The Ultimate Eurythmics Website
Presents
An Interview With
Mr Pat Seymour
PS: Yes, that was in 1983, we had made an album for A&M records in 1982 (it was called “No Way Out”). It was produced by Alan Gorrie, who was the co-leader/singer/writer of the Average White Band. This connection led to the UK Players being the opening act for the Average White Band on a British tour in 19
In 1983 the UK players split into two different directions. Our singer stayed with A&M as a solo artist, and the guitarist and I got a new deal with RCA records. Our first single for RCA was “Love’s Gonna Get You” and it was produced by Culture Club producer Steve Levine. (That connection also led to me working with Culture Club – I played flute on the “Color by numbers” album in 1983.)
At that time the UK players were probably the only band with a record deal that actually had no lead singer! We used different lead singers for each song. The singer we used for the first song was Deon Estus (who was also the bass player for Wham and who later had a solo hit or two). Deon had played bass on our album for A&M also.
Our first single for RCA got a better chart position (peaked in mid 40s I think) than we had previously achieved with A&M. Our next single for RCA did not do so well. This was around late 1983 I think.
PS: We were using Molly Duncan on Sax by then. He had been in the Average white band. He knew Eurythmics manager Kenny Smith. Dave and Annie were looking for a new keyboard player/horn section and drummer to join them immediately for their world tour in 1984.
I went and rehearsed with them a couple of times, and joined the band along with Molly Duncan and drummer Olle Romo and trumpeter Dave Plews. Dean Garcia was already the bass player. They had already done just the British leg of the tour with the previous musicians and we all joined for the world tour in January 1984, beginning in Australia, and then continuing on to New Zealand, Europe, Japan and America.
This was called “The Touch Tour” and the ”Touch” album was selling well. I think it reached number 1 in the UK album charts while we were in New Zealand around February 1984.
PS: Dave was producing the Feargal Sharkey album and I was playing on that, and Dave and I were also co-producing a Kiki Dee album for EMI.
We also recorded for a week with Bob Dylan in The Church. The band for those Dylan sessions was Dave and I and Clem Burke on drums and bass player John Mackenzie. (Only one of those songs ended up being released, on “Knocked out loaded”.)
Later in 1985 Dave was also producing Daryl Hall’s solo album and I was playing on that also. The first sessions for that album were also at The Church.
During the Daryl Hall album sessions at The Church I was also playing on the Pretenders “Get Close” album at Air Studios (with Chucho on bass).
PS: I remember that some of the songs that ended up on the “Revenge” album were first sketched out as rough demos in 1985 while we were recording the projects mentioned earlier at The Church studios. We also recorded several basic tracks that Dave had written for the upcoming Eurythmics album (“Revenge”). Sometimes they were initially just the backing tracks, like “A little of you”, for example, and later on Annie would complete them with melodies and lyrics.
“When Tomorrow Comes”, was the first I co-wrote with Dave and Annie, I made some additions and changes to Dave’s basic track and Annie completed it later with melodies and lyrics. I remember that Dave called me to say Annie had great words and melodies for the song and I went over to hear them when she put her demo vocal on the song in Dave’s little home studio in his gym in the basement of his house. As usual, her words and melodies were great.
Sometimes Dave would have more than just a backing track, like in “Miracle of Love”, when he already had the chorus melodies and lyrics as well as the basic track. We did a demo of that one in The Church also, with Dave singing a guide vocal on the chorus.
PS: Sometime at the beginning of 1986, we started recording the “Revenge” album in Connie Plank’s studio in Germany. We were there for a few weeks and for the first few days there was just Dave and I and Clem Burke and Bass player John Mackenzie.
We recorded some new tracks, and then Annie joined us a few days later. After a couple more weeks at Connie’s studio, we moved to Paris and continued the sessions there. Joniece lived in Paris and did a lot of back up vocal sessions there and she was recommended to us by the studio owners. She came and added some back up vocals on the tracks. She was great so we invited to join the band for the tour. Jimmy Z came over to Paris from L.A. to play harmonica and sax. We had met him the year before when he played on the Feargal Sharkey album in L.A.
PS: John Mackenzie went back to London and we used a couple of other different bass players to finish the album. During this whole time Chucho was in the states still working on the Pretenders “Get Close” album. I knew Chucho because we both worked on that Pretenders album during the London sessions for it a few months earlier.
