Martin Belmont was about 11 or 12 years old, a kid growing up in England, when he asked his parents to buy him a guitar. The first record he got was “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley. Around that time, The Shadows, out of London, were a popular instrumental group. America had The Ventures, England had The Shadows. Young Martin was fascinated by the look and sound of Hank Marvin’s Fender Stratocaster. In art school, Martin made friends with other guitarists and musicians and after leaving school, he moved to London. Through a mutual friend, he met the members of two bands, Help Yourself and Brinsley Schwarz. The Brinsleys were in need of a roadie. Martin played that role for about a year before forming his own band, Ducks Deluxe. They signed with RCA, the label Martin’s childhood hero Elvis had been on. The next band he co-formed along with guitarist Brinsley Schwarz and keyboardist Bob Andrews was The Rumour, best known for backing Graham Parker with Andrew Bodnar on bass and Steve Goulding on drums. The rest, as they say, is history.

Martin: [00:00:00] Hello?

DJ: Martin.

Martin: Yes.

is it Dave?

DJ: is, it is.

Martin: Yes. Uh, I’m fine. How are you?

DJ: I’m good. 

Martin: Great,

DJ: Well, I am calling it the correct time, right? Just

Martin: Yeah. No, it is. You are, you are. You’re bang on two o’clock.

DJ: . 

Well, Martin Belmont, thanks so much for taking the time to talk today.

Martin: My pleasure. 

DJ: Well, what part of the UK are you in right now?

Martin: I’m in London, in, in, uh, Northwest London, an area called Kilburn.

DJ: well, I always like to hear about someone’s life when they were growing up. I think you were born in Bromley?

Martin: Uh, yes, I was. Yeah. uh, yes, I was born in Bromley, which is Southeast London. And, we lived in another part of southeast London until I was about seven or eight, I think, and then we moved to Somerset, which is in the west country of England. lived in a little town called Yeovil. And I lived there, through school.

And, then I went to art school in Bournemouth, which is on the south coast. [00:01:00] And, lived there and moved back to London when I left art school, which was 1970.

DJ: Oh, okay. You moved around some.

Martin: Well, a little bit. Yeah.

DJ: Wasn’t David Bowie from Bromley?

Martin: I think so. Yeah, whether he was from there or not, I don’t know, but he certainly has. There is a, some kind of David Bowie Bromley connection.

DJ: I think maybe he went to school there or something. I don’t know. I was thinking maybe he was…

Martin: Yeah, I dunno is the answer. Although I know that there’s a, there’s a, there’s a sort of David Bowie fan group called the Bromley Connection or something like that. I’ve seen them on the social media things, you know.

DJ: So your family moved to Yeovil pretty far west of London.

Martin: Yeah. We moved to Yeovil, lived there, as I say, ’til I went to art school, and this is in the sixties. and, uh, I went to art school in 1965 till 1970, when I left, and then I moved back to London. Yeah.

DJ: So, prior to you going off to art school, while you were [00:02:00] living in Yeovil, what, what do you, what music do you remember hearing in those days? I mean, you were pretty young,

Martin: Well that was the, that was the sixties. That was, I mean, when we moved, there, it was late fifties, I think. and that’s, I’d heard Elvis and, uh. the surface of rock and roll, if you like. you know, the Elvis obviously was, was big. And, and I loved Elvis. I loved The Rock, the pre-Army Elvis particularly.

That was my, that was my cup o’ tea. But then, and then, uh, the other, the other big news for me was the English band called The Shadows,

DJ: Oh yeah, yeah,

Martin: who had a huge effect on a whole generation of people that went on to become musicians.

DJ: Yeah. The guitar work from The Shadows was

Martin: It’s the guitar work and that, and just seeing somebody with, with a, this beautiful machine that’s this Fender electric guitar, is, is like quite, you know, a, a red fender [00:03:00] guitar.

It’s like, like from another planet or something. It’s,

DJ: Yes. 

Martin: It’s wonderful. Uh, and their instrumental hits. They had many of them at the late fifties through to the early sixties. and, they were a huge influence.

DJ: Yeah,

Martin: Huge influence.

