“Not Now Bernard!” - The Mike + the Mechanics story revisited. Narrated by Alan Hewitt. Memorabilia: TWR Archive. Photographs By: Alan Perry, Alan Hewitt, Stuart Barnes, Jon Guntrip And Lee Millward.

Unusual title eh? Well whether you recognise it or not, this catchphrase from a popular UK sitcom was the original name for the new look band Mike decided to put together in 1984/84 in the gap between the end of the Mama Tour and the writing and recording work for what would prove to be Genesis's most successful album, 1986’s Invisible Touch. Thankfully wiser heads prevailed and the new band eventually emerged under the much more acceptable moniker of Mike + The Mechanics.

The album was preceded by the first single: Silent Running which was released on 9th October 1985 and like some of Tony Banks’s songs from the same period was used in a film soundtrack - On Dangerous Ground which never troubled the film market here and went straight to VHS copies. The video for the song does include snippets from the film and was a typically atmospheric effort which would have quite easily fitted on to a Genesis album. Mike explained how the project came about in an interview he gave to TWR…

“I did it in between one of the Genesis periods. I didn't want it to be a solo album. I mean, I can't sing so it's a bit odd when it's a solo album without a singer. I decided I'd like to present it more as a ground and I went into it very much with that sort of thinking. It really was do a bit and see.

So there was a producer; Chris Neil and B A Robertson and I so we put down the tracks in Montserrat with Peter Van Hooke and Adrian Lee and then came back to the UK. I couldn't think about it seriously until I heard the songs and the mood of the album you know, instrumentally, the backing tracks. One or two singers came down.Paul Carrack came down and sang Silent Running in about two hours. Paul Young came down and sang All I Need Is A Miracle and a couple of others very quickly and they felt very strong and right. So we got to the end of the album and I thought this is something, it should be continued . “

The manner in which both singers were discovered and employed were also outlined in a conversation they both had with TWR. First of all, Paul Carrack…

“I bumped into BA Robertson who asked me to sing on a demo for him. Then he tracked me down and he did mention that he was working with Mike Rutherford for a solo.album that he was doing and would I be interested in coming down? So BA drove me down there one day and I went in and on Silent Running they didn't even have any lyrics so I just sort of la, la’d and made it up and I guess that was the audition …”

The situation with Paul Young was not that different as he explained…

“I got a phone call from Keith Hopwood who is a friend of mine and Chris Neil's and he said ‘Chris is looking for you and I don't know what it is but is it OK if I give him your phone number?’ Then I got a call from Chris and he said; ‘Im doing a solo album for Mike Rutherford do you want to come down and sing? So I went down and the first track I tried was All I Need Is A Miracle and they seemed pretty please with it and said it was cool for me to do a couple more and so I did, then I got a nice cheque and thought that was the end of it! (Laughs).Then a couple of months later I got another phone call saying that Silent Running and All I Need Is A Miracle had been top and five respectively in the US and we had another one (Taken In) on the boil and did I want to go over there and tour with them? And we went over there and bebecame Mike & The Mechanics the nucleus of the touring band almost by default really…”

The single did not achieve similar success at home despite being reissued in a sleeve featuring a still from the film. In America however it was to be a different matter as both singles charted. The album reached number 78 in the UK and contains some of Mike's best writing in ages including one of those famous Genesis “bits” which became A Call To Arms without doubt one of the strongest tracks on the album. The album itself has stood the test of time and several tracks from it remain in the band's live set. The entire project had been put together during the somewhat brief hiatus between two Genesis albums/tours and no one, least of all Mike was expecting it to take off the way it did. A tour was hastily cobbled together to take advantage of the success in the USA and it ran for just over a month between June and July of 1986 . With the nucleus of the band being the partnership between Mike and the two Pauls it was fleshed out by Ashley Mumford (a cohort of Paul Young's in Sad Cafe) on guitar, Peter Van Hooke on drums and Adrian Lee on keyboards.

With only a limited repertoire of songs to draw on, they played virtually all the album along with a couple of tracks from Mikes second solo album: Acting Very Strange and so, for one tour only fans got to hear Maxine, I Don't Wanna Know and Half Way There as well as the old Spencer Davis classic, Gimme Some Lovin’. From the handful of live recordings which exist the band were already proving themselves a bona fide live force with enthusiastic audience reactions.

