LITMIR.BIZ

       We’d been playing around in Liverpool for a bit without getting anywhere, trying to get work, and the other groups kept telling us, ‘You’ll do alright, you’ll get work someday’. And then we went back to Hamburg, and when we came back, suddenly we were a ‘Wow’. Mind you, 70 percent of the audience thought we were a ‘German Wow’, but we didn’t care about that.

       The thing is, in America it just seemed ridiculous, I mean, the idea of having a hit record over there. It was just, you know, something you could never do. That’s what I thought anyhow. But then I realized that it’s just the same as here, that kids everywhere all go for the same stuff. And seeing we’d done it in England and all, there’s no reason why we couldn’t do it in America, too. But the American disc jockeys didn’t know about British records. They didn’t play them; nobody promoted them, and so you didn’t have hits.

       It wasn’t until ‚Time’ and ‚Life’ and ‚Newsweek’ came over and wrote articles and created an interest in us that American disc jockeys started playing our records. And Capitol said, ‘Well, can we have their records?’ You know, they had been offered our records years ago, and they didn’t want them. But when they heard we were big over here they said, ‘Can we have them now?’ So we said, ‘As long as you promote them’. So Capitol promoted, and with them and all these articles on us, the records just took off.

       If you say you don’t believe in God, everybody assumes you’re antireligious, and you probably think that’s what we mean by that. We’re not quite sure what we are, but I know that we’re more agnostic than atheistic.

       The only thing we’ve got against religion is the hypocritical side of it, which I can’t stand. Like the clergy is always moaning about people being poor, while they themselves are all going around with millions of quid worth of robes on. That’s the stuff I can’t stand.

       They do so many cuts, it looks as though we’re nearly acting. But we’re not.

       The dealers have ordered that many records. But it doesn’t mean to say people are gonna buy them. It’s when they’ve ordered them, and people come and buy them from them.

       It’s worse for us than other people, because we’ve got to keep up doing what we’ve done before. If we don’t do it as well, people will knock you. Even though you’re doing better than anybody else and you’re doing it not as well as you did before, you’re in trouble.

       I think you can be conceited but you can still worry. I’ve met lots of conceited people who are worried before they go on. I don’t think the two things connect at all, you know. You can be conceited and worry yourself sick.