Pete Waterman talks to Andy Milne
14 Nov 2007
‘Treasure your staff or you ain’t got a business,’ says Waterman, acknowledging the thinking behind the RailStaff Awards 2007.
Backing your people is the crucial element of an artistic and commercial success story that holds lessons for all in the rail industry. Pete Waterman started his working life as a fireman in Wolverhampton in 1961. He subsequently worked as a gravedigger and for General Electric, where he became a shop steward aged 19. As a boy, born in 1947 amidst the war-shattered ruins of Coventry, he had sold coal from the back of a pram to augment the family income.
Waterman adores what he does and even though financially secure continues to work, still inspired by the excitement and urgency of rock and roll. In 1962 he saw an early Beatles gig. What he heard changed his life. ‘They really did inspire me to do what I’ve done.’
Starting with a Dansette record player and a few discs Waterman eventually became a resident disc jockey at Coventry’s Locarno ballroom. He travelled the country playing records, laying down the sound track to the swingin’ sixties. His career oozes excitement like a steam engine.
‘I set up an audition on a pirate radio station, Radio City, only the owner, Reg Calvert, was shot dead before I could do it.’ The station based on a fort in the Thames estuary shut down. Pirate radio itself was outlawed in 1967. Pete however, is no sentimentalist. ‘The pirates were run by business people who had spotted a gap in the market. We were playing all these records in the dance halls and they said - let’s put a station outside the three mile limit.’ Listeners ran into millions. He remains good friends with Ronan O’Rahilly, founder of Radio Caroline.
‘The problem with railways is that everyone remembers it how it never was’
Interestingly he remains remarkably unsentimental about the past - including railways. ‘I started on the railways in 1961 when there were no doors on the toilets. At Wolverhampton the smell of the toilet block was awful. I loved it but let’s not kid ourselves. 1960 was ten years into nationalisation; the railways were finished. The government had run the railway into the ground. The problem with railways is that everyone remembers it how it never was.’
Are the railways simply becoming utilitarian - pack ‘em in, take the money? Waterman is realistic. ‘LNER, LMS were going bankrupt before the war. Everyone has this wonderful notion of Nigel Gresley and teak coaches. The fact is another few years and they would have been bankrupt. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing but it don’t pay the bills.’
Inspired by the partnership of Lennon & McCartney, Tamla Motown and Buddy Holly, he started writing songs. Why? ‘I couldn’t get enough of the songs I wanted to hear.’ For Waterman it was a case of having to. His efforts have led to an amazing string of 22 number one hits - more than Elvis Presley.
He’s backed acts like Musical Youth, Bananarama, Steps, Kylie Minogue, Nik Kershaw. In 1985 he forged a partnership, recently revived, with songwriters Mike Stock and Matt Aitken. He went on to co-host TV show, ‘The Hit Man and Her.’ The hits just kept on coming; over 200 top forty entries. How does he write them?
‘Same as you, with a deadline. I know I have to sit down and do it.’ He cannot lay bare the soul circuitry of a mind that generates music. Pete Waterman may not make smooth classics at seven but in characteristic terms he shrugs of critics, ‘If you don’t like it, don’t listen.’
Ever since Wolverhampton he’s been interested in railways. He was among the first private sector entrepreneurs to enter the industry, buying the Special Trains Unit in 1994. Many in the industry retain a deep respect for Waterman. ‘He went through all the hoops of getting a safety case and the license - not easy when so many simply wished you to fail,’ a former RES man said. The charter market has burgeoned ever since.
How did he find dealing with BR?
‘The railway always ran on the same hierarchy as ‘the army.’ He recalls talking to a BR manager shortly after the Special Trains purchase. ‘I said, I’ll just call up John Welsby (last chairman of BR). The guy looked at me in utter horror. You can’t just phone Mr. Welsby! Why not? I’ve just bought a railway from him and if there’s something I don’t like I’m going to ring him up.
This guy could not get his head round this. I dialled a number and said, John I’ve got a problem can I come and talk to you?’ Eventually he became good friends with many railway people. Currently he is chairman of the London & North Western Railway Co. Ltd. LNWR, based at Crewe provides servicing and repair facilities for the rail industry. He also runs ‘Just Like The Real Thing’ which builds model railways, engines and rolling stock. Railways remain a barely concealed passion and he owns various models and lay outs.
Unprintable
From studios on London’s South Bank Pete Waterman runs an operation that seeds the pop charts of two continents with new talent. At 60 he looks keen and fit and clearly thrives on what he does. However, there is no rock star mystic about him, no minders in mirror finish sun glasses.
In a way where ever you’re from you’re still talking to a fireman from Coventry determined to make a few bob and have a laugh along the way. His opinion’s ricochet around the room with all the insistence of a Locarno disc jocky. He says exactly what he thinks which is both refreshing, if frequently unprintable. Unusually in the rock industry and the rail industry for that matter he’s a moralist. ‘I find it amazing the amount of people who have a hit one minute and the next it’s an advert for deodorant.
Did you write it for the cash?’
Looking incredulous he goes on, ‘One minute I’m going to die for my art. This is a song about angst ridden love and then, hang on, it’s a body deodorant ad. Where’s the hurt in that? There’s a part of me that says OK, if you’re going to get hurt you might as well put the cash in the bank.
