NEIL INNES

I used to help Viv with the chords and melodies sometimes.

But Dennis was a really solid musician, and we really needed somebody who could play bass like him.

Larry only ever wrote one song, and he wrote that with Tony Kaye, I think it was, from Yes.

Viv had this kind of stage presence where you couldn't ignore it. He walked onstage, he looked dangerous. You just didn't know what he was going to do.

But mostly, I wrote songs and Viv wrote songs.

When we did Top of the Pops for the third time, we decided to do it as a television program here called Come Dancing, which is not as rude as it sounds.

Ladies and gentleman, I've suffered for my music, now it's your turn.

I suppose Roger had the license to do anything that fitted the venue.

As I said, when we needed to move over to rock'n'roll, Sam and Vernon couldn't quite make the shift. So that's when Larry took over on drums, and we needed a bass player.

I think most musicians do like to have a laugh.

So we used to look for funny songs, and learn them and play them. And we used to play them in pubs.

I mean Gorilla was really our first sort of goes at songwriting.

I suppose we all loved those kind of sci-fi movies where terrible things came out of swamps and came to Mars. And there's usually some poor girl. All the guys are trying to desperately handle levers and saying, go to something or other.

But we used to go to flea markets and things, and look for old 78 records that had silly song titles.

But I remember we sold nearly 18,000 records in one day.

I mean in recent years, I think you've only got to sell thirty or forty thousand to get a #1.

We then took a shortened version of what we'd been doing in the pubs, with the best gags and things like that, out to cabaret clubs and things in the north of England for six weeks. And we became a big success.

We weren't going to play the show-biz game, and be obsequious.

Eric Clapton always wanted to come out onstage with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder.

Because Larry, by then, was a drummer, who would sort of get bored and tired, and rather stand up and blow kisses to people. So we needed the bass to sort of drive along.

I wasn't aware that Track Records were interested in the Bonzos.

In many ways, Viv and I were the only ones who were really songwriters.

I see my role in the Bonzos as being the straight man, in many ways.

We weren't by any means like the Grateful Dead or something, who could just roll on and on and on.

In fact, Moon came on tour with us for a bit just before a big festival in Brighton, I think.