain the sales and attention it deserved.

    One of the reasons for this sudden subsidence in their success could be that they have spent so much of this year out of the country.  It was with this in mind that they cancelled last month's tour of the States in favour of a whirlwind tour of Britain.

    When B.I. met Rod Argent recently, the first thing we asked him was just how much does success in Britain mean to the group.  'We put off the States because we thought it was very important that we did a tour of England,' he replied.  'We hadn't done one since before last Christmas and we definitely have neglected this country.  Not by choice, though, it's just the way things have worked out.  I think we rather lost the last album over here because we hadn't been playing in this country.'

    Was this the main reason for the 'failure' of the latest single, we wondered, or was it due more to the fact that taking two singles off the same album was a bit too much?  'I don't think that putting out two singles from the album was necessarily a good idea,' was Rod's reply.  'But the fact was that we haven't got any album products coming out in the near future and we hadn't been in the country for a while, so the record company just wanted to keep our name going.  I don't really think it was a very wise decision and I think we'll probably be laying off singles for a while.'

Singles

    One problem that Argent had with the last two singles, and one that's shared with a lot of groups who release album tracks as singles, is that of editing down.

    The songs had to be cut from about seven or eight minutes to about three or four and often songs lose quite a lot in that editing, which is a shame.  [']We do the editing ourselves,' Rod explained, 'but there's simply no way you can keep everything in.  It becomes a different song completely, because the construction of it changes so radically.'

    Many of Argent's songs are written by Rod, either individually or in conjunction with his co-producer, Chris White.  Lead guitarist, Russell Ballard, is also a prolific writer.  Rod had his first self-penned hit way back in 1964, with She's Not There.

    'That was only the third song I ever wrote,' he told us.  'The first was in collaboration with Chris, just before we turned professional.  It wasn't very good, and the second ["It's Alright with Me"] was on an E.P. which was released just after She's Not There.'

Classical

    Although he enjoys writing, Rod does find he has to discipline himself.  'If I didn't sit down every day and say right, now I'm going to write, I wouldn't get anything done at all!  My inspiration tends to come in the form of fragments and ideas, but I have to sit down and do some hard work to put them all together.  I usually get the musical thing in my head first and write the lyrics afterwards.'

    Music has been part of Rod's life since he was six years old and had his first piano lessons.  'I never took any exams or anything,' he confessed, 'and really I think I'm largely self-taught.  I was in the St. Albans cathedral choir, too.  It was a very good choir and we used to broadcast on Radio 3.  That was a very good musical education.'

    Rod thinks that his early classical training was a good foundation, but he soon grew out of that kind of music.  'I only really liked classical music till I heard Bill Haley, which freaked me out, and then Elvis, which freaked me out even more!'

    In 1963 he took up electric piano, but didn't turn his talents to the organ till the latter years of the Zombies, around 1968.  Since then, he's added a whole galaxy of keyboard instruments to his stage act, which, at the moment, comprises electric piano, mellotron, Moog, grand piano and organ.  Rod also intends to use a church organ on a couple of numbers on the new album [Nexus], which they are recording at the moment.

    Some performers may feel tied down by having to sit or stand at the keyboard, but not Rod.  He quite frequently plays one instrument with the left hand and another with his right, then dashes round the lot to play a few bars on the grand piano.

    And he's not stopping there!  'I'll probably be getting another mellotron and a Fender electric piano and possibly another Moog on stage shortly,' he said.

    He finds that the Hammond organ suits his purposes best.  'I think it's the best one for playing on the road and I use it for recordings as well.  The electric piano's a Hohner [Pianet N] and I use the grand piano with an excellent pick-up I got from a guy in Texas called Charlie Helpenstall.  There's just a few of them in the country.  I know Elton John's got one.  I got mine in the States because the guy came to one of our concerts.'

    The next American tour will probably take place in November, when Argent have finished the new album.  We were curious to know just what kind of bread the band were earning over here, and Rod pulled a wry face.  'You can gross quite a lot.  On the last tour we grossed about 90,000 dollars but the expenses came to so much that we made virtually nothing in the end.  The expenses were enormous, incredible.'