I think there’s a line between writing a commercial and writing commercially. When you write a song and people buy it they take it personally if you go on and sell it for body deodorant. That’s dishonest because kids bought that believing you meant it. I think that’s dishonest.’
How does he spend his free time?
Waterman is a quiet man privately preferring to get home to Cheshire away from the bright lights of London. ‘I don’t do holidays. I have days on the railway. My model railway is my passion. I love going up to Crewe and spending a couple of hours up there in the workshop. I’m chairman of quite a few railways which I go and spend an hour on, slinging a shovel now and again. I just sit in the garden. That’s important.’ He’s also chairman of the Coventry Bears rugby league club.
In a way he’s still doing the same job he’s always done - stoking the fires of the pop music engine irrespective of how far the train’s going or the stops it makes along the way. He may never have got to be a pirate radio dj but he did eventually host a show on Radio City an FM rock station - on dry land - in Liverpool. He also went on to be a judge on Pop Idol but has recently come out against reality tv which, he says, simply enjoys slaughtering the also-rans.
A staunch defender of an industry he’s been involved with since 1961 he says, ‘When I hear all these people talking about how bad the railways are I just know they don’t travel on trains. People find the railways an easy whipping boy, a cheap joke. It’s such a massive industry, it’s easy to knock.’
Good news doesn’t get put out by a hostile media and that annoys him. ‘We are changing Birmingham New Street, Reading, the West Coast, Crewe, but I don’t hear anybody talking about that.’
He recalls a commentator moaning about being 16 minutes late from Brighton. ‘They talk about that, 16 minutes!
Try to travel by car, it’s just taken me 25 minutes to get from the BBC here. 14 pounds taxi fare - I can get to Manchester for that.’ He’d been over to the Steve Wright Show at Langham Place to record an interview with the Sheilas.
Never mind pop stars who sell out or TV executives, Waterman reserves his real wrath for politicians. ‘I was on a TV programme when a minister told of how he was delayed in getting to Taunton. He forgot to tell everyone that it was at the height of the floods. Hang on a minute! We’ve just had the worst rain in history - of course the train was late!’
His advice to politicians about railways is simple and untrammelled by conventional civilities. ‘Butt out fast. Get out. Politicians should not be in railways at all. If you want to cock it up get a government official in. They can’t make decisions that are not political because they will never say anything that might upset somebody.’
For him the way to run a railway is by letting commercial entrepreneurs have their heads and having the government back off. ‘Some of my best friends were BR board directors and they didn’t have any money. They ran a railway on nothing and promises.’
Isn’t the current structure of the railways flawed?
Waterman is not so sure. ‘Look at all the new trains we’re running and the new track we’ve got - it may have been flawed and there are lots of problems. Since the abolition of Railtrack we’ve got a pretty good system now which is being refined.’
How does he feel about the recent rail strikes in London?
Still smarting after the cab fare he is characteristically forthright, ‘Unions might not like it but they have to learn the public’s got to come first. There are no job guarantees for anybody anywhere; we all have to understand that. We are a public service and we have to give the public that service at a price they will pay.’
Surprisingly he’s no great supporter of high speed rail. ‘I wouldn’t do it. People want to get there cheaper not quicker. I want to keep the little lines. It would be a sad railway if we were all high speed trains and no locals.’
He also recalls a conversation about the Channel Tunnel Rail Link snaking across Kent with Margaret Thatcher. Unhappy at the amount of Tory marginals the route involved, the iron lady apparently rounded on Pete and another couple of rail people and said, you people will cost me the next election. However, he’s right behind Crossrail and a great supporter of tram systems.
It’s an amazing industry
As a former fireman Pete’s sympathies remain strongly pro-workforce. ‘It’s an amazing industry. Staff work for the public and the public are never grateful. I came down yesterday morning and we were 7 minutes early into Euston yet I didn’t see anyone walk up to the driver and say thank you, mate. I started travelling that route in 1949 and my dad would have said ‘thank you driver.’’ We’ve got very little to moan about these days.’
He then reveals a superb characteristic about railway staff. ‘More railwaymen take cameras to work than people do in the record industry - and take pictures. I know so many railwaymen that have always got a camera in their bag and whenever they ‘re on a new engine or a new train they take a picture of it.’ Record producers, sound technicians surrounded by pop stars and the rich and famous apparently rarely do this.
‘Treasure your staff or you ain’t got a business. Rail companies that do, have a good business.’
This is a message he’ll be re-enforcing at the RailStaff Awards 2007. It’s people that are at the core of the industry not simply the romance and glamour of rail travel. Steam engines might fuel the imagination but they also fuel overdrafts.
‘I am not starry eyed about them. I love them. I think it is an amazing industry. The staff are unique and I’ve always thought it’s the best way to travel. Do I want to travel on the Flying Scotsman back home to Warrington tonight? No thank you, I’ll take a Pendolino and get there in 1 hour 48 minutes.’
The Sheilas, ‘(I’m So) Happy Happy (You’re Mine) is in all good record shops on the PWL record label
‘I Wish I Was Me’ by Pete Waterman is published by Virgin Books ISBN-10: 0753505738