Bernie Torme

A surprise inclusion here?  I’ve got a lot of time for Bernie Torme. Born in Dublin and raised on a diet of Taste, Thin Lizzy and Skid Row, Bernie was a member of The Urge, a band known to fellow Dubliners the Boomtown Rats. Bernie, however, soon tired of playing Top 10 and Country & Western tunes around the pubs and clubs of Ireland and decamped to London to form Scrapyard which then turned into the Bernie Torme band. Got that?

Turned on and enthused by punk rock, the band specialised in high energy rock with a dollop of punk attitude. Hell he played The Roxy and The Vortex and supported among others Generation X, Bethnal and The Boys.

A tad more rockier than your usual punker band….”Well obviously my lack of style was always strat based, strats are what I fookin play!  Hendrixy? Not really, Though we did do a song called “Don’t Look Back” which was sort of Hendrix meets the Heartbreakers. Always went down really well weirdly enough.”

And as he says of his skills….”We had no problem in the skilled musicians department, believe me. We weren’t, we just thought we were because we knew 5 1/2 chords as opposed to 2. We were a bit better than Eater or the Art Attacks, but nowhere near as good as The Stranglers or The Damned or definitely not the godlike Ramones. They were good!” 

The band were Bernie Torme -Gtr & Vocals, Phil Spalding – Bass & Mark Harrison – Drums

Bernie Torme has two songs on the Live At The Vortex album – Streetfighter and Living For Kicks. They also signed to Jet and released a single I’m Not Ready in October 1978 described by Record Mirror as “…one of the most exciting debut releases I’ve heard for quite some time. The appeal should attract both HM and new wave enthusiasts alike, being a fast furious and energised little number, with fine guitar from Bernie himself.” Record Mirror, 14.10.78

By then Bernie’s hair was longer, the band looked and sounded rockier and it wasn’t a great leap as he broke the Bernie Torme band up and joined Gillan reuniting with John McCoy of Neo and once of Scrapyard with Bernie. Now of course Gillan with Bernie had chart success and TOTP appearances with songs such as Trouble, New Orleans, M.A.D and No Laughing In Heaven.

Bernie’s had a long and eventful career. He stood in on that fateful Ozzy Osbourne tour when Randy Rhodes died and played with Dee Snider to name but a few in a great career. Sadly Bernie pased away in March 2019.

Way back in 2005 Punk77 interviewed Bernie Torme and he spoke about himself and how the band came together …

At the time of playing the Roxy club and Vortex what was the band line up?
It was me on guitar, Phil Spalding on bass, who subsequently played with Toyah and then Ian Broudie’s Original Mirrors before he became the UK’s most wanted bass session person and played with Mike Oldfield,  Robbie Williams, Seal, you name it, even Brittany Spears! Old Phil is a lovely guy and a great bass player….not as old as me, mind…….. and much more of a full on muso than I’ll ever be!  I just like the rough bits and the chaos, And the great Mark Harrison on drums, subsequently with Shane McGowan’s Nipple Erectors (there’s a picture of him on your site) and the Dirty Strangers, currently an ex-pat living in the Gambia.

Had you been playing before in bands and how had you first become aware of punk rock?
Like most of the first wave like Ratty and Joe Strummer and The Stranglers, I had indeed been around the block a few times,  Even though I was definitely second wave. I started gigging in 1969 when I was 16 or 17, I played with various bands in Ireland (where I was from) and a pub rock band in London from about 75.  The guy who managed that band got very into punk in 76, when he started managing the Bernie Torme Band which was the Spalding/Harrison punk line up.  So he sort of talked us into it, I was just a psychedelic rocker at the time, the other two were basically a pair of jazz rockers, which I hated and despised. But I really loved “New Rose” and then the Sex Pistols when I heard them, it sort of suited me.

Did you feel part of the scene? Did you go to gigs as a punter?
Frankly mate I’ve never felt part of any scene, wouldn’t want to, I’m an individual.  Fuck ’em all if they want to be part of a herd. And to me that was sort of what punk was about. Yes of course I went to gigs, I remember going to The Saints, also The Damned and The Jam very early on. Many others. The Jam were fantastic live, great gigs, I never much liked their records though.

How would you describe the music you were playing then at the time of mid 1977 at The Roxy and Vortex?
Noisy and lots of energy and fun. Plenty of other people called it crap! As time dragged on into 78 and early ’79 like most of the other bands who hadn’t cracked it we sort of slid into power pop puke, thanks to record company pressure etc. I have much more reservations about that than I ever had about punk.

Had punk influenced your style in any way? I’ve seen you play a couple of times and it was strat /Hendrixy based then?
Most definitely punk was and is a huge influence. The energy and the simplicity and power was something that I was totally sold on. Still am. Also with punk as a lyricist you could say anything, that was never true in the “rawk” field.  I’ve never been “rawkist” in my lyrics, except as a piss take, I like the change punk made in that. So thats a great big yes. And in fact in Gillan that’s what made us different from the Whitesnakes etc, we played quite a few tracks with that punk energy. I’m not sure Ian knew what was going on, though ……… the lyrics were quite “rawk” …. whatever.