    The new album should be released early next year and Argent will probably do another British tour to coincide with it.  'I think we're going to forget about singles for a time and concentrate on the albums,' Rod explained.  'I hope the new album's an extension of the last one.  I think that was the best one we've made and I hope we can build on it.'

Argent: Topping in the States (Record Mirror)

Argent:  topping in the States

WITH their latest album, In Deep, climbing fast towards the Hot 100 in America it seemed feasible to expect that Argent would be dashing constantly along the airways - the roadies take to the freeways - during their current Stateside trip.  In fact, the group have been notching up considerable mileage, but their concert appearances are being kept to a reasonable amount.

    Instead of undertaking an eight week tour, Argent's management have arranged for the group to spend four weeks in America, returning to England for two weeks, before they fly off once more for a further spell across the Atlantic.

Original

    The original plan was for the group to stay for four weeks each time, but with the rising demand for them to make more appearances, it looks like their second visit could be more prolonged.

    "We're working in New York tonight," Russ Ballard told me, calling from the luxury of the Summit Hotel on the East Side of town.  "It will be our first real New York gig this trip because we played at My Father's Place in Long Island earlier on... but tonight we're in the Bronx.  We're on a double bill with the Kinks... it's a double-double bill, but we go on before them."

    The last time that they toured America Argent were working as second on the bill to other artists, but this time around they're topping most of the concerts.

    "That means we can do the same length set as we do in England," Russ explained.  "Before we were doing only about 40 minutes, which was rather restricting, but this time we do the same as in England, only we include Liar."

    Was that, I wondered, because Three Dog Night had made the number so successful in America.

    "Well no, not particularly," says Russ.  "Mainly because we've found that it fits nicely in between two songs, Dance Of Ages and Fakir."

    Argent had tried this new formation of numbers at the four gigs they had completed when we talked... including two in the depths of Alabama.

    "We played at Birmingham and in a place called Dothin," Russ recalls.  "It was the first time they'd had an English band down at Dothin, and it was quite an experience.  The audience were mainly young white people, with a few black people as well.  But the best gig so far was the Birmingham one which was really, really good.

    "We've had to cancel one performance because the electrical system in the hall, which was in New York, burnt out.  That meant we had a few extra days off."

Opportunity

    As Russ had returned from Argent's last American trip somewhat devoid of new material for the group to record, I wondered if he had taken that opportunity to work on his songs.

    "Well I haven't got an acoustic guitar with me now," he explained.  "It got smashed up on the 'plane coming over.  I could buy a new one I suppose, but I don't find that I can write over here very well, anyway."

    In some of their spare time Argent have been visiting the cinema.

    "We've seen what you could describe as a porny film," laughs Russ.  "It's produced by the same person who did Deep Throat, and it's quite amazing!  I'm not sure that it would get passed for Britain!"

    And on a more artistic level, the group also visited a club to see an American group Aero Smith handled by their stand-in manager, Steve Lieber.  Max's in Kansas City - "an eating and raving place" - has also been graced by Argent.  On their travels I asked Russ if he had seen much evidence of teenyboppers in the States.

Freaks

    "It does exist over here," was the reply.  "But it's not quite reached the point that it has in Britain.  They've got Osmond freaks and David Cassidy freaks, though.  But it doesn't really affect us.

    "At Dothin we had an audience of three thousand and we'll have audiences of ten thousand on some of the dates.  It's true that with a small audience you can get more of a rapport, but to make money it's essential to do the big gigs... and of course you reach more people that way."

Argent plan to reach the people on the West Coast of America during the second half of their tour.  In the meantime they're all looking forward to spending a little time at home.  Robert Henrit is hankering to return to his pregnant wife Ricky - their baby is due in July - and Russ Ballard aims to move into a new home in Cheshunt when the tour is over.  Then there is a possibility that both of them will be flying off to Norway to work on a new album that Adam Faith is planning.

    And after that, once more, it will be time for Argent to work on their own album.  Which rather indicates just why the group have adopted the policy of a yearly tour in Britain and America!

