“A Different Perspective” - Adrian Lee, Paul Young and Paul Carrack interviewed on GLR Radio on 11th June 1991. Transcribed by Alan Hewitt.

Following on from the previous issue where we carried a transcript of an interview Richard Skinner had done with Mike prior to the Word Of Mouth album being released, we thought you might find the views from the other band members as interesting. Thanks once again to the omnipresent Vernon Parker for sending this in (do you ever find any time for work, Vernon?).

RS: I’ve been joined by Adrian Lee, Paul Young and Paul Carrack who are three of the Mechanics, welcome. It’s good to know that the ship can sail with the captain back in the studio doing something else. What’s Mike actually up to today?

PC: He’s playing polo I think.

RS: Mr Young, can you just stand near the microphone because I want to have a quick chat to you because it has been a long time since we last spoke together. It has been a fascinating decade for you Paul, hasn’t it?

PY: Yeah, up and down. Sad Café and then the Mechanics.

RS: Sad Café. People look back on Sad Café with such affection you know, because you made some classic records in your time.

PY: Yeah, more than that I think that people enjoyed coming to see us play live.

RS: You’re right, because the records obviously told only half the story didn’t they?

PY: It was a good live act it was a lot of fun to be in that band.

RS: Why did it end when it did?

PY: Why did it end when it did ? (laughs) Well, basically we went broke (laughs) we couldn’t afford the strings for this acoustic guitar (laughs).

RS: Bankruptcy did rear its head at one point, didn’t it?

PY: It certainly did yeah.

RS: How the heck did you survive that?

PY: I don’t know. I did! (laughs).

RS: The Mechanics has proved to be a really successful liaison for everybody concerned in fact, hasn’t it?

PY: Yeah, it is a great band/ It’s good fun to be in.

RS: And the important thing that it really IS a band too?

PY: People didn’t take us seriously at first, they thought that we were Mike’s hobby actually. It has turned out that we are a bona fide band now. We go out on tour, we play, people come to see us, we don’t even tell him when we are doing radio appearances anymore! (laughs).

RS: Adrian I will emphasise that you DID co-write My Crime Of Passion with Mike and Paul Carrack, didn’t you?

AL: That’s right.

RS: It slipped by me first time round. Seeing you play live here in the studio. Is there any chance of a Mechanics tour in the near future or is Mike too tied up with Genesis?

PC: Well hopefully we are going to go out at the end of thus summer so we are looking forward to that.

RS: This depending on how well the recording with Genesis is going?

PC: That’s got nothing to do with it. We’ll just go and grab him and that’s it.