Q MAGAZINE, 199?

Pete Waterman on Larry Parnes

"I'd love to say to some of my artists, 'Shut your fucking mouth or I'll knock your head off.' But I'm not like that. Even when they're talking crap, and I know they are, because I've been there 20 times before ... I'll just let 'em get on with it and then shout 'next!'"

Did Rick Astley arrive at Pete Waterman's Hit factory expecting stardom the next day? Or did he expect The Hit Man to have him making tea for the first nine months? "Am I recording my vocals today Mr Waterman?" "Not today Rick ... I'll have two lumps son." But the apprenticeship paid off: Rick's first royalty cheque was big enough to buy quite a lot of Typhoo.

Pete Waterman's reputation precedes him just as Parnes' did. Pete Waterman loves this. The major labels hate his success. He remains ferociously independent. Though his most frequent media image is the rather unfair one of showbiz pimp/pusher, his candyfloss creations are lapped up by the same papers. He worked at Apple in the Sixties, moved on to work with Lee Scratch perry in Jamaica, then returned to Britain and Stiff records by the close of the seventies. His post-Stiff production company gave us the Belle Stars, Nik Kershaw, Tracey Ullman and Musical Youth. This was a warm up, he is now one of the 50 richest men in Britain.

"I remember the Larry Parnes package tours, they were magnificent. Every Sunday at the Coventry Theatre I went to see one of those. I remember going to see the Byrds at the time of 'Mr Tambourine Man' with Van Morrison on the same bill. I think Tom O'Connor was the compere.

"The major difference between myself and Parnes though is that Parnes treated everybody with total disrespect. He treated everyone as though they were stupid. He really believed you could con people all the time. He had no respect for his artists: ordering Marty Wilde to shove toilet rolls down his trousers! I'm the total opposite."

Pete says he never told Rick Astley to wear Next clothes. Rick chose to dress that badly himself. Pete claims, "I'm not as arrogant as Larry Parnes." Pete's philosophy is to plough money back into the business, to create more employment at the Hit factory. He says he's less worried about finding a new star than he is about "staying friends with all the artists". But hang on a second. For Pete's sake.

"If we ever have an arguement about who is top of the bill, I say, 'Wait a minute, I've got to tell you that it says over the top of the band: "Pete Waterman's roadshow - The Hitman Roadshow". So i'm the fucking star. right! I'm the one that's on the TV every week. I'm the one that's put this together, got the sponsorship.' I'm always right."

Now that's much better. Pete might not be the dominating managerial figure of the past, but he's no pushover. "I had far more experience than Rick Astley and could see every fucking problem he got himself into," he reflects. "If I was Parnes, I would have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and screamed, 'You ain't fucking doing that!' But I let him get on with it because I do think friends are more important than business.

"The problem with Kylie and Jason was once they'd gone out and done a package show , they wanted to do their own shows. So we couldn't get anybody to top the bill on our package show because after they'd filled wembley arena, the last thing they wanted to do was play the Ritzy in Bolton. Now that's sad, because the best thing Larry Parnes did was go to places like Bury, Burnley, Bolton, Norwich and peterborough. The one thing I always wanted to do was to take music to every city in Britain like him. I like to give."

Waterman is now grooming a new band for stardom. Watch this space. Ironically, his biggest management warning conflicts with any fabulous rock excess: "The worst mistake an act can make is to think they're something different. The minute they do, their popularity goes down the tubes. An artist doesn't want to make the same record twice, but you've got to remember what the public wants. You're only ever as popular as people want you to be. If you think you're more important than the people that buy your records, then you've got a problem."

Simon's blag: Though it proved impossible to speak to Parnes, Simon listened to Malcolm McClaren, who described Pete Waterman as "a great charismatic cowboy-like Parnes but a nineties version" - and went to him for insight. His band, Fabulous, became the first rock band to sign to Waterman's PWL label, and after rewriting lyrics with Mike Stock, Simon recorded his vocal. One or two other members of Fabulous may be allowed to contribute instruments. The single,"Personality recession",is due in the autumn.