I started playing when I was about 11 or 12, and the first thing I played was, uh, learning the, the rhythm parts in shadow songs and then later on learn the how to play the tunes as well.

DJ: Yeah. “Apache”, 

Martin: Yeah,

DJ: They, um, I know they, backed Cliff Richard, but yeah, I was, I was much more interested in just listening to their instrumental work. It was great.

Martin: Yeah, me too, me too. I always, Cliff Richard was always a very third rate Elvis Presley. As far as you know, it was a typical English. sort of version of an American great thing. The English version was kind of very much a secondhand low rent version, and until The Beatles [00:04:00] came along. But, up until then, it, it was all the good stuff came from America. Apart from The Shadows,

DJ: Yeah. Well, you mentioned like learning the rhythm and, and then ultimately more the, the melody or the lead. So were you self-taught or did you have friends that played, or did you just learn?

Martin: No, I was self-taught. I bought a book. I bought a how to play the guitar. You know, I bought the book that was sold millions called “Play Guitar in a Day”. Which is how to sell millions in a lot with a lie, you can’t learn to play the guitar in a day. Well, define, play the guitar, you know, if you mean strum one chord.

Yes. Okay. But anyway, that’s what I did. I just, picked it up. The thing about the guitar is that when you see people playing it, it looks pretty easy, doesn’t look, doesn’t look terribly complicated like a piano or something. and when you, when you get the reality in your hands and it hurts your fingers of your left hand [00:05:00] holding down these strings, if, like me, you, you went to the guitar with great enthusiasm, but then found that it hurt and you put it down and it took about a year to get over the first hurdle.

Then, and then you start to. A bit and, uh, and it gets, it gets better. But yeah, I can remember the enthusiasm and then big dam of, you know, oh, this is not quite as easy as it. And the guitar is relatively a simple instrument to play compared with many other instruments.

DJ: I think we all went through that though. I, yeah, I certainly did. I had to build up calluses and I was like, oh, wow. You know, you know, but 

Martin: Yeah, 

DJ: I 

Martin: right. Yeah. 

DJ: Before figuring out that I could get lighter gauge strings and things like that, I, I, um, but I was determined and I’m sure, and I know you were too, so.

Martin: Well, I, I reckon probably for every person that, played a guitar and stuck with it, there were probably, you know, at least 10 people who didn’t stick with it and,

DJ: Right.

Martin: You know, [00:06:00] um. It, it comes as a shock when you think it’s going to be one thing and it turns out to be something else. You know, it comes as a, it comes as a bit of a downer, doesn’t it?

DJ: So you learn to play guitar and that’s in your days in Yeovil, you did go off to art school.

Martin: Yeah.

DJ: And then there, I’m sure while you were there, you were meeting other guys that were playing, or the people who were playing guitar and bands and stuff.

Martin: Art schools in English, art schools were in in most days were an absolute breeding ground for musicians. You only have to look at the list of well-known musicians who went to art school. You’ve got John Lennon, you got Pete Townshend. You’ve got, you know, uh. Keith Richards, I think you know, all these, all these people.

And, the, the reason, or one of the reasons why that was so is that when it came time to leave school, regular school, 15, 16, you would either stay on and do A levels and then go [00:07:00] to hopefully go to university or you would leave school and get a job. And if you didn’t wanna do either of those two options, the other option that was open to you was to go to art school, which you didn’t need any A levels for.

You, in fact, you didn’t even have to be particularly artistic. You just had to say you were, and you know, and, they were easy to get into. and you got a grant from your local council to attend these places. it was full of people playing guitar. There was big folk, music was really big.

Lots of people playing Blues stuff. Lots of people with acoustic guitars, including me. and so yeah, art schools were, were, were a great, a great, um, breeding ground for, for musicians in that day and age. It’s sort changed now, of course, but uh, yeah.

DJ: Well, then you headed back to London after art school At what point did you cross paths with the guys in Brinsley Schwarz? How did that all come about?

Martin: Well, uh, what happened [00:08:00] was when I moved up to London, I met up, I was friends with a guy who had, who’d been at art school with me. Bournemouth. And he, he moved up a year before me, and he had a little flat, and I used to stay in his, uh, resort wasn’t really a flat, it was just a one room kind of thing.

