The Peter Noone Interview with Forgotten Hits Part Two

With permission from Kent Kotal/ Forgotten Hits/the60sShop here is part two of the interview with Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. To subscribe to FORGOTTEN, which is a great newsletter if you are like me and into music of the 60's, you can e-mail them at The60sShop@aol.com . Here is part two of the series.

Just to recap the interesting way that I happened to snag an interview with Peter Noone... Frannie and I went to go see Herman's Hermits perform at the Bensenville Music In The Park Concert Series on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005. After the show, PETER NOONE stuck around and signed autographs for any of those fans who bought CDs and / or photos and / or T-Shirts ... in fact, we heard back from a few people on the FORGOTTEN List who were there that night and got to meet him. Although the thought crossed my mind to hang around and see if I could grab a minute of PETER's time to tell him about FORGOTTEN ... and possibly even set up some sort of interview ... we couldn't stick around, as we were leaving early the next morning on a flight to Los Angeles and still had to go home and pack. So I missed opportunity #1.

The next morning as we were waiting to be called to board our plane to LA, Frannie noticed a guy in a bright blue shirt running up to the gate at the very last minute to catch the flight ... it was PETER NOONE!!! He was flying on the VERY same flight that WE were to Los Angeles!!! Now because we fly stand-by / space available (certainly the NICEST remaining United Airlines perk), we never know where we're going to sit on the plane ... but I'd say we get First Class about 40% of the time if those seats are available. This time we did NOT ... in fact, we sat about four rows BEHIND PETER NOONE in the Business Class Section of the plane. Missed opportunity #2!!! (I couldn't help thinking that if I could simply get to him for just a moment ... and explain that we were at his concert the night before in Bensenville ... I mean, what are the odds that ANYONE else on that flight had just seen him perform the night before?!?!? ... he couldn't help but agree to talk to me for an exclusive FORGOTTEN piece!!!)

Once our plane landed, we made a beeline to the baggage claim area, hoping to catch up with him there. Along the way, we heard a few people talking about how PETER NOONE was on the plane and I couldn't help but laugh a little ... at this stage of the game, he's pretty much NOT an immediately recognizable face, affording him the rare opportunity to be anonymous when he wants to be or, putting on the thick HERMAN accent and flashing those big white teeth (or, in this case, answering fan mail on PETERNOONE.COM in front of his fellow passengers), he can shift into celebrity mode ... pretty much at his own choosing. Figuring that this would be my last chance of any relevance to mention our attendance at last night's concert, we searched all over the Baggage Claim area ... but no PETER NOONE. Missed opportunity #3.

We went about our vacation, enjoying our annual pilgrimage to California>, but I couldn't help feeling that there was still some potential here for an interview. When we got back to Chicago, I emailed PETER at PETERNOONE.COM, explained the whole long-winded story I just told all of you and asked if he'd be up for doing a FORGOTTEN HITS interview. One month to the day after we had seen him perform in Bensenville, he emailed me back stating that he'd be happy to do it if the whole interview could be conducted via emails. We agreed to some back-and-forths and the results of these efforts will fill your mailboxes over the next few days.

Once I knew for certain that we would be doing an interview, I asked the list if they had any questions that THEY would like us to ask PETER NOONE ... and the ONLY response we received ... although not quite a question for PETER... was this one:

Yeah, I've got a question ..... when can I meet him? Thanks to the ipod, my kids have discovered a ton of old music that I have on there. Herman's Hermits plays a huge part of that. (Also, thanks to Tivo, they discovered the Monkees. I swear I didn't force them into it. Lucky for me, none of them have picked Micky as their favorite, so he's still all mine). What does it take to meet a Peter Noone at a Peter Noone / Herman's Hermits performance? Last time we saw him in Chicago with Bobby Sherman and Micky Dolenz (with both Frannie and Kent), we couldn't climb over the Bobby-heads to get to Peter. What a great show he put on ... absolutely blew the other two out of the water. (And you know how I feel about Micky, so ....) Kristy

I should point out at this point that our heroes are NOT always what we expect and hope them to be ... I found this out first-hand during the course of the next three months that I spent interviewing PETER NOONE. I often had to ask some of the same questions as many as four or five times to get an answer ... and I regularly got responses back like:

Please resend the questions I didn't answer ... I lost 'em

or

Please send the rest later ... I got bored

or

Can you resend the questions that I didn't answer? I had no idea it was going to be a book!

