John Lawton
John Lawton is a British rock singer best known for fronting the band's "Lucifer's Friend" and "Uriah Heep". It is well known that the UK was a hot bed for music in the 1960's, and John went right under the covers and joined the fun. Early on, John established himself as a singer with local bands "The Deans", "West One", and "Stonewall". When "Stonewall" did a run at the "Top Ten Club" in Hamburg Germany, John met a few of the members of the cult band "Lucifer's Friend". They were very impressed with John's singing and asked him to join the band. This led to a long string of albums that put a big red thumbtack on the rock & roll wall map. During this period, John also worked with "Les Humphries Singers" which added a nice balance to his career. Establishing himself as world class singer, John was then asked to join "Uriah Heep", when David Byron left the group. John recorded 3 albums and toured the world with Uriah Heep. Roger Glover (Deep Purple) invited John to participate in his production of "Butterfly Ball", and he would share the stage with David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes, Roger and others. He was considered for a position in both Deep Purple and Rainbow but his busy schedule took precedence. In the years that followed, John stayed busy with a wide variety of projects and was consistently producing albums and performing. In 2015, Lucifer's Friend re-united and went back in the studio to record new material. The chemistry was magical, and the boys took their long awaited music to the stage. They have just released a CD "Lucifer's Friend - Live @ Sweden Rock 2015". I recently discussed his career with John.
R.V.B. - What was the spark that made you want to become a singer? Who were your early influences?
J.L. - Oh so many, but the earliest was probably Mahalia Jackson, she knew how to deliver a song. Then of course Elvis all the way through to Eric Burdon / Animals....the Blues became a way of life for me....
R.V.B. - How did you start out performing in the business? How did some of your first gigs go?
J.L. - With some guys from school who decided we should form a band and because I had sung in the church choir, I was the vocalist....but it worked and we did okay, but because we were so young we couldn't play clubs in the evening, it had to be lunch time gigs etc. :-)))))
R.V.B. - What were the circumstances that led to the forming of Lucifer's Friend? How did you meet the original members?
J.L. - I had decided to move to Hamburg after performing there a couple of times with the band from England. I was introduced to LF who were looking for an English singer. I sang a couple of tracks including RIDE THE SKY in the studio and that's how it all began.....
R.V.B. - In the years from 1969 through 1976, Lucifer's Friend recorded a lot of Albums. How did the writing process go? Did the members come to the studio with ideas and you write the words afterwards? How did that work?
J.L. - They would give me their ideas on cassette :-))) and I would work from there. Although much of the 1st album LUCIFERS FRIEND had already been written including text. The guys had a friend called John 'O Brian Docker who had supplied them with a few English lyrics which I felt were good. On later albums he would contribute only a couple of lyrics until it became only me.....But the writing process basically remained the same even until today....
R.V.B. - Why was it that Lucifer's Friend was only a studio band and didn't really play out live?
J.L. - At that time Peter Hesslein (guitar ) and Peter Hecht (keyboards) were members of the James Last Orchestra and I had just joined a gospel choir the Les Humphries Singers. All of us were earning good money and we felt we had to carry on earning money to be able to fund future LF recordings. We did do some live concerts at the very beginning but the live scene was a bit different then and our kind of music was a bit too early we felt, so we took a kind of sabbatical.
R.V.B. - Around 1976, you had the opportunity to front the world household name band Uriah Heep. How was this experience for you to work with them?
J.L. - Oh it was quite a step up from my then way of life :-)) All of a sudden I was front man by an internationally famous band. The first tour was together with KISS in America and that was an eye opener for me......:-)))
R.V.B.- What was involved with the touring schedule with the Heep? Where did your travels take you and what bands did you get teamed up with along the way?
J.L. - Basically....album ...tour....album tour but we met some great musicians including Earth Wind and Fire, Styx, Kiss oh so many that I can't remember them all..... We toured all across the USA, all over Europe, some really great times but sometimes very tiring.....
R.V.B. - Can you tell me how you got involved with "The Butterfly Ball" with Roger Glover. There was a lot of talent associated with that performance. How did you enjoy that experience?
J.L. - Again very lucky to have stood alongside some fabulous musicians. Roger had heard a tape I did with Lucifers Friend and asked me to come to London and do a vocal on a song (Little Chalk Blue )which he had written specifically for the show, but in the end I sang Love Is All and Little Chalk Blue and at one point shared a mike with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, but yeah you look around that stage and see Jon Lord, Eddie Hardin, Roger himself.....fabulous memorable moment in my career.
R.V.B. - You joined the German Band "Rebel" for a few years. You recorded 3 albums with them... how was it playing there in Germany and other European countries that like their hard rock?
J.L. - Actually in honesty, I never really joined the band. They asked me to produce the 1st album, but as we went through the recording process it became obvious the singer (after days of encouragement from me ) was not going to cut it, so the guys asked me to sing the tracks. By the second album, the guys were confident enough and knew what they wanted to complete the album with only me doing the vocals. The 3rd album, I only guested on a couple of songs, by now they had found a guy who could do the business 😉😉 But in the time that I was involved with them, we never played live....pity
R.V.B. - You always seemed to keep busy with different projects, one that comes to mind is The Intelligent Music Project". Again you surround yourself with talented musicians. What was involved with that project?
J.L. - I met the producer Milen Vrabevsky in Bulgaria, I had just finished filming one of the documentaries that I do for Bulgarian TV. He played me an album he had recorded with local musicians. He asked me to do a version of the album with English lyrics, which after having heard the songs, I thought was a good idea. On the 2nd album Milen had invited Joseph Williams and Simon Phillips (both Toto) to guest on the album..... Both albums well received, but never intended as a live act....great song writer Milen and musician....
R.V.B. - Things finally came full circle with Lucifer's Friend and you recorded new music with the album "Awakening". How was the chemistry when you re-united to do the recording?
J.L. - Absolutely fine as though we had never split 😀😀 we have stayed good friends over the years. Peter Hesslein had recorded most of his guitar work in Hamburg and the drummer Stephan in Berlin, Dieter bass and Jogi keyboards did their thing also in Hamburg. All that was left where my vocals which I recorded in London... The 4 new tracks were chosen by myself, Peter and Dieter as were the songs for the compilation CD....good vibes brought it all back 😉😉
R.V.B. - Congratulations on your new CD "Live @ Sweden Rock 2015. Finally a live CD for us fans! Did you feel the love from the past as well as the present in 2015 as Lucifer's Friend hit the stage?
J.L. - It was a bit nerve racking at first the thought of playing such a well known festival, but as soon as we hit the stage, the crowd was on our side and it went well. It should have been a DVD of the concert, but unfortunately the was a malfunction in a couple of the static cameras which meant we couldn't use any footage....again a real shame...
R.V.B. - Any future plans for the band?
J.L. - We have just completed a short tour of Japan and will start work recording a new Lucifers Friend album after we arrive back in Europe....new material is already there, so we are looking forward to presenting this to the fans in 2016...,
R.V.B. - Thank you for considering answering these questions.
J.L. - My pleasure....take care
John.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
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For more information on John Lawton visit his website www.johnlawtonmusic.com
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