And I used to sleep on his floor. And, he told me that he, he was a photographer and he’d photo photographed some, um, bands that were associated with this guy called Dave Robinson, who was the manager. And one of these bands was the Brinsley Schwarz Band, who I’d never heard of. I didn’t know any of these people.

But, um, Chris, that’s the photographer, he told me that, they were looking for a roadie if I was interested, and he gave me their address. And, and that’s kind of how I met them.

DJ: Nice.

Martin: Became their roadie.

DJ: That had to be a very interesting time, so I,

Martin: Well, it was an interesting time. Yeah, it was 1971, I [00:09:00] guess. And, I’d been, I’d got a straight job. I’d, you know, just I, I couldn’t get a job in, in the area that I wanted to work in, which was film. And, um, it was fairly obvious that having been to art school was no, gave me no advantage in getting a job at all.

It was, in fact, it was irrelevance as it turned out. and that’s fine. But, uh, so my, my mind, my sort of aim drifted from film to music, um, uh, because that was the only other thing that I had any interest in at all, uh, that could possibly be a source of income.

DJ: Sure. 

Martin: And so I just, I just figured maybe, maybe I should go for, go see these people about being a roadie.

and I didn’t really know what a roadie did, but, uh, I did. I went and saw these people and the next thing I knew, I was traveling to Glasgow, driving a van, 

DJ: That’s like 800 miles away or something, isn’t it?

Martin: [00:10:00] 400, 400 there, and 400 back. And it was a one off. It was there and back on the same, just for one gig.

DJ: So a round trip of 800 miles.

Martin: Which came as a shock to me. I didn’t think people did such a bizarre thing as driving to Glasgow, doing a show and then driving back again.

you know, that’s not what, that’s not what you, you your popular conception of, but that’s a working band, you know. Yeah. So that’s, that’s how I met them.

DJ: Well, I loved all the sixties psychedelia and the very blues drenched heavy bands like The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin and Cream. But I really love that in that same period, Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe, Bob Andrews, those guys were all very into country and they were very impressed by American bands like Eggs Over Easy who were mu, they were more like me.

Americana, Roots Rock than…

Martin: Yeah. What, what’s, what today is called Americana. Absolutely. Yeah,

DJ: You know, because so many [00:11:00] of the bands, which were great, I mean in that period though were playing like Baroque Pop or really heavy blues stuff. Uh, but yeah, I just find it so cool. And I think that was one thing that really,

Martin: biggest, you know, the biggest, the biggest influence on Brinsleys and all, all of those people was, was The Band.

DJ: Oh yes, yes.

Martin: You know, that was the, that was the catalyst that, that, you know, in the midst of all the psychedelic madness that was going on, suddenly these people are playing this sort of stripped down wonderful music that’s, sort of timeless and, and,

DJ: Yep.

Martin: universal as well. yeah,

DJ: Well, that reminds

Martin: so that was,

DJ: That reminds me

Martin: I didn’t know the band. I didn’t know the band until I met up with the princes and that that was a revelation. Yeah. That absolutely

DJ: Well, I remember talking with Brinsley now that you mentioned it. Now I’m remembering that there was, a time when they [00:12:00] ended up borrowing some equipment from The Band for one of the gigs or

Martin: no, they, they, the band ended up borrowing their

DJ: Oh, the other way around. That’s right. That’s right.

Martin: Uh, to, just to rehearse.

DJ: That’s right. That’s right.

Martin: They, they, they were playing at Wembley Stadium with Crosby Stills & Nash, and they came and they came and rehearsed at the Brinsley. Brinsley had a house just on the outskirts of London where they had a barn and they would rehearse in it.

And,

DJ: That’s

Martin: yeah.

DJ: Well, while you were touring on the road and spending time with Brinsley Schwarz, you met Sean Tyla, how long was it before you guys decided to start your own band?

Martin: Well, um, my, my memory of the, of the time period is kind of hazy, but during 1971, I met Sean at some point during that time. I met him through a guy called Dai Davies, who was the Brinsley’s publicist at the time. and he went on to become Ducks Deluxe’s [00:13:00] manager. And, he’d met Sean. Sean was connected to a band called Help Yourself, who were at one time a part of the same stable as the Brinsley’s.

