Part 4: Alvin Lee and Ten Years Later

Ten Years Later on stage, from left to right: Alvin Lee, Tom Compton, Mick Hawksworth

FlyGuitars Probably the best known of your bands was Alvin Lee's Ten Years Later: Alvin Lee, guitar; Tom Compton, drums; Mick Hawksworth, bass; (and sometimes) Bernie Clarke, keyboards. You had played with Tom previously in the Human Orchestra. How did that lead to Ten Years Later?

MH Tom got the gig first. Tom's a very aggressive, very flamboyant drummer, and when he first played with Alvin, he followed what Alvin was doing very closely. As a consequence, his tempo probably crept up a bit or something. The bass player, Alan Spenner turned to Alvin after Tom had gone, and said "I can't really play with that bloke because he speeds up" and Alvin said, "Well I really like him". He asked Tom if there was a bass player he liked working with. Tom gave me a call, I went along. I don't know why but I was very rusty at the time, really, really, rusty; there must have been a real lull in my work. I apologised profusely and said to Alvin I'm really feeling this. I was very embarrassed, but happily, things eventually came together and he was quite happy, so that was that. Tom and I did work very well together; extremely well. We've been in 3,4,5 bands, I don't know... Charley Horse, Landslide. Tom also came to an audition for Mathew Fisher on my recommendation; there was talk of another album, but it didn't happen. Matthew liked Toms playing.

There are two guys from that period that I got on really well with as drummers, and as people, and that's Tony Fernandes and Tom Compton. I saw Tony not very long ago; he's still playing great. Absolutely lovely guy. I've not managed to play with Tom again since the Alvin Lee days.

Mick Hawksworth's Gibson Thunderbird bass was previously owned by Gary Thaine of Uriah Heep. Note the central maple block, and slightly repositioned pickups.

Mick bought his Guild in 1977: 'What a revelation. It had one pick-up and weighed about the same as a bag of sweets. And the low end!' Note the Acoustic 360 amplifier in the background.

FlyGuitars Tell us about some of the new basses you were using at this stage.

MH A regular visitor to Alvin Lee's place was a close friend of Gary Thaine, [Uriah Heep's bass player] and after Gary died this guy inherited his gear, which included a Gibson Thunderbird bass. He asked if I wanted to buy it: I nearly tore his arm off. One thing though, it seems like the entire centre section has been remade in maple, but not by Gibson. Whoever did it though, made a fantastic job of it. It's beautifully married up to the side sections and the headstock has the same step cut into it. You'd never know it's not original except for where (for some weird reason) the holes to take the bridge adjusters have been drilled in the wrong position, filled in, and then repositioned, which is a great shame. It's as great to play as I always knew a T'bird would be and it has a unique sound: very clean and workable. You could really wind up the low end on the amp and this would deliver, big time. Using both pick-ups together gives it a real nice tonal quality in the high mid. I'm still as impressed by this bass as the day I bought it.

Then, in 1977, I got a call from a friend who was working in Sound City in Shaftesbury Avenue. He was raving about a Guild B301 bass that they had, and ordered me to get there and try it. What a revelation. It had one pick-up and weighed about the same as a bag of sweets. And the low end! This great guitar must be the most under-rated bass of all time, and for 150 quid, there was nothing else to touch it. Probably sounds so good because Guild used to have the oldest stockpile of wood of any guitar maker, and old seasoned wood makes great guitars. The only 6 string guitar I'd like to own now is a 60's Guild acoustic.

FlyGuitars The Ten Years Later live footage available (Rock Palast DVD) shows you play the Guild B301, Gibson RD Artist and Gibson Thunderbird - is this something you generally did, swap basses on stage?

Alvin Lee and Ten Years Later - live at Rock Palast

Towards the end of the set, Mick used to launch his bass into the air. The Guild B301 prepares for take-off.

Mick with his doubleneck bass "Igor" and the Acoustic 360 amplifier in the background

MH I can't imagine what I was doing using the Thunderbird. I definitely wouldn't have done too many gigs with it. I know the Guild used to get used near the end. I played the doubleneck mostly and that weighs a ton and I'd get quite worn out by the end of it. It had to go away for work, there were things that needed doing, but once they were ironed out it was great. Just the usual teething troubles with a custom-made instrument. In the meantime it was mostly the RD, the cherry sunburst one, and then when the head got broken, the blonde one. Coincidentally, most of the footage is with those instruments, though somewhere there's an Old Grey Whistle Test where I'm playing the doubleneck.

FlyGuitars How did you break the RD Artist?

MH I sent it into a lighting rig. I used to like to use the Guild at the end of the show because it was light. It also used to make a journey upwards into the air at the end. Catch it on the way down.

FlyGuitars What was it like, working with Alvin Lee?

