MFP: Where did it all begin? Where and how did you all meet?
JT: “I first met Rich countless years ago in a cellar and have been irritating him ever since. He introduced me to the others.
“Nigel: “Rich and I met age 14 at school and formed a covers band with his older brother. After graduation from university we shared flats in London. At this point Rich was in two bands – one with JT, and another with Neil. I was asked to join both.”
Neil: “Before the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. Barnsley with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Cudworth with its shadow-guarded tombs, Aberdeen, silver city of the frozen north, whose riders wore steel and furs and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was London, reigning supreme in the dreaming south. Hither came the Penguins, shaggy-haired, sullen-eyed, guitars in hand, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jewelled thrones of the Earth under their Doctor Martened feet.”
Rich: “I met Nigel at school in Yorkshire in 1977 through my brother, Vince Berkely, who knew him from the school production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. My brother’s mate had a drum kit but his mum wouldn’t allow drums at their house, so my brother got hold of them and made me play them. We formed a band with Nigel, playing instrumental versions of chart hits. Few of the eight-year old schoolchildren present at our first ever gig at Stockingate Primary School would forget our version of ‘Rockin All Over The World’.
I met John from Devon in Oxford in 1981, when he joined a nerdy Wire-sort-of-band I was in (Agent Orange) that had advertised for a keyboard player. John said he didn’t have a keyboard but could play his guitar with a screwdriver, in the manner of Godley and Creme’s Gizmo. John soon went off to found his own post-punk Magaziney/Echo and the Bunnymen-y-style band called Ears To The Ground but by the time I met him again in ’83, Ears To The Ground had developed a busking 50’s/60’s covers alter ego, called The Rockin Raja Brothers, who needed a snare drum.
We moved to London in 84/5 and while John was kipping on a sofa in my lounge he met my flat-mate Nigel and we drafted him into the Rockin’ Rajas, as his mastery of all the Shadows hits would widen our repertoire considerably.
Meanwhile I’d met Neil at the ad agency where we both worked. He’d brought with him from the wilds of Aberdeen the remnants of a punk band called He’s Dead Jim but he had no drummer and a large bedroom with a drumkit-shaped space in it. Luckily I needed somewhere to keep my drums at the time, so in return for storage space, I joined his band called The Waltons – in our better moments a hybrid of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Crowded House and Lloyd Cole and The Commotions. As often happened, people noticed Nigel was quite a good guitarist, so we stole half of him from the Rockin Rajas and expanded The Waltons into a five-piece in 1987.
After 10 critically-acclaimed but commercially disastrous years, The Waltons (briefly The Treens) all got married and jacked it in. The Rockin’ Rajas continued to play 50s and 60s covers at weddings until even the parents of the happy couple were too old to remember any of the songs and they also ground to a halt.
In 2000, somebody had the idea of forming Emperor Penguin – a power-pop combo of Neil, Nigel, me and Adrian from the Rockin Rajas. Adrian’s brother was a tip top BBC sound engineer and snuck us into Maida Vale Studios to record several tracks which became product number 1: Crumhorn. The arrival of babies restricted Emperor Penguin’s live work to one gig at a rowdy ad agency party where the sound man was skunked to the eyeballs and I was likened by hecklers to the sitcom character Father Ted. Adrian eventually left London for the West Country and Emperor Penguin went into hibernation, although of course penguins don’t do that, do they? Let’s say we sat on an egg.
Many years went by until someone suggested an idea which had been staring us all in the face for a long time – get John in. So in 2015, or was it 2016 we began rehearsing covers of bands we liked – Fountains of Wayne, BeBop DeLuxe, Dave Edmunds, and er The Beatles – until one day, Neil turned up with a song called Moth Meet Flame. All of a sudden no-one could stop writing great songs (except me – I don’t do that) and here we are, three albums later. A fine musical and geographical journey was had by all.”
MFP: What made you all start Emperor Penguin, and is there a story behind the name?
JT: “I always wanted to be in the band, but pride made me wait until they asked me – It only took 14 years.
Neil: “We noticed that there was a shocking shortage of groups composed of four middle-aged white men playing Beatles-inspired guitar pop and thought we’d fill the gap in the market. I don’t think there’s a story behind the name but many other names were considered and rejected, including: Fishy Wishy; Egg the Egg; Draw My Dog; Cheesequake; Roast.”
Nigel:“The current line up is an evolution of several earlier versions with different personnel. The name also; previous names being The Waltons, The Treens and Roast before (I seem to recall) we decided that everyone loves penguins, so let’s name ourselves after the grandest sounding one.”
MFP: Has Emperor Penguin continuously been active since the beginning, or was there ever a break in between?
Neil: “Emperor Penguin went into hibernation from about 2001 to 2016 after original member Adrian Long moved out of town. Like King Arthur’s knights, the remaining Penguins fell into a sleep under a mountain somewhere in Avalon, with our guitars by our sides, until the hour of Britain’s need (2017), when we returned to claim our kingdom.”
Nigel:“The initial activity began in the late 1990s with sessions that became ‘Crumhorn’. The original bassist then moved out of London, we became quite busy with our covers/function band ‘The Rajas’ and life got in the way until we picked it up again about 5 years ago.”
MFP: Do you remember when it all just clicked, and when you knew your chemistry was spot on?
Rich: “Rehearsing ‘Maid In Heaven’ and it not sounding at all bad”
JT: “When I heard the first mix of (The Theme From) Falling Tree with Nigel’s lead vocal”
Nigel: “For me it was the first time David Bash invited us to play The Cavern at the Liverpool IPO and the release of second album Rum Pop Engineer.”
MFP: Have any of you ever fought over a girl?
Nigel: “No but plenty of girls continue to fight over us. Shameful really but they’re only human.”
JT: “Not with each other.”
Neil: “I’m a lover not a fighter.”
From: https://mycholsfabulousplayground.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/emperor-penguin-behind-the-curtain/