And so there was a connection there. And I met Sean through Dai and, he was a guy who wrote and sang songs and was looking to be in a band. And I was a guy who played the guitar and I was looking to be in a band. So we kind of, we kind of hit it off. and over the course of that year, or several months of that year, we, um, Ducks Deluxe kind of started in ’72. Came together in ’72. Yes.

I’m just saying it’s a bit hazy, uh, my recollection of how the, how the timeline played out. but anyways, that’s how it happened

DJ: Okay. Well, right here in this room, I still have my slightly worn, uh, Ducks Deluxe, the, the first album, the Self self-titled LP.

Martin: The first album. Right. [00:14:00] Okay.

DJ: It’s so great.

Martin: Yeah. It’s, it’s pretty good. It’s aged quite well, I think for

DJ: So, yeah.

Martin: You know, it’s, uh, fairly furious.

DJ: You guys were living in a big home in London where you could practice and am I right that you.

Martin: We, we lived in a squat, what was called a squat, which was a place where you lived and didn’t pay in rent or anything. Um, we had, we had free, we had electricity and wa and water, and we didn’t, we didn’t pay for any of it. The, it was a, the thing that we kind of prevalent in those times, there were lots of empty properties and they were kind of properties that today having been done up, are sold for millions.

But at the time, they were kind of dilapidated and run out, and we, we met this bass player who’d also been in that band, I mentioned, called Help Yourself, a guy called Ken Whaley, who was the first, and he’d already, he was already living in this [00:15:00] squat with a couple of girls. So me and Sean moved in with him, then we acquired a drummer, and within this is a three-story house.

And so we had a room to rehearse in and we, uh, our own bedrooms and a kitchen and whatever. So it was a, it was a great, great way to start a band because it, there was no expenses. So the fact that we weren’t making any money was, was,

DJ: wasn’t a problem.

Martin: No, wasn’t a problem. No, exactly.

DJ: Oh, Ken Whaley ended up, he, he played in Man for a while too, didn’t he?

Martin: That’s right. Yes. He, he played in, he was in Help Yourself then he, he was in Man, and he played on and off, and I used to see him, many years later. he still lived, always lived in that part of London Islington, that part, which is where the Hope & Anchor was, which was one of the. And…

DJ: Hmm.

Martin: quite an important location in my history as, as well as many other people.

DJ: So you guys were playing gigs around [00:16:00] London and then didn’t you do like a weekly or twice weekly show at the Tally Ho?

Martin: We didn’t do a twice weekly show. We did a week. We, we had a residency there. Uh, and that was where the Brinsleys had seen this band called Eggs Over Easy. Uh, this American band who, who, uh, who they had a Sunday lunchtime residency at Tally home, and they were a complete eyeopener for a lot of us who saw them because they would do anything they could, they played, you know, we were always very, careful about what we played, make sure it was okay.

It was not. You know, it was not uncool to play. And the, and the Eggs Over Easy took the opposite thing. They would play anything. They’d play, a Otis Redding song, followed by, a Hank Williams song, followed by a Rolling Stone song. It made no difference. They, uh, followed by one of their own songs, you know, songs.

So, that was a real eyeopener for, for a lot of people. in the Brinsleys and, and, and in Ducks Deluxe as well.

DJ: Well, this may be a silly question ’cause I would [00:17:00] think there’d be many memorable shows, but from that time period, do you remember like any really memorable gigs or anything that stood out? Like some, some event that happened, 

Martin: Not really. Not really. I mean, uh, I can remember various gigs for various reasons, but, Ducks Deluxe were kind of inconsistent live. We could be really good and then we could be really bad as well on stage. At least that’s my memory of it.

DJ: Mm.

Martin: Now I’m sure people that saw us play at the time thought it was great, but my memory is kind of mixed.