There was to be no time for either a UK or European tour that year as Mike was soon fully occupied with all things Invisible Touch which were to keep him busy for over a year. It was therefore to be a further two years before Mike revisited The Mechanics band… Two years was a long time to wait (unless you are a Peter Gabriel fan I guess) but the time had been well spent. The band reconvened in early 1988 and the song writing continued to produce results, none more so than what would become the new album’s title track: The Living Years and Mike explained the origins of the song to TWR…

“The lyrics were written by BA (Robertson) we both worked on them. We both lost our fathers in ‘86 and really it's about that. I don't think we thought it was going to be a big hit. At the time of doing it which was when I was working with Brian and as we had both lost our fathers it was a very emotional time. That song was so emotional that we thought it might not work and Brian and I said we’ll try it and if it comes out sugary and sickly we will forget it…”

Sugary or sickly it might have been but the song resonated with people all over the world and still does and remains a high spot in any Mechanics love show.

The album showcase the rockier side of the band with tracks such as Don’t and Black And Blue having a harder edge to them. It also achieved substantial success especially on the back of the Living Years single and reached the number 2 spot in the UK charts as did the Living Years single although the other singles from the album failed to make much impact on the charts.

It was also time for the band to return to live performance. This time the band finally performed gigs in the UK and Europe as well as two tours in the USA in the spring and autumn of 1989. With two albums now to draw upon the band out in marvellous shows playing to the strength of the material.

The contrast between the performing styles of the two lead singers was also something which made the Mechanics unique. The live sets contained a good selection from both albums although it sadly meant the omission of anything from Mike’s pre Mechanics career. The sets can be reviewed elsewhere in this edition. The later US gigs were also notable for the encore of the band’s excellent cover version of the Lennon/McCartney classic: Revolution which had featured in the soundtrack to the film Rude Awakening and was released as a single in the US and Spain.

By the end of 1989 the band were firmly established as a major act in the UK with album and single success to prove it. Now was the time for that difficult third album. Once again it was sandwiched between recording and touring activities both by Genesis and Phil Collins whose own solo career had gone Stratospheric with the release of his But Seriously album.

Mike managed to get the writing and recording of the new album done before returning to work with Genesis on what would become their We Can't Dance album but the process was not an easy one as Mike admitted ..

“I decided to make a change of producer. Russ (Titelman) was originally producing it and I like his work very much but it just didn't seem to work and on the second day I said to everyone in the band; ‘I don't think this is going to work,’ and they all said; ‘oh give it a try’. Sometimes things would go great and that but after about two and a half months I wasn't enjoying it and I was finding myself driving to work slowly (laughs)...So we spent about three months but it didn't quite seem to work out right.

So we sort of stopped then and came back after the summer and Chris Neil came back and we did some new tracks and finished off some of the others…I think it's a much tougher album and there's a lot different on it apart from being more aggressive. Paul (Carrack) and I have written together for the first time on this album…”

Paul also commented on the way the pair wrote together on the album ..

“All the songs that Mike and I wrote this time round have all come about in different ways. Some of them, either one of us had a definite idea and started work on it together to develop it, or a couple of other things we just started from scratch and they all start off differently and I thoroughly enjoyed it.. “

The album was preceded by the title track; Word Of Mouth as the lead single on 4th March 1991 with the album appearing on 25th March and although it did not quite emulate the success of its predecessor it nevertheless managed to reach the number 11 position in the charts. You can almost sense the difficulty the band were having here, some songs such as the title track and Get Up and the ballad Everybody Gets A Second Chance are typical Mechanics fare although even here it took some work to get the finished result as Mike explained…

“It was one of those songs. We had two cracks at it. I had a different version…you have an idea in your head on how a song is going to be and we put it down my way and it wasn't working and then Paul Carrack who actually came in one day and fiddled around on the keyboard and tried it more in the style of the old Tamla Motown sort of swing vein, and suddenly it came to life. It's one of those moments in the recording where you get a bit of luck.. “

Sadly that luck didn't extend to the charts and the single was only destined to reach the number 56 position in the UK charts. None of the others subsequently released managed any kind of chart position and we were also faced with the very unusual situation of a single - Get Up - being withdrawn from record stores for reasons still unknown. Copies of both the 7” and CD are hard to find. With the over run on recording there was no time for the band to consider live performances to promote the album as Mike was soon back in the studio with Genesis and so Word Of Mouth remains the only un-toured album by the band.

