Interview: Les McKeown, Bay City Rollers

Published on Wednesday 15 September 2010 13:10

LES McKeown is a happy man. It makes a change. The last time we spoke he was lost in a fug of alcoholism and despair, mourning the deaths of his parents and consumed with bitterness about the way his life had turned out.

&#149 Les McKeown

It had, after all, been glorious for a few years in the Seventies when, as lead singer with the Bay City Rollers, he had the world at his tartan-trimmed feet. But thanks to drugs, band arguments, and a long-hidden secret, it fell apart, leaving him at one stage destitute and addicted to heroin.

Fittingly, perhaps, for a man whose life has played out like an episode of a soap opera, it was a reality TV show which changed his life.

As an "alcoholic celebrity", he went to the Passages rehabilitation clinic in Malibu for the Living programme Rehab.

He stayed for three months, finally facing his demons, revealing that he was bisexual after having been date-raped as a teenager.

Two years on and McKeown is a different man - mentally and physically. His own band, Les McKeown's Bay City Rollers, is about to tour the States, he's finishing his second autobiography and is planning to get back together with the original Rollers line-up to tour once again.

His theatre production Rollermania will tour the UK next year and there could well be some light at the end of the litigation tunnel when it comes to royalties the Rollers believe are owed to them by their former record label Arista.

Most of all, though, his 26-year marriage to his Japanese wife Peko is now based on complete honesty, and he and his son Jubei have rebuilt their relationship. And the 54-year-old hasn't touched a drop of alcohol in two years.

"Things really are good, really good," he says. "A lot has happened since we last spoke, and I can finally say that I am a much better, nicer person than I was then. For a long time I was somewhere else . . . way below the gutter. Now I'm up on the hill.

"Right now I'm putting the finishing touches to the US and Canada tour and I set off next Monday for that. And Peko is here with me stitching tartan trim on to a black shirt I wear on stage. How domesticated is that?" he says, laughing.

It could have turned out very differently, and McKeown seems genuinely grateful for his wife and son's support. "As a family, we all do our own thing, but we are much stronger together as a unit. I was an absent dad for a long time, in that drinking was more important to me, and they were both rightly angry with me," he says.

"We've worked it out, though, and we are much closer. Jubei's in Japan at the moment studying and he's writing music and has had some small parts in movies. I'm very proud of him. He's found a dad and I've found a son. Peko . . . well, she's just stuck by me."

He adds: "All the revelations that came out at the Passages clinic were ultimately a good thing for all of us. You know, I can't help but keep thinking about all the people who were abused by Catholic priests, all the stories that keep coming out, how pervasive this kind of abuse is . . . I know what they're going through.

"They're living with a huge burden and a feeling of self-loathing and worthlessness because of what some b****** did to them. You know they all deserve to get help from a place like Passages too."

He pauses. "My brother Hari has helped me deal with it too . . . I had told him a while ago. The same thing had happened to him when he was in care when we were much younger. We've shared a few tears."

None were shed though when the band's former manager Tam Paton died last year.

At the time, McKeown's response was "Good". So how does he feel now? "He's not around any more and his spectre has diminished and he no longer has any psychological hold over me. I now wonder why I ever let him have that. His death . . . well it's been very liberating."

So much so that it seems McKeown and the rest of the band have finally been able to put their differences aside and work together to try to get some of the cash they feel is due to them.

"I'm fairly confident that through the course of time we will be paid our royalties. We're all working on it together now, which helps, and that has brought us all some closure over the fall-outs," he says.

"Things are even good between me and Eric (Faulkner). He's genuinely a nice guy and so are all the guys in the band. To be honest, I blame the manager for a lot of the things that went wrong between us. He was a person who liked to divide and conquer."

He adds: "Our case is back in court shortly again. Forensic accountants will say we're due over 100 million in royalties, and then there could be damages on top . . . but it's Sony we're fighting now as they took over Arista.

"It will take a long time, though, especially if there's a decision and then any appeals. So we thought while we're waiting and before we get too old and decrepit, perhaps we should get back on stage - it seems to be what our fans want.

"The people who are interested in putting the money in for that want it to be the line-up it was when I joined originally - me, Woody, Eric, Derek and Alan. We're looking at an arena tour here and in the US."

Of course, nothing's ever straightforward with the Rollers. There's also the issue of Gordon "Nobby" Clarke, who was the lead singer of the Rollers before Paton lured McKeown in from another band to replace him. Clarke, who lives in Dumbiedykes, has claimed the new Greatest Hits CD, which has just been released (and is at number 47 in the UK album charts), has his vocals on it in some of the earliest numbers.

"I can't really comment," says McKeown. "Nobby was in the Bay City Rollers and he did sing and he did have a contract with Bell Records . . . that's where he should be looking for any compensation."

Instead, McKeown is totally focused on his upcoming tour - which will include a stop-off at Passages - and then a trip to Japan in November with another group he sings with, Ego Trip. And as well as finishing his book (he wants proceeds to go to alcohol charities) there's Rollermania, the box-set anthology of their hits to promote.

Life is certainly rolling along for Les. "I spent a long time running away from the Bay City Rollers, but now I'm embracing it fully. Someone said to me that I was an icon," he says, laughing. "I don't know about that but I've definitely come to realise that our music, that period of time, means a lot to people and so we should give something back."

&#149 For more information on Les' tours, visit www.lesmckeown.com

HAMMERING OUT THE HITS

IT'S been three decades since the Bay City Rollers last released an album, but now there are two to hit the charts at the same time.

While new releases in their heyday saw queues of hysterical girls waiting outside record stores - they had five straight gold albums in the States - these days the fans are more sedate.

However, that hasn't stopped Bay City Rollers: The Greatest Hits, which was released by Sony Music in August, reaching number 47 in the UK album chart.

Next month sees the release of Rollermania: The Anthology - a four CD Bay City Rollers box set - by Salvo/Union Square Music. Both contain the Rollers hits such as Shang-a-lang, Bye Bye Baby and Give a Little Love.