Um, we, we had, we had various inconsistencies, but we, we, we ran for, we started in ‘72. In fact, while I was, I told you I was looking through photos on my computer and while I was looking, digging out photos of Andrew Bodnar, I found a photo of the very first Ducks [00:18:00] Deluxe gig, which was in the backyard of the house. Where we squatted, where we were living, and it was just a sort of like a, like a little hippie group of people. we didn’t have a drummer and we, but somebody took a picture of this nascent to be band. We didn’t have a name at that point, and it was before we even had a, it was me and Sean and Ken Whaley and a couple of local people just jamming along, and I was remarkable that I, I managed to hang onto that picture.

DJ: Yeah. That’s great that that still exists. That’s great.

Martin: Absolutely. Yeah.

Right. This is Martin Belmont, and you are listening to Frets with DJ Fey.

DJ: Well, before too long, uh, the band signed with RCA. What did that feel like being on this label? That

Martin: I mean, that was, that was great being on Elvis Presley’s label. 

DJ: Yes, your childhood hero. Yeah,

Martin: Oh yeah. And, uh, and David Bowie’s label and, and that was the connection was ’cause Dai had, had been David Bowie’s publicist as well as the Brinsley. [00:19:00] And so he, he had connections at RCA records and at that point it was weird because unlike today, if you could live and had some half decent material, you could get yourself a record contract.

And we did, well Dai got it for, did the business, but we, we got signed through a two album deal, RCA think, or a two year deal, whatever it was, and, you know, got a little advance and were, were able to get some better equipment and get a good van and, and, and went off to play gigs and. We supported, we did a European tour opening for Lou Reed, who was another a signed to RCA at that time, which was a sort of mixed blessing opening for Lou Reed.

But it was,

DJ: Enough said, I know what you mean.

Martin: I can remember, I can remember doing, I, I can remember a couple of Lou Reed gigs, uh, that we did at that time. [00:20:00] I can remember them because there was some, you know, he, he, he was a, he was a very irascible sort of person. Uh, and his, his, the thing he was, had the least concern for was the support band.

DJ: Right.

Martin: Uh, not surprisingly, I guess, but, uh, you know, we would hang around waiting, hoping to get time to do our, our own sound check. Well, he went on and on and on doing his or not turning up when his band were there and he, he was not there waiting for him to turn up. weird, weird, weird times.

DJ: Yeah.

Martin: That was, that was ’73.

I think that would’ve been, yeah, we, we, we obviously had our, our, we’d either recorded our album or it had been released, I guess it probably been released when we did that tour. Yeah.

DJ: Well, Ducks Deluxe released some great, great records and then there was a compilation put out. but then after Ducks Deluxe, then you and Brinsley and Bob Andrews, you guys joined Graham [00:21:00]Parker and The Rumour, one of my favorite bands of all time.

Martin: Well, we actually started Graham, we didn’t start Graham Parker. We started The Rumour. Now this is, there’s a whole. There’s a whole, varying degrees of memory involved in this thing. Again, uh, you know, there’s a book just recently come out called Graham Parker’s Howlin’ Wind.

DJ: Oh, okay.

Martin: Do you know this book’s written by an American?

DJ: I need to get it so.

Martin: hang on, lemme just grab here. It’s called Graham Parkers’ Howlin’ Wind, and it’s written by a guy called Jay Nachman, N-A-C-H-M-A-N. Uh, and he, interviewed Graham and several other of The Rumour extensively. We, we, we would get emails with a list of questions and stuff. And the, what’s interesting is the, the, uh, [00:22:00] diversity of the various members of the band’s memories about how things happened and in what order and at what time.

You know, some people with completely opposing memories of events and how we met each other. I mean, obviously I knew Brinsley and Bob and I’d when Ducks Deluxe broke up. Brinsley Schwarz had already broken up. In fact, Brinsley came and played with Ducks Deluxe, in the very last couple of months of, of, Ducks Deluxe life.

And, uh, and then me and Brinsley were kind of fairly clear that we wanted to do something together. And then turns out Bob was looking to do something as well. Then we met through Dave Robinson, who along with me was living at the Hope & Anchor this pub in London. And Dave had a little demo studio in this pub on the first floor of the pub.

