The Animals Are On Their 60th Anniversary Tour…
The Animals are currently on tour in Australia on their 60th Anniversary We Gotta Get Out of This Place – The band’s Final Tour of Australia. The Animals’ impact and influence is undeniable. They created some of the most iconic songs in popular music history including – We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place, The House of The Rising Sun, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, It’s My Life, Don’t Bring Me Down and Boom Boom and more all of which will be performed on this Greatest Hits Final Tour.
The Animals were “one of the most important bands” in the British Invasion. The Beatles and Rolling Stones were the headliners, whilst The Animals were the backbone of blues! The legendary Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer John Steel reflects on an amazing career.
How do you feel about The Animals sixtieth anniversary tour and farewell to Australia?
I’ve got my doubt about that, people keep trying to write me off because when people ask me about what you’re doing next, I say I can only think one year ahead at the time at my age. I can’t think too far ahead. So, that’s being read as my final everything. We had the lock down, the bloody pandemic that screwed everybody up. That seemed to take two, three years out of everybody’s life. I’m determined to get those three years back. So, I don’t think I’m going to be quitting quite yet.
That is great news, when you think about sixtieth anniversary, does it still amaze you the legacy and the power of the music of The Animals and how it continues to keep on keeping on?
Yeah, it really makes me feel good. I think that’s the strength of the band, this collection of music that recorded way back in the sixties and how well it stands up now, even today, especially some of those great singles. This is what keeps bringing people back to come and see the band and listen to the songs again. In so many places, we had young people who weren’t even thought of back then, who sit in the audience and sing all the songs as well, I’ve always said that’s the main strength of this band. It’s the longevity of the material. I call them grown up songs, they’re not lightweight pop things. They’re good strong,. kind of dark story songs.
Is that humbling as well to see a younger crowd following the band now?
Yeah, it makes me feel good to, we will go out after the show and sign some stuff, shake hands and say hello. So often we get youngsters who say we just formed our first band and that we’ve been listening to your stuff, and it’s great to hear it live. So many people who say that song was the first song that I ever learned to play on my first guitar which was “The Rising Sun”. We get a lot of that, which is great.
Looking back over your career what moments stand out for you?
It’s amusing to me when I always think of the first thing when I’m asked this question is when we arrived in New York in 1964, it was only our second single, House Of The Rising Sun, which was number one at the time when we flew to New York. We were working class Geordies from a provincial industrial city and we’d only recently moved to London and got involved with what was going on, had our first single out. Then this one suddenly went to number one all over the place. When I first met Eric Burdon, we were fifteen years old back in the fifties, and everything that influenced us and inspired us came from America at the time, the music, movies, books, but especially the music. It was fantastic for us because in those days, only businessmen, film stars and wealthy people could afford to fly to America in the fifties. Suddenly here we were, flying off to New York to play at The Paramount Theatre in Times Square, where our first single in the States was a really life changing time, very exciting for us.
Do you remember your first show that you ever played?
Yeah, Eric and I first started off playing 1956 of that winter not long after we first met, and that was our first band, but we didn’t actually become The Animals until the end of 1963. I think the first show we would’ve played as The Animals we went down to London. We swapped gigs with the The Yardbirds, by a deal that made between our manager and Giorgio Gomelsky, who was the manager of The Yardbirds. We did this kind of swap where we played each other’s gigs for a couple of weeks at the end of 1963. It was only at that time that we’d changed the name to The Animals.
I think the first gig under that name would’ve been The Scene Club, just off Great Wind Street in the west end of London, where, which was run by a guy called Ronan O’Rahilly, who introduced the Pirate radio to the UK to break the deadlock of the, BBC. So, he was a very in innovative guy, we used his club as a kind of base, and from therefrom there we went around all The Yardbirds gigs that had been done by them and The Rolling Stones. I suppose that’s the first, I’m pretty certain, gig we ever played as The Animals.
Being the sixtieth anniversary, are there any reissues planned to coincide with the tour?
We’ve got plans to record some new material, but unfortunately that’s going to be after the tour. We’ve got some work to do on it yet, but it’s in the pipeline. But in what we will have is a live album on CD that we actually recorded in Adelaide on our last tour 2019. That’s been mixed and ready for release for the tour.
Are there any particular cities that you look forward to most when you tour Australia?
Everywhere! I love playing in Australia. It’s one of my favourite places. I love Adelaide and a venue called The Gov, which is a very popular live music venue. When you come to Australia to play you guaranteed good hospitality, a friendly welcome, great wine and beer, the food’s excellent and the accommodation’s great. The weather’s good when you’re leaving wintry UK behind, that’s always something to look forward to. So anywhere in Australia is good for me.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch The Animals on the following dates, tickets from Metropolis Touring…
