Rolling with the punches in a fight to beat drink

Published on Wednesday 27 November 2002 00:00

NOBBY Clark never did sing Shang-a-lang as he ran with his gang. After fronting the phenomenally successful Bay City Rollers for nine years, Nobby was off pursuing a solo career by the time that particular teen anthem topped the hit parade.

His problem was that, having left the band he formed with friends at the age of 15, no-one would let him forget about it.

Sitting in his comfortable Holyrood flat, he recalls: "I found it impossible to get anyone to take me seriously as a solo artist because the Bay City Rollers were so massive. To this day, every single interview that I have ever done has started: ‘Ex-Bay City Roller Nobby Clark . . .’ How can you establish your own identity fighting against that?"

In Nobby’s case, he couldn’t, and when the pressure of living in the shadow of his past finally became too much, alcohol provided him with the perfect release. Now, however, after what he says seems like "an eternity spent in oblivion", Nobby, at the age of 50, has once again picked up his guitar and is preparing for the release of his first album in two decades.

Called If Only, it’s released on Jack Records next month, and through his lyrics Nobby tells of his long battle with addiction. It’s unlike anything he recorded in his younger days, and is dedicated to the person he credits with turning his life around after he spiralled into an alcoholic haze for the second time five years ago - 41-year-old life coach Veronica Mawdsley, of The Personal Development Company (Scotland).

Nobby, who charted as a Roller with the hits Saturday Night, Keep On Dancing and Remember, says: "I was in turmoil when I met Veronica. There were so many things that I wanted to do, but because of what I’d been through I’d lost any sense of direction.

"For a year I’d been writing all these songs. They just kept pouring out and they were all very personal. It became therapy for me and, as such, once I’d finished recording them I decided I didn’t want to play them to anyone else."

He admits he was also worried that his songs would be slated for not sounding like his earlier material for the Rollers. And, in retrospect, he agrees that many of the personal problems that have plagued his life probably stemmed from that early battle for recognition in his own right.

He recalls: "I had been on the road with the Bay City Rollers for nine years when I left in 1973.

"I knew the time had come to get out because they were no longer the band I’d spent all those years building up. We’d become nothing more than hype - the band members nothing more than frontmen for the producers who were writing all our songs. On at least one occasion, they were even recording them when we weren’t actually there."

To back this claim up, he recalls an incident with disgraced pop supremo Jonathan King, who produced a remake of the Gentrys’ hit, Keep On Dancing, for the band.

"By the time I got to the studio, he’d already recorded it with session musicians," says Nobby. "I just went in and put the vocals on. The rest of the guys hadn’t even heard the song and had to learn it after it had been released. It was a nightmare."

That nightmare got a lot darker for Nobby. Flying to London to make his final appearance as a Roller on Top of The Pops, he discovered that the rest of the band had already recorded the appearance with a new unknown singer, Les McKeown.

Nobby says: "We had just released Remember and they wanted us to perform it on Top Of The Pops. I agreed to do it as my last performance with the band.

"When I got to London and discovered they had already done it with Les McKeown miming to my voice, I was pretty mad."

With McKeown taking over as frontman and re-dubbing Remember with his own voice, Nobby went solo and was eventually signed by CBS a year later. Record deals with RCA and Phonogram followed. However, despite moderate success, he couldn’t escape his past, and slowly the drink took hold.

He says: "In my early 30s I knew my drinking was completely out of control. I remember I had a single out called Shake It Down. A tour of every commercial radio station in the country had been arranged to promote it.

"I managed to keep it together for the first few days, but one afternoon - after doing Radio Clyde in Glasgow - I really needed a drink and got myself in a pretty bad state. That evening I was supposed to be doing Radio Forth and then a live appearance at The Cavendish in Tollcross, but I was in such a bad way that my radio interview was never broadcast and the gig was pulled.

"The next day I was told that the rest of the tour had been cancelled. That was the start of my life falling apart."

Not long after, Phonogram declined to take up an option to extend his contract and what Nobby now refers to as his seven years of "pure alcoholism" began.

He says: "I was born an alcoholic. Alcoholics are born, not made. When I consume alcohol, a different biochemistry takes place in my brain than does in yours when you drink. When I take alcohol, it is impossible for me to stop. So whenever drink was available, I was pissed."

By the age of 40, Nobby’s drinking had taken its toll on his health. Finally, although his wife and daughter had stood by him, his family were left with no option but to have him sectioned for his own safety.

He says: "I was completely off my nut. I wasn’t violent to people, but I did smash up the house on a number of occasions.

"Once, I got back to the house and found I’d lost my keys. There was no-one in, so I threw a bottle of champagne I’d bought through the living room window and climbed in. Then I smashed the place up.

"When I woke up I couldn’t remember doing it. I phoned the police to report that my house had been broken into and destroyed . . . it had been me all along."

Receiving psychiatric treatment to beat his addiction helped, but it was a long battle back to health for the one-time heart-throb.

He says: "I battled for two years to get off the drink. At times it was so hard, dying was a better option. I felt it would be beneficial for everyone if it ended there, and even attempted to take my life on a couple of occasions."

Slowly, though, he rebuilt his life. Starting a construction company, he became a successful surveyor. He even returned to performing - a decision that destroyed his life for a second time.

He says: "I’d been sober for ten years when I was invited to Las Vegas to do a show. Little did I know that when this beautiful blonde lady with a tray of tequila offered me one, it would be the start of a three-year bender."

This time his wife did leave him, and by the time he went into rehab he had lost his family, his home, his business - everything.

"It wasn’t until I found myself homeless and living in emergency accommodation that I realised I had to start from scratch," he says. "Strangely, that gave me the motivation that I needed."

That was two years ago, and as Nobby prepares to re-enter the music business, he’s a very different person.

He says: "I’ve been sober now for two years, and from that first meeting with Veronica my life has started to move forward. She showed me how to believe in myself again.

"The time has come to release my own identity. Of course the Rollers will be a part of my life until I die, but not for what they became, but for what they were in the early days: a respected band with a massive following, and one that could play decent music."