And Graham came in to make some demos and that’s how The Rumour, we also met Steve and [00:23:00] Andrew through Dave Robinson and this, this little demo studio. And Dave, uh, Steve and Andrew were a ready-made rhythm section. And they were great. They were a couple of years younger than me and Brinsley and Bob, but all the better for it.

And that’s kind of how The Rumour and Graham ended up, you know, the thought was Graham is this kid from outside London with, uh. A handful of songs that are really good and wants to know, wants to do something with them, but doesn’t know what to do. And the, the band, the group of people that became The Rumour were a load of musicians who’d already played in bands and were looking to do something new but didn’t know quite how to go about it.

So, you know, it’s like one on one plus two, you know, one on one equals two. Let’s put Graham Parker together with the these group of people and see what happens. And that’s kind of how that came about. Machinations from Dave Robinson. He saw the [00:24:00] possibilities and that’s kind of how it happened.

This was in 1975.

This would’ve been all of this getting together, rehearsing, meeting each other, you know. yeah.

DJ: I’m remembering now that, uh, Brinsley corrected me on that too. ’cause I think I talked about Graham Parker and The Rumour, and he reminded me like, no, The Rumour was first and then Graham came along.

Martin: Yeah. But I mean, yes, yes. He, he’s right, he’s right, of course. But, some of his, some of his memories don’t chime with some of mine. So, uh, it’s, it’s really, there is no absolute, absolute truth about this. It’s, you know, it’s just, you pick it, pick it apart. But you should, you should have a read of that book. ’Cause it’s, that’s got the whole, he, the whole backstory in it. 

DJ: Yeah, I definitely wanna read that.

Martin: uh, and he did a lot of digging and a lot of. Sorting out between one person’s version of how things happened as opposed to another person’s [00:25:00] version.

DJ: Right. Well, you mentioned, Steve Goulding and I, I was so sorry to see that Andrew Bodnar passed away recently, and of course we lost Bob Andrews in 2025.

Martin: Yeah, we did indeed. We had a wonderful, we did a, had a great gig in London for Bob Andrews, in which Graham and various members of The Rumour, and Nick Lowe, all got together and, played, uh, sets and it was really good. and there’s, there’s quite possibly gonna be a film of that night coming out as well, because it was filmed, properly filmed and, um, sound recorded.

So, that’s, that’s to come. But that was really good. Yes. And then Andrew, Andrew had been very ill for several years, but had outlasted his prognosis. but the cancer got him this year. so that’s very sad. Yeah,

DJ: Yeah.

Martin: He was a lovely, lovely, lovely chap. Bob as well, you know, but then we’re in, we’re in that time, us of [00:26:00] this, of our sort of age where, uh, we’re in that time where the ranks are getting thinner,

DJ: yes,

Martin: But there you go.

DJ: We all have our favorite Graham Parker albums. I’ve always really loved Heat Treatment in particular. I love ’em all. But, uh, do you have any particular album from that time that’s special

Martin: I like, I like the first album, Howlin’ Wind, and I like Squeezing Out Sparks.

DJ: Oh, yeah,

Martin: Because… I like Squeezing Out Sparks because it’s, it’s very much a Guitary album. it’s, in fact, it’s a Squeezing Out Sparks is a kind of odd, odd one out album amongst all those early albums because it’s got the least amount of keyboards and horns and everything else.

It’s very stripped down. and it’s, uh, but it’s a, it’s, the songs are wonderful. That’s the thing. The songs are great. All, all the Graham songs are, are pretty good one way or another. Um, but Squeezing Out Sparks is definitely a bit special. I thought it had, it had the best song since the first [00:27:00] album. Heat Treatment is okay, but I’ve got not got the happiest of memories from making that.

So that tends to color your judgment a bit, you know? Um, 

DJ: With the label, like Mercury?

Martin: no. No, not, not at that point. No. The problems with Mercury came later, but, at that point it was, it was the manner in which it was produced that, I, I didn’t enjoy. It was a different producer to the first album..

The first album was produced by Nick Lowe.

DJ: That’s right.

Martin: and the second album, second her second album was produced by, Heat Treatment was produced by Mutt Lange.

DJ: Oh, right. Right, right, right, right.