Bernie Torme & The Boomtown Rats flier for The Marquee

Another small example of the influence is that for about 8 of the past 15 years I’ve played with JJ Pierce on bass, who plays with the Anti Nowhere League and the Business.  At present I’m playing with John McCoy from Gillan, who also played in a punk band called Neo in 78, and the great Robin Guy on drums, who also plays with the Business. I like punk players. Well obviously my lack of style was always strat based, strats are what I play!  Hendrixy? not really, Though we did do a song called “Don’t Look Back” which was sort of Hendrix meets the Heartbreakers. Always went down really well weirdly enough.

Was it a matter of change style/sound to survive and a gig is a gig.
No, not at all, I liked it, still do. God help me  I still even like Green Day which my kids are into, very American, quite poppy, but they’ve really held on to something of the spirit too. Good enough.

How did a more heavy rock sounding band and a more flashy guitar go down in the club that was punk based and in essence anti skilled musicians?
We had no problem in the skilled musicians department, believe me. We weren’t, we just thought we were because we knew 5 1/2 chords as opposed to 2. We were a bit better than Eater or the Art Attacks, but nowhere near as good as The Stranglers or The Damned or definitely not the godlike Ramones. They were good!

You had two punk sounding tracks on the Live At The Vortex album ‘Streetfighter’ and ‘Living for Kicks’. How did you end up on this album?
Because we played lots of times at the Vortex and they asked us to be on the album, they were under the misapprehension that we were going to be successful I suppose. Really I guess they were trying to jump on the Roxy album bandwagon.

What do you remember of the recording of this album? Rumour has it wasn’t actually live.  Was it live?
Well yes, it was all recorded live on some mobile, then they had us go to Morgan Studios in Wimbledon to clean it all up. I think we repaired everything but the drums on what must have been a copy master, because they still had the original. We thought it was wonderful, it was the best studio with the most time we’d ever been in, it had lots of meters and lights and a little boy with a piece of chalk who made marks on the tape so he knew where he was and pressed play and rewind, and made cups of tea and probably cleaned the chimneys with his tongue too. Bet he lost his job when some clever clogs invented remote auto-locates. A lost age, back to cleaning chimneys.

Then a few days later the Robin chappie who was organising it phoned up and said our tracks sounded too good and not live enough, and would we come back and mix the original live recorded take. So we did, which mainly consisted in standing there and saying yes Robin, and that’s what they used. I can’t speak for any of the other bands, but ours came out as it was, live. Some other tracks sound better than ours, maybe that’s why.  I still have a copy of the studio one someplace. But I didn’t really know that, I always thought that since they used our live originals, they would have used everybody’s. maybe not.

How did the album help your career?
I don’t know if it did. I suppose it must have. It was great to be on a record. Of course we never got any royalties Jet Records were there that night and signed us shortly afterwards, and paid us 40 quid a week each for the next 18 months, I thought I had it made, put us on lots of support tours, The Boys, Bethnal, Generation X, so it was a great learning experience for yer live chops, and life in general. Apart from that they just sat on us pretty much, they were more into ELO.

How did you get on with other punk bands and how did they view you?
Always got on good, it was a good time. Well almost always. I can remember our relationship with the Boomtown Rats being a tad stressy, despite the fact that we were both from Dublin. They were very ambitious and had none of the “we’re all in it together” mentality, but then they never really were a punk band anyway. We toured with them quite a bit early on, and did their early marquee gigs as support, when they had these very streetwise spray paint posters. We got the support by agreeing to go round London sticking the posters up, and spraying walls. Phil Spalding our bass player got arrested by an off-duty policeman, and we all just ran away. The Rats never even left their house in leafy Chessington, very punk indeed.

I still hear from Derwood (Bob Andrews) from Generation X occasionally, Mark Harrison (our drummer) and Jack Black of The Boys are pretty close, I hear from Matt and John of The Boys occasionally and sometimes bump into the original UK Subs, Charlie and Nick Garrett. And of course Rat.

What punk bands did you rate?
Pistols. early Ultravox, but only pre Midge Ure,  they were great, god damn that horrible record Vienna, the Jam live, Damned,  The Clash at times – some great things, but the fact that it was a sort of manufactured punk Westlife always bothered me. And the Belfast pictures were sad, embarrassing and not at all credible. Heartbreakers, Ramones, Iggy (though only later) and the Stray Cats. Not sure they were all punk. Later, in 79 the UK Subs, and more recent Green Day. Not Blink 182. Why didn’t you ask about the ones I hated and why!

Bernie Torme – what a brilliant talented guy he was! Sadly Bernie passed away in March 2019. Check out his Facebook page for more info on his life and career.



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