The years immediately following the release of Word Of Mouth were dramatic ones for Mike and for Genesis. The We Can't Dance album was another huge success and so was the tour which followed it which spanned the USA, Europe and UK during the summer and autumn of 1992 but Phil Collins's decision to leave the band, which was made the following year (although it was kept under wraps from the public for a further three years). Mike's decision to revisit The Mechanics in the interim was probably a shrewd one. The results were seen in the first single from the new album: Over My Shoulder and irresistibly catchy little number which wormed its way into the public subconscious but not into the charts! The new album, A Beggar On A Beach Of Gold fared better reaching the number 9 position in the UK. Beggar… was one of the strongest albums from the band and the quality of writing can be seen in the calibre of the songs which were left behind (see our feature on the band’s B sides elsewhere in this issue) . There were no less than three singles released from the album but none of them really troubled the charts.

Live however, the band were still firing on all cylinders as the tours in 1995 and 1996 demonstrated. These included the first visit by a member of Genesis to South Africa in early 1995 for a handful of shows including one in Johannesburg which was captured for posterity by local TV. Despite the lack of success for the album's singles, a compilation titled, originally enough, Hits was released on 4th March 1996 to tie in with the band’s UK tour. Packaging all of the singles together proved to be a very shrewd move as it gave the band their second highest chart entry when the album peaked at number three in the UK charts a week after its release. The trials and tribulations of being an in demand band were demonstrated during the 1995 tour when a performance for the BBC’s flagship music programme, Top Of The Pops clashed with a gig at Wolverhampton. The answer? Well fly the band in by helicopter of course! This was reported in an issue of the Wolverhampton Chronicle. The Hits album generated two singles, a remixed version of All I Need Is A Miracle and Silent Running the former chatted at number 27 ensuring furtherv TV appearances for the band. In fact, their TV appearances both at home and abroad increased exponentially during this period another indication of their growing popularity.

During the course of 1996 Phil's decision to leave Genesis became public when the announcement was made on 6th June. The following three years would see the most dramatic turn of events for Genesis since Steve Hackett's departure. The band reconvened in 1997 reduced to a core of Tony and Mike with session drummers including Nick di Virgilio and Nir Zidkyahu and guitarist Anthony Drennan to record the Calling All Stations album. The vocalists position was taken by Ray Wilson formerly of Stiltskin and the album, called Calling All Stations was released on 2nd September 1997. A relative success both in the UK and Europe, it was however a complete failure in the USA, despite a successful tour of the UK and Europe.

This period also saw the release of the long awaited Genesis Archive 1967 - 75 box set with an attendant flurry of reunion activities although there was never any danger of a full on reunion, despite the rumours.

Mike opted to reconvene The Mechanics once the dust from all of the above had settled and began to write and record a new album. The result was M6 (the sixth album by the band, geddit?) although the obvious reference to the motorway of the same name was lost on most people!

The new album was quite a slog as Mike admitted…

“after the Hits tour in 1996 we had a long period away from the Mechanics because of the new Genesis project and so we managed to get it done quite quickly during a three month period between December 1998 and March 1999. During the final couple of weeks I was working up to twenty hours a day to get it finished…”

The album had a slicker feel to it, more polished with less rough edges although some of this might have been down to the new producer…

“Brian Rawling who produced Cher’s latest single Believe produced Now That You’ve Gone and Nick Davis produced a few because he is always at the studio and he does such a good job, and I produced a few with Nick. Nick’s a pleasure to work with because he is good with guitars and drums you know…”

The two Pauls were also involved more directly on the album too..

“Paul Carrack has written a great deal on this album and Paul Young has done some writing along with BA Robertson and Chris Neil so it does feel very much like a band…”

There was another new face in the band this time. Tim Renwick who had been in the band for the 1995/96 tours was replaced by Jamie Moses whom Mike had met when they both played on the same bill at a charity gig.