When the “Revenge” album was finished we stayed in Paris a couple more weeks to rehearse for the tour. Chucho joined the band as bass player. He arrived after the album was finished so he didn’t play on the album but joined us as we started rehearsing for the tour. So at that point we had finalized the band for the upcoming tour,
It was Joniece, Chucho, Clem, myself and Jimmy. At some point we became known as “The Revenge Band”.
The tour turned out to be massive, covered many, many territories, went on for over a year and included making that live concert film in Australia near the end of the tour. During the Christmas/New Year break I ended up with Dave in Barbados working on the Mick Jagger album. Nice holiday arrangement!
PS: Dave and Annie always had very definite visions of what was cool and what wasn’t but they were always easy to work with and always open to ideas and suggestions.
They were very easy to work with in the studio, once the recording sessions were finished, the next part of the job was arranging the band versions to play live. For both the “Revenge” tour and the “Revival” tour it was my job to help create interesting ways to perform the songs live and to maximize the strengths of the live band in each case. Sometimes we would try to reproduce the studio versions as far as sounds and arrangements went, but most of the time we wanted to play some of the songs in a different way live to the studio versions.
UE: So which of the tracks from “Revenge” did you as a keyboard player find the most enjoyable to perform/play live?
PS: “When Tomorrow Comes” and “Missionary Man” were fun because they were really high-energy and popular with live audiences.
PS: Yes, I worked with Michael on many different projects over the years. I had first worked with him around 1985 on the Kiki Dee album, and then he came to Paris in 1986 to do orchestra arrangements for “Revenge“. I worked with him again on the movie “Rooftops” with Dave a couple of years later, and I continued to work on many of his other projects including playing keyboards on his scores for “Last Action Hero”, and “101 Dalmatians”, “Die Harder”, and ” From the Earth to the Moon” and various other things of his.
Last week I was in Seattle conducting the orchestra there for a movie score and we were all reminiscing about Michael and his crazy energy and brilliance. He was unique.
PS: After the “Revival” tour ended in 1990, I continued to work with Joniece and I produced her solo album for Phonogram France. (“Dream in colour”.) I wrote a few of the songs on that album, including co-writing one with Dave called “Forget about it”.
I worked with Joniece a couple more times after that album but I haven’t talked to her for several years now. She lives in Paris and I live in Los Angeles. I haven’t kept in touch with Clem, Chucho or Jimmy.
PS: Yes, I co-wrote many of the tracks on the “Lily Was Here” album and score with Dave, as well as playing on all the score and album along with Chucho and Olle and Candy Dulfer. That must have been around 1988.
“Lily Was Here” also lead to me doing my own solo score for “The Johnsons” a couple of years later because it was from the same film company, same producers. That was one of the first times I got to compose and conduct a whole film score using a big orchestra.
I went with Dave to Russia to play the concerts with Boris Grebenshikov. I think that was 1988.
During rehearsals for the “Revival” tour I co-wrote “You’re History” for Shakespear’s Sister. At that time we were in the Mayflower Hotel near Central Park in New York and Dave had his portable studio set up in one room, and the Shakespear’s Sister team had another portable studio set up in another room just down the hall. Not your average tourist hotel, the Mayflower!
PS: Yes, I played on or wrote a lot of stuff for most of bands and artists on Anxious records label in the late 80’s, especially the band “Pleasure”, who were good friends of mine.
Dave and I worked together on more projects in the early 90s also. We co-composed the film score “No Worries”. We co-wrote the music for that quirky Channel 4 TV show he produced called “Beyond the Groove”. I played on some of his solo stuff and his film scores, like ”Cookie’s Fortune”, and he played on a couple of my own film and TV scores also, like “Critical Choices”.
We co-wrote a few more songs here and there in the 90s too. Actually, now that I think about it, there are a couple of good songs we co-wrote at that time that haven’t yet been covered by anybody!
PS: Dave and I had agreed that we would work together on another film score if the right project came along, and “No Worries” was a nice innocent touching story. It was an Australian film, but we did the score in Los Angeles and London. I sketched most of it out in my studio in L.A. first, and then we completed it in London at in The Church Studio in with some live players.
PS: I have just begun composing the score for a TV movie, a romantic drama that will air in August in the States and in September/October in UK.
UE: A huge thank you from us all at Ultimate Eurythmics Pat for your time. We really appreciate you taking part in our Revenge 25 celebrations.
PS: You are very welcome.