But I persevered ... determined to get the most complete interview I could. NOONE was RARELY witty and charming (as I had expected he would be) ... and, most of the time came off as a very bitter and angry young man ... particularly when it came to the subject of ALLEN KLEIN... which he brought up at EVERY opportunity (whether it was related to the question I asked or not!!!) Although he continued to bring ALLEN KLEIN into virtually every conversation, when I asked SPECIFIC questions about KLEIN, he ignored or refused to answer them ... even when I offered him the opportunity to set the story straight by way of a documented ALLEN KLEIN-bashing segment! Several times during the interview he told me how the press had ALWAYS gotten the HERMAN'S HERMITS story wrong ... that everything we THOUGHT we knew about them had been made up by the ignorant, publicity-hungry press in an effort to sell their papers and publications. Each time he did so, I offered the FORGOTTEN HITS forum as the means to finally set the story straight ... thinking that maybe a truly in-depth, soul-baring article might be something I could get published somewhere else to reach a far-greater audience than this simple newsletter could ever reach, thus getting the REAL HERMAN'S HERMITS story out there for the public to see and setting the story straight once and for all ... vindication in a way, since this was obviously something that PETER NOONE felt needed to be righted. Instead, I got short, abbreviated, disinterested answers to any hard-hitting questions. It was pretty much three months of pure frustration ... certainly the most difficult interview I've ever done ... and I must admit that several times over the past year I have thought about just abandoning the project all together rather than run some of the answers that I was given. (As it is, look how late this piece is finally going out ... exactly ONE YEAR has passed since our first interviews took place!!!)

But the more I thought about it, the more I figured that I WOULD run the story. Besides, it presented the PERFECT tie-in to my B-SIDES Series... I absolutely LOVE many of the HERMAN'S HERMITS flips that never got played on the radio ... and, if nothing else, it would present a totally rare and honest portrait of the artist ... who just MAY not be quite as lovable as you once thought. (In all fairness, the more I pressed, the more detailed answers I got to my questions ... some points were still ignored or skipped over ... but eventually PETER opened up and went into greater depth and detail with some of his answers. Re-reading everything now in the editing stage, I have to say that this is, in fact, a pretty darn good interview!)

So sit back and enjoy ... the PETER NOONE interview is next in FORGOTTEN HITS... along with some GREAT HERMAN'S HERMITS B-SIDES... including today's track, Walkin' With My Angel, a cover of an old Bobby Vee tune ... which has ALSO been nominated as one of your ALL TIME FAVORITE UNDISCOVERED B-SIDES. (This truly becomes the PERFECT tie-in, as we've been trying to interview BOBBY VEE for the past couple of years, too!!!) BOBBY's version backed up his #2, 1961 smash RUN TO HIM and charted on its own at #53 in Billboard Magazine. (It stopped at #89 in Cash Box ... and made our TOP 200 COUNTDOWN OF THE ALL-TIME BIGGEST TWO-SIDED HITS, coming in at #147! Unfortunately, that makes the BOBBY VEE version of WALKIN' WITH MY ANGEL ineligible for our FAVORITE, FORGOTTEN B-SIDES Series.) The HERMAN'S HERMITS version can be found on the flip-side of SILHOUETTES, a #5 smash (and a Chicagoland #1 Record) in 1965 ... and their version IS eligible for your votes.


BTW I asked PETER NOONE about my earlier comment that it seemed to me that he could be as "recognizable" as he chose to be ... and was a LITTLE bit surprised by his answer:

FORGOTTEN HITS Do you feel sometimes like you "step into the character of HERMAN"? I know that when we shared a flight to California you seemed to be able to "control" your situation ... you could be somewhat "anonymous" if you wanted to be ... or, "go into character," depending on your mood. Are you enjoying a more "normal" lifestyle now that you're able to step back from the spotlight as the mood strikes you?
PETER NOONE: Peter Noone is Herman is Peter Noone. I have mood swings and sometimes I am nice and then again I can say "____ off" if I want. ____ off! JOLLY WHAT?!?!? Did PETER NOONE just tell me to "____ Off" ?!?!?! For Real????? (I TOLD you this was going to be an interesting interview!!!! Besides, how many people do YOU know that have PERSONALLY been told to "____ Off" by PETER NOONE Stick around ... there's a WHOLE lot more to come!!!