MH I have to say that Alvin was a decent bloke. He certainly looked after us financially, and was happy for us to take solos and so on. He was good in that respect. To a certain degree Alvin did have "guitar player syndrome", but at least he didn't want all the limelight. He was quite happy for stuff to go on, on stage, you know.

Alvin Lee and Ten years Later - Rocket Fuel (1978)

FlyGuitars You did two albums Rocket Fuel and Ride on...What were the musical high points?

MH The stage work more than anything. I didn't like the way Alvin recorded, because when we'd lay down the backing tracks, I'd take such care with my sound. I really wanted to make it sound exactly like you were standing next to the amp. You know I'd spent three or four hours with the sound engineer in the morning before anybody got there. We'd try this and we'd try that, so the bass drums and the initial guitar track sounded incredibly powerful to me, but Alvin put too many guitars on. It detracts. It robs the bass and drums of frequencies that make them sound powerful, so to me they sound weaker. The more guitar went on, the less powerful they became. Highpoint of that time is, I suppose, a very impromptu session with George Harrison, who was a neighbour, four or five miles away. Eric Clapton, Carl Raddle, Tom (Compton). When Carl Raddle came in... I said use my rig, you know. So I had nothing to play. So I pulled a guitar off the wall, plugged it in. Eventually Alvin walked up to the microphone and started singing "I've got the too-many guitarists blues... and I don't know where to play". Really good fun. But the touring.... especially in the States, which was brilliant.

Alvin Lee and Ten years Later - Ride On (1979)

FlyGuitars Did you go on Concord?

MH Yes. Alvin paid for us to fly out on Concord. A great thing to do, though there was a lot of money that should have been conserved rather than spent on a good time. And sending limos round to pick me up from my folk's place in Clapham to take me to Gatwick or Heathrow. A lot of wasted money. Still, it wasn't mine and it was very generous of him.

FlyGuitars You use a lot more effects with Ten Years Later than previous recordings. What basses and effects are you using on the Rocket Fuel album?

MH All Igor. Effects: number 1 is the Acoustic 360. It's got this fuzz built into it. Now, i've tried plugging a bass into a fuzz pedal, and it just sounds like crap, but the fuzz circuit on the 360 is astonishing, it really is brilliant. You get endless sustain and it's really violent and raucous. So I used to use that in a solo, or at the end of a song. You'd hit a bottom E, then an open G and an F# on the D string. You'd get this onslaught, this huge wall of dissonance. Sounds brilliant. Any showmanship I possess, is in my sounds and playing, rather than running around on stage. I've never been one to stay in the background, wondering if it was time to play another note. My biggest problem has been an unending procession of people telling me I'm playing too loud. Yeah, really. I also used an Electro Harmonix pedal - the "Zipper". Like an auto-wah and I used their chorus unit; the "Clone Theory", the flanger; the "Electric Mistress" and the filter; "Bass Balls". Their pedals were brilliant. Another thing I tried was a Roland monophonic pitch to voltage synth that I was using, as well as I could: it was an unwieldy beast at the best of times, let alone me trying to pump Igor down its throat.

FlyGuitars Do you still play the Pink Panther theme in your bass solos?

MH (laughs).... no I don't. I like the idea of it though. I was so pleased I hit on that one. It's a tough thing doing a bass solo. My playing has changed a lot from then until now. It's now good standing up there going dum dum dum dum. That means nothing to people, and not all of us can be Jaco or Stanley Clarke, but a certain amount of diddling around, showing them you can play fast, that's very impressive, but I thought this is not really connecting with people, and as I always liked sliding bits in here and there anyway, I thought what's a piece of music that everyone is going to know. I always loved the Panther films, so I thought let's give it a go. I did try the theme to Monty Python once in America. I think they thought I was doing the Korean national anthem. There were some very pissed off people backstage.

FlyGuitars And you use the microphone stand to play slide bass?

MH It's like the thing with the fuzz pedal again, at the end of the number, I'd stamp on that fuzz pedal. Just a visual and audio thing for the end of the song. I've never been a great visual player. Never been one of these guys who leap around the stage like a demented Tarzan. I'm happy to stand there and play, measuring what I'm doing, being aware. You're under a lot of pressure in bands like that. Alvin had a couple of blokes who did manager impressions. "You gotta back Alvin up. Gotta do this and gotta do that. Set fire to your trousers".

Video Clips

Mick Hawksworth with Ten Years Later, 1978 - click the images to view clips

Four live performances by Alvin Lee and Ten Years Later. Top left - Help me Baby. Right - I'm Going Home, both with Gibson RD Artist. Bottom - Two versions of Hey Joe, on Micks doubleneck "Igor" and the 1960s Gibson Thunderbird.

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