I was always playing the Hammond Organ back to front even during the days of the Nice, going back to 1968. Really what I was doing there, was choosing notes at random and trying to make some sense of them, improvising back to front.
I'd often use a Leslie cabinet on its own in the studio because everyone in the late Sixties and Seventies was experimenting with them. We'd stick anything through a Leslie because it made everything sound so good.
Small Faces were really a soul band as far as we were concerned. That's what we listened to; that's what we played, you know? We were pretty much based on Booker T. and the M.G.'s.
'Year Of The Tiger' definitely has much more of a blues-based vibe.
The thing with the piano is, the piano is like percussion almost - well, it is. You have to... not beat on it, but there is more work involved than a Hammond. With a Hammond, you just lay your hands on the keys, man, and you're gone.
The first record I bought was actually Booker T and the MG's 'Red Beans and Rice.'
I got the idea of what a band should be from listening to Booker T and Otis Redding.
Heaven to me is percussion and bass, a screaming guitar and a burbling Hammond B-3 organ. It's a soup I love being immersed in.