Martin: And their, their ways and methods of working were very, very different. And I much preferred doing it with Nick.

DJ: Well I was happy with the result, so.

Martin: Yeah, well, the result, yeah, the result is fine, but it’s just, that’s my why. It, it’s not my favorite album.

DJ: That’s interesting to hear.

Martin: You, you know, you, these, [00:28:00] these things, they’re, they’re irrelevant to the, to the listener, but to, if you were involved in it, it colors your judgment a bit,

DJ: Yes.

Martin: You know, or it color colors your, retrospective listening to that album,

DJ: All right.

Martin: the songs on it are great. Nothing wrong with the songs at all.

DJ: Well, I’d love to talk about your album, The Guest List, and what a great lineup of guests appeared on it. It’s a, it’s a great album.

Martin: Oh, thank you. That’s, uh, that’s, that’s jumping forwards in time.

DJ: Yeah.

Martin: Yeah, that, that’s, I, I recorded that around 2007, 2008. I’d done one. I’d done an album previously, back in the nineties, I did an album called Big Guitar. Which was mostly instrumental, mostly instrumentals. Uh, and I figured when, you know, 10 years later, whatever it was, I fancied doing another album and I’d, I’d started writing some more instrumentals.

I thought that’s what I was gonna do, and I, [00:29:00] I already recorded a couple, but Dave Robinson said to me, he said, you know what you should do, he said. You should get all, a whole lot of the people that you’ve played guitar for singers and get each one to sing a sing a track. Uh, and I, I thought, nah, they’re not gonna wanna do that. But, much to my surprise, most of them were, a couple of people weren’t able to contribute because of commitments or whatever. But, uh, I got, I got most of the people that I’ve worked with over the years, so it was, it was very enjoyable and it was, I also liked the fact that we did, it was all covers as well, because a lot of the singers are also songwriters.

But I figured rather than, rather than have a lot of original songs, I think it would be good for this album to be covers of things that either the singer or I fancied doing, and that’s how it worked out.

DJ: Yeah, it’s really nice. I met, Carlene Carter at a house concert years ago and talked to her for a bit.

Martin: Oh yeah.

DJ: She was really sweet. I mean, you’ve [00:30:00] also appeared on Carlene’s albums.

Martin: Yeah, I have, yeah. And I was in Carlene’s band for a couple of years, uh, in the early eighties. Early eighties. and The Rumour, in fact, backed Carlene on her very first album, which was in ’77, ’78, I think. But it was The Rumour without me, because I was in America With Nick. With Nick Lowe.

DJ: The Cowboy Outfit? Or…

Martin: No, no, no, no. It wasn’t, I wasn’t, he didn’t have a band at that point.

It was pre Rockpile. It was just his first album,

DJ: Okay.

Martin: And he was, he went to play at the CBS convention. And, uh, he, he played with me and Elvis and The Attractions backing him.

DJ: Nice.

Martin: Uh, so that was kind of cool. Yeah.

DJ: And of course, Nick Lowe joined you on your album, on the song “A Man in Love”

Martin: And Big Guitar. Yeah. “A Man in Love”. Yeah. And, yeah, he did that and, and it was great. and Graham was on it. Carlene.

DJ: And your old band .

Martin: [00:31:00] Lots of other people. 

DJ: Uh, Sean Tyla. He is on

Martin: Sean. Yeah, Sean was on it. and various other people that I’ve worked with who probably don’t know the names of but, local people in England. uh, and Geraint Watkins.

Do you know who that is?

DJ: I don’t, I don’t.

Martin: He’s a wonderful keyboard player, singer songwriter who’s played with all sorts of people. He’s played on Graham’s last couple of albums that I’ve played on as well, and has played with all sorts of people. He was on a Paul McCartney album, um, so he’s, he’s right up there with the, the, best.

He’s a unique keyboard player and he sings on, on my, on the Big, on The Guest List album. He sings a song called “Island of Dreams”.

DJ: Hmm.

Martin: Which was a hit song in about 1962 or ’63 for a group called The Springfields, which was Dusty Springfield. And her brother.

DJ: Right, right.