Val Mabbs

Deeper in the Heart of Argent (Sounds Magazine)

[source]

Deeper in the heart of Argent

Rod takes to Ray Telford about the new LP

"IN DEEP" is the title of Argent's fourth album and as such represents the group's first real major musical advancement since they formed three and a half years ago amidst a whole mass of enthusiasm and silver tongued praise.

    But in many ways it's taken Argent the space of four albums to shake loose from their past image of purveyors of flimsy and delicately constructed pop songs and to come up with something slightly deeper rooted.

    The group's first album, for example, Rod Argent agrees, was very much on one level ideas wise and he also willingly accepts the notion that the following two albums, though both revealed an obvious desire within the band to widen their scope in all directions, were still very much inward looking and, to a point, even incestuous.

    The fact remains, however, that all Argent's albums to date have been as near perfect, in their own style, as you're likely to hear these days and in past interviews Rod has taken care to make it known that in the studio the group are nothing short of insatiable perfectionists.

    Despite the misgivings of the first album for instance in terms of texture and feel, the actual music laid down was breathtaking for its sparkling consistency.

    In his notes on the inside sleeve of "In Deep" Rod explains that the idea behind the album was to make it one of "textures and contrasts" and this they've achieved chiefly through the greater manipulation of the group's three front-line voices plus a more-open instrumental approach:

    "The voices on the album were especially important in that respect," said Rod.  "We'd been working on this thing where we wanted to use voices more as lead instruments and we took a lot of care to make sure they came across that way."

    I mentioned also that the production techniques used on "In Deep" sounded a great deal more adventurous and enterprising than on the previous three albums.  Rod refuses, however, to bend to the theory that the main forte of any good album is in its production:

    "I think a lot of people tend to get too wound up or place too much importance on production for the wrong reasons.  Of course a good production job is crucial to any good album but the music has to be all there in the first place."

    Among the most striking feature on the new album undoubtedly lies in the combined strength and sheer energy force of the Argent rhythm section which, again, on previous albums has tended to be underplayed and this has also constituted one of the main differences in the past between the group as a live entity and as a recording unit:

    "I know the first two albums didn't really represent the group as we were live," said Rod in reflective tone.  "Neither of them had the atmosphere that we create on live gigs but that's a hangup I think most bands inevitably run into.  The new album, though, has been the easiest one of all to record because we were lucky in that we managed to hit the right groove in the studio very easily and very quickly."

    The possibility of Argent putting together a live album in the forseeable future, Rod says, is unlikely:  "At this stage I don't think a live album would be very beneficial to us.  In fact it's be a superfluous kind of thing for us to do because there's so much more we want to do in the studio — just things like all the new ideas Russ (Ballard) has in mind, in fact the whole group have a lot of ideas individually which I think we'll have to let come to the fore before we do anything like a live record."

    Shortly after Argent had released their second album, Rod was quoted as saying that it would take approximately four albums for them to reach anything near their full potential and in retrospect he finds no reason to change that opinion:

Energy

    "I think it was very obvious to us right from the very beginning that it wasn't going to be the kind of group who did things with sudden bursts of energy.  Four albums might seem like a hell of a long time to wait for THE album but at the same time that doesn't mean we discount or ignore the previous three because they were steps in our development and at the time they were recorded that's where we were at.

    "It's like what I said earlier about the way we work in the studio, we have to feel our way into recording the same way as we have to feel our way into gigs so obviously it's going to take time for us to get exactly what we want."

Stagnant

    Argent, no way, can be accused of being a stagnant band.  The constant changes, both in the group's mental and instrumental approach to their music, which can be seen as a fluid progression throughout all their records to date, is proof enough of that.  For instance in the space of three years they've successfully absorbed everything from the hairiest of modern jazz composers to the music of James Brown and that's a fact, which, once again, is very evident to anyone who's taken the time out to get into each of the band's albums in turn.

    For the future you're left only to guess what Argent will continue their quest for perfection... they'll never reach it of course, at least not in the eyes of Rod Argent.