Inside story of a rock and Roller legend

Published on Thursday 2 October 2003 01:00

FORMER Bay City Rollers lead singer Les McKeown has revealed how he would give the rest of the band - including manager Tam Paton - strong sleeping pills so he could sneak out to meet female fans alone.

He also revealed he used to smuggle drugs on tours by concealing them in the turn-ups of the group’s trademark tartan trousers.

McKeown, who makes the revelations in a sensational new autobiography, says Paton had banned the group from fraternising with fans in case it damaged their clean-cut image.

But McKeown was determined to take advantage of his global pop star status and would try various tricks to sneak past Paton.

Then he hit on the sleeping pills plan. "A new way of evading Tam presented itself soon after arriving in Australia," he writes.

After suffering from jetlag while on tour on 1975 he had been prescribed Mandrax which had knocked him out like a light. He says: "It occurred to me that if I could get Tam and the others to take them, I would be free to explore the local delights without fear of being discovered. So, I got them all taking the tablets and off I went."

It is only one of countless revelations in McKeown’s startling book, Shang-a-Lang: Life of an international pop idol, which the News is serialising, starting today and through all next week.

The book charts the amazing life of McKeown as he went from an Edinburgh council estate to superstardom - only to end up with nothing. It tells of his fall-outs with the manager and other band members and details the bizarre life of the Rollers on tour.

He also lifts the lid on Rollermania and tells of his countless sexual exploits with female fans desperate for a Bay City Roller.

The girls, McKeown says, used devious means to get at him including being taken on as chambermaids at hotels, waiting in lifts and chasing him down corridors.

McKeown also writes about two of the most famous incidents in his life - when he accidentally knocked down and killed an Edinburgh pensioner and when he was accused of shooting a 15-year-old fan with an air rifle.

The youngest of four boys he was brought up on the deprived Edinburgh council estate of Broomhouse . He reveals his brother Hari was raped after being taken away from the family and put in a young offenders’ home.

He also documents how his relationship with Eric Faulkner went from bad to worse because, he believes, of the guitarist’s jealousy of his front man image - and how this was at its worse when it was revealed the Rollers didn’t play on their first album. He also tells how he believes Tam Paton had a strange hold over the other band members, and claims Paton tried to rape another band member.

McKeown finally split from the Rollers after five years at the top with hit singles, hit albums, world tours and even an American TV series, under his belt. They were in Japan when he left - but not after he’d bugged the other Rollers’ rooms to discover what they were saying about him. He also reveals how once he left the band he discovered he had no money and was 24,000 in debt.

McKeown says he finally decided to spill the beans on being a Roller because it would be cathartic and he hopes youngsters aiming to be pop idols of the future might learn from his story.

The News serialisation begins today with his early life - but the full story will appear throughout this week and all of next.