The album was released on 31st May 1999 reaching a respectable number 14 in the UK charts. Unusually the album was released after the beginning of the UK tour which began with a warm up gig in front of an invited audience at London's Hanover Grand club on 10th May. The new material easily slotted seamlessly into the catalogue and the tour concluded in the middle of June. Plans were in place for the band to play a handful of festival shows in

Europe in the summer of 2000 however events were to take an unexpected and tragic turn. The untimely death of Paul Young in May 2000 led to those plans being immediately scrapped and the band were placed on indefinite hiatus with fans and critics believing this was the end of the band.

As usual, the predictions were wrong and on 7th June 2004 the band released Rewired, billed significantly as Mike & The Mechanics AND Paul Carrack and indication of just how far the balance has swung with the death of Paul Young. The previous formula for the Mechanics was stripped away and the new album lived up to its title as the emphasis was now on experimentation and a totally new sound. The result was not well received by the band's fans and the album failed to achieve any respectable position in the charts not was there a single released apart from a radio edit promo of Perfect Child. Mike gave TWR a bit of the background to the album…

“Paul and I wrote some songs together because we like writing together and not necessarily with a plan for a Mechanics album and then, as the time ticked by and the loss of Paul Young became a little less painful and the songs started to sound very different to what Paul does on his own and I pushed them a bit that way anyway …and then we decided ..it must have been at the beginning of 2003 that we would put out an album. And so it was probably very different and probably a transitional album in many ways . “

It was a transition too far for most, myself included as I have seldom listened to it since it was released. The band did go back on the road however although even this was a totally different scenario as the band were effectively Phil Collins's support band for several of his shows in Europe on his First Final Farewell tour. There was only one show in the UK a full headline gig at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire Theatre filmed and subsequently released as the Live At Shepherds Bush DVD which remains the only official live record of the band.

After that gig the band effectively imploded. Paul Carrack went on to further solo success and the Mechanics were once again on hiatus and this time it really looked as if the band had called it a day.

However, just like the predictions of the end of Genesis, Mike & The Mechanics were made of sterner stuff. Rumours began circulating in 2009 that Mike was working again with other writers and producers and in late 2010 a new look band emerged blinking into the sunlight with a warm up gig for Piccadilly Radio in Manchester recorded at the Band On The Wall venue in that city. Alongside Mike, the new look band featured Anthony Drennan who had played with Genesis back in ‘98. The drum stool was occupied again by Gary Wallis and a new keyboard player, the multi talented Luke Juby. But who was to replace either of the singers?

Well, once again Mike's choices proved to be inspired as he settled upon Andrew Roachford himself a well respected writer,singer and producer. The other choice was a surprise being the relatively unknown (outside of theatrical circles) Canadian singer, Tim Howar who at the time was fronting his own band; Van Tramp.

Mike explained the new line up choices to TWR…

“It was a guy called Brian Rawlings who worked for Metrophonic and who does a lot of production work for a lot of people who suggested why not go back to the first thing: the name and the sound of the band are there. Write some songs and see what happens. Write some songs, get some new writers and see what happens, some might come on board singing wise…” The advantage Mike had this time was that there was no pressure on him, no expectations as to all intents and purposes the band had ended after Rewired. So he was able to work very much at his own pace and the organic nature of the album’s development shows in the manner in which the other contributors came in to the project…

“I started working on the album a couple of years ago. I am always writing bits and pieces and I always have bits. Andrew (Roachford) came down early on not so much to audition but to see if it would work and we wrote a couple of bits that day. We wrote Try To Save Me that very day and it felt nice…”

Both Andrew and Tim were delighted to be involved..

(AR) ..”I was doing my own album at the time and I was thinking this isn't going to work but my producer said is it OK to pass on your number?.And I got a phone call from Chris Neil asking me to come down to Mike’s place and have a chat with Mike. I got there and Mike had his gear set up and he played me a few of his ideas and we played loads of stuff and recorded loads of stuff and I thought, yeah, I can bring something to this and I picked up.the microphone and started singing and kind of roped myself in…(laughs)...”