Martin: Uh, before Dusty became a solo star. and she, they did this track that I [00:32:00] always loved, and it turned out, always loved it as well, so he was up to singing it. It is a cracker. It’s a, it’s a great one.

DJ: Wasn’t it around the same time that The Guest List came out, that Ducks Deluxe reunited for some shows?

Martin: We did, we reunited and uh, we got, we got paid to do a, to do a gig in London, a reunion gig in 2007. And, um, it seemed like, well, we could do a bit more. And we did a gig in Paris, and then we did a, then we had a residency , we did four nights in Monaco, Monte Carlo. And so these things kept cropping up.

And then we keep getting these tours of Sweden. There was a market for various parts of Europe. There was a sort of, there was a, a certain appetite for a reunited, reformed, aging Ducks Deluxe. But it was not, it was only me and Sean from the original.

DJ: Right, right. 

Martin: It was, uh, the, the bass and drums were more recent recruits.

And, we did, we recorded quite a bit [00:33:00] of stuff as well. We recorded, we’d done a several recordings, at that time, which were all released on little independent labels. It was, no, no more RCA or anything like that. it, it is good. We, we did get a, in fact, I think we were probably together for longer in the reunited version than we were in the original version, because the original version was only three years, I think ’72 to ’75.

Whereas this one ran from 2007 to 2014, I think.

Um, but, but that’s doing a lot less gigs than we used to, you know, that was like a few gigs a year,

DJ: Right.

Martin: Which, you know, which goes with the age, the age of the people.

DJ: Well, I’ve heard talk of a documentary about The Rumour. Uh, is that just a rumor or is that, uh, is there any

Martin: No, it’s, it’s been out for many years.

DJ: Oh, it has been out.

Martin: Yeah. Yeah.

DJ: Okay. I think I’m

Martin: Uh, obviously not terribly well [00:34:00] publicized. Um, it’s called, Don’t Ask Me Questions,

DJ: Okay. You know, yes. That’s been on my…

Martin: Made by the Gramaglia brothers, the Gramaglia Brothers made it, who were the people that made End of the Century, which was the Ramones documentary,

It’s got all sorts of people in it, talking about Graham Parker and The Rumour Bruce Springsteen’s in it, all sorts of folks. But it was not terribly well distributed. I don’t think I’ve got a DVD of it here, but, , it’s doesn’t seem to have been on any, streaming platforms or anything.

DJ: So I need to get the, the Howlin’ Wind book, and I need to get The Rumour documentary. Don’t Ask Me Questions.

Martin: Yeah, I think you can probably find it easier in America than you can here, online somewhere streaming or disk. I don’t know. Um, but I’m sure you can, you can, it can be found in America. Don’t Ask Me Questions. Michael Gramaglia directed story of Graham Parker. It’s, [00:35:00] it’s good. It’s very good.

It’s very well put together. and it’s quite comprehensive as well. It covers all the reunion stuff as well as all the early days and, us making the film in Hollywood as well with Judd Apatow.

DJ: Judd Apatow. That’s right. This Is 40 was an interesting, it was interesting to see, uh, Graham be very much a part of the storyline in that movie. Not just, not just in the background.

Martin: Yeah, yeah. Playing a version of himself. He built a cinematic version of himself.

DJ: Right.

Martin: And, and we got, we got flown to Hollywood, man, first class! We got flown out there, you know, to do, to do, be in the film for about a minute. That was great. It was really good.

DJ: Well, I’m glad that was a…

Martin: All that, all that came about at the same time as the reunion.

It was all serendipitous. You know, the fact that we were, we were able to, you know, to get a second go on the merry-go-round as it [00:36:00] were, you know?

DJ: That’s great. I really enjoyed the film and I enjoyed seeing you guys. That was great.

Martin: Yeah.

DJ: Well, Martin Belmont, I can’t believe I had this opportunity to talk with you. You’ve been a guitar hero of mine for many years now, so thank you so much.

Martin: Well, thank you. Thank you. That’s very nice of you. I appreciate that. And uh, it’s been a pleasure.

DJ: Mine too.

DJ: Thank you Martin.

Martin: Alright. Uh, good to speak to you. Bye-bye.

DJ: Bye-bye.