Blondie Chaplin - Mojo

[Pablo.]

Blondie Chaplin appears on the Hello/Goodbye feature of the latest Mojo (Keith Richards on the cover)

Blondie Chaplin
&The Beach Boys

They called as he was taking tea
with his mum. But after a scuffle
with the manager at Madison
Square Garden, he was gone.

HELLO LATE 1971
I was playing with a group called The Flame.
In 1968, Al Jardine saw us at a club called
Blaises in Kensington. The Beach Boys were
looking for talent to sign to their label,
Brother, so he got Carl Wilson in and one
thing led to another and we signed. I didn’t
think too much of it, to be honest. It was nice
they took an interest in us, but we weren’t
from a very Beach Boy-orientated background,
we were playing a lot of R&B,Wilson
Pickett, Otis Redding kind of stuff, so itwas
really just meeting somebody well-known.
Musically it wasn’t a connection to anything
we’d been close to, back in South Africa.
A few years later, The Flame disbanded
and we all went back to South Africa. Iwas in
Durban, sitting with my mum, having a cup of
tea and listening to the radio. I got a call from
Jack Rieley, who was managing The Beach
Boys at the time, to hook up and come over to
Radio Luxembourg, to start working on a live
radio broadcast. So I travelled from Durban to
Johannesburg, to England and on to
Luxembourg. Radio Luxembourg was a big
radio station then. The first gig I playedwith
them, I played bass. We played Heroes And
Villains, and I had to learn the song with Carl
in a hotel room. After that they asked me to
[join, in February 1972. NB: some sources
date the Radio Lux show as May 10.]
It was strange coming from South Africa,
jumping into this West Coast kind of thing,
and getting adjusted to the Californian
lifestyle. You’re foreigners, you know, itwas a
bit of a shock. And we came from such
a different point of view, musically.
I wasn’t thinking in terms of that surf
stuff. But thenwhenwedid join, the
musicwas more experimental, it
moved it alongand took a different
turn,which [ex-Flames drummer and new
BeachBoy] Ricky Fataar and I liked.We
worked very well togetherwith Carl, I think,
andworkingwithDenniswas easier, andAl at
times. And a little bitwith Brian, because he
was inadifferentworldat that time, so to
speak. The other guys wereOK. To get
comfortable in thatmusical situation, and
those personalities…like any newband
or newadventure you get into, there are
always adjustments.

GOODBYE DEC 19, 1973

Ricky and I were included. We had some of
the songs on a couple of the albums [1972’s
Carl And The Passions – “So Tough” and 1973’s
Holland]. I don’t know,
you always feel that you
can do more. They were
in such an established
situation, it was a little
different for us, coming
in. I’m sure there was
some frustration, but I
can’t say it was an overall
frustrating situation.
We’d done a long hard
tour, quite gruelling, and
everybody was a little
burned out. We ended
up at Madison Square
Garden. It was a great
show, a very, very good
show. That night I got
into a scuffle with Mike
Love’s brother Steve Love,
whowas managing the
band, and I was so hurt and annoyed, I just
said, “f*** it.” AtMadison Square Garden,
that was it forme.
Whatwas the scuffle about? I don’t want
to get into that, into the details. I’ve already
said enough. Except to say it was completely
stupid, and not on my part!
I spoke to Ricky about it a little bit. We
were all disappointed. But there’s no point
hanging out with that kind of behaviour. I was
like, “I’m not going to go through suppression
in an organisation”, it felt like that. Some
people were like, “What, you’re leaving?!!”
But it was an easy decision for me.
I just didn’t show up for the next gig. That
was my way of quitting. Immediately
afterwards, I started writing some songs
and thought about recording
and getting some stuff out. It
was one of those things. You
just keep moving forward.
I don’t want to say that
everything in the whole thing
culminated in a negative, but
that’s how my involvement
ended. I still work with Brian and
Al right now. Brian likes me to
sing Sail On Sailor and I don’t
mind – it’s a classic, and I do
Wild Honey and some other
stuff. I have fun and keep going.
Holland just turned 46 years
old, so I’ve been doing it for
close to 50 years now! Ha! It’s a
long fucking time.

As told to Ian Harrison

[wantsomecorn]

Good to see that Blondie seems to take it all in stride.