(T H)...”Joining a band that has already won their Grammy's and have sold so many records is strange. I have big boots to fill as well as Paul Young who sadly passed away was such an amazing front man. I think in some ways Mike was waiting for the man who could fit the bill. I was touring around with my own band, Van Tramp and the producer who I had worked with on that suggested me to Mike. I feel very special to have been chosen for this gig. It's daunting but it's also a real pleasure.. “

Both protagonists were equally emphatic that the band should capitalise on rebuilding the band’s live following based on the reputation the band already had. A hard job given how partisan and fickle fans can be…

(AR)...”I think the iron is hot and we might as well strike. There's a danger that if you let it cool down if everyone goes off and does their own thing you lose momentum. If it does continue and I hope it does, it will be soon..”

(TH)...” I think there's more tunes in there. We have barely scratched the surface. In order to start something like this up again you need to be thoughtful and since we have got there I know we can go a lot deeper. It really depends on what we write on the tour bus. And we are going to write some great tunes!”

Another presence on the album was Arno Carstens, a South African musician with a voice not dissimilar to Ray Wilson’s which begs the question why Mike didn't ask Ray to front the

Mechanics? Arno.co-wrote and sang several songs on the album not least the poignant Heaven Doesn't Care but he was not to be involved in the new live incarnation of the band. The situation in the record industry had changed over the previous decade and so Mike opted to do what the Mechanics do best, get their audience on side by performing for them as he explained…

“In this day and age the record hasn't done very well… record sales are struggling terribly at the moment and I think we shall try and get a life following and see where that takes us.. “

The album, appropriately enough, titled The Road was released on 18th April 2011 and peaked at the number 11 spot, not bad for what was effectively a brand new band. What was more telling however was the release of two Internet downloads in place of the more traditional CD singles.

The tour took in most of the larger provincial theatres across the UK with a handful of gigs in Germany too along with an appearance at that year’s rejuvenated Isle of Wight Festival. The shows drew heavily on the best elements of the band’s back catalogue with only three new songs being included along with a smattering of Genesis tracks including I Can't Dance and Follow You Follow Me as well as Roachford’s classic Cuddly Toy although Mr Roachford himself scotched any idea that it's appearance in the set may have been down to contractual obligation…

“It wasn't my idea actually. Mike suggested it and he wanted me to do it as years before he had bought some of MY albums so he was in a way a closet Roachford fan! (laughs) and he was saying can we do this? Can we do that? And I was saying, OK I thought this was going to be a Mechanics show! (laughs). But I am always up for the work! (laughs)...”

The band spent the next few years rebuilding their fan based by regular bouts of touring throughout the UK, Europe and a long overdue return to the USA in 2015 . The year before the band also celebrated the 25th anniversary of their seminal album: The Living Years with a full reissue on both vinyl and deluxe CD including live recordings and a new version of the title track sung by Andrew Roachford.

At the same time the band also satisfied one of the fans’ requests with the excellent Mike + The Mechanics The Singles 1985 - 2014 + Rarities package which scooped the pool rounding up all of the band’s hit singles AND virtually all of those pesky B sides mentioned elsewhere in this edition. The latter reached the number 18 position on the UK charts.

Further touring continued throughout 2015 and 2016 before the band returned to the studio to work on the second album featuring the new lineup. Let Me Fly was the released on 7th April 2017 and reached the number 9 position in the UK chart. The album saw Mike continue to write with other people including what has become a very productive relationship with Clark Datchler the former frontmen of Johnny Hates Jazz. A full touring schedule followed to promote the album including another appearance with Phil Collins on some of his Not Dead Yet gigs including a superb performance at London’s Hyde Park which yours truly was privileged to witness.

The most recent album from the band, 2019’s Out Of The Blue was released on 5th April 2019. Not really a full album, more of an EP with three new tracks fleshed out with extras including re worked acoustic versions of several Mechanics with brand new vocals by Andrew and Tim showcasing just how much they had made the band's back catalogue their own. The album peaked at a very respectable number 7 at home. Once again the band took to the road to promote it both at home and in Europe.

Touring continued in 2023 and more recently again earlier this year where the band even premiered two new songs: Song For You Song For Me and East And West Of The Sun. With two more reportedly recorded already it looks as if another page in the Mechanics’ service history remains to be written.