´óÏó´«Ã½

Sounding more like a Malory Towers' hockey team than a flamboyant '60s quintet, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich hailed from Wiltshire and formed their eponymously-named band in 1961.

How did you all come together back in 1961?
Dave Dee: I was always in bands before I left the police force and within two weeks of resigning I had joined a local band which was going to be the nucleus of Dave Dee, Mick, Beaky, Dozy and Titch. Titch and Dozy had a different drummer and singer and I joined as a rhythm guitarist. One day the singer didn't show up for a gig and I did most of the singing. He never got back in the band, simple as that.

You mention being a policeman. Apparently you were at the scene of the Eddie Cochrane crash...

Dave Dee: I wasn't at it, we went to it after the crash had happened. I was a police cadet then not a pc. It's been well documented that Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent were in the car. We sussed they were musicians soon after we got there because there guitars and gig things all over the road and in the car. We had to take everything back to the station and then realised that it was Cochrane's guitar. I was a huge fan of both him and Gene Vincent.

You quickly became known as much for your rock n' roll as the comic elements to your act. What inspired you? Did that come naturally or were you trying to be different?
Dave Dee: We always were different. We did Hamburg along with the Searchers, Jerry And The Pacemakers and Billy J Kramer but when the Beatles took off in 1962 we got left at the starting point. We were known as Dave Dee And The Bostons then and working five or six days a week but we just couldn't get arrested when it came to record companies. We went to most record companies, because in those days you didn't send anything in, you had to go in and do a record test. You used to pile up outside the studio where there would be about ten other bands waiting to be auditioned. They'd give you fifteen minutes to set your gear up, strut your stuff and get out. We had comments like, "Don't call us, we'll call you", "Gentlemen, we suggest you cut your instruments up because you'll never have a hit record." We didn't let it put us of though as we knew one day we would make it. In those days you had dance halls and we would be the support to the top of the bill. When we were on, noone would dance because there was so much going on on stage, humour, action, all sorts of stuff.

Why was it that so many bands sort to establish and home their skills in Hamburg?
Dave Dee: There were so many bands not getting work and they went to Hamburg because you could work at the German Top Ten Club or Star Club for two months at a time. OK, so the money was lousy but it was a great source of inspiration for the bands because you used to have to play fifty minutes on and ten minutes off. Some days you'd play for fourteen or fifteen hours. I remember when JF Kennedy came into Hamburg harbour in 1963 and the first Beatles album had come out. Out of boredom from playing the same thing every night we got hold of a Beatles album and played everything off it to break the monotony. All the American sailors were coming in and that was their first taste of the Beatles. They used to come up to us and say, "Gee, what's that music you're playing?" We used to tell them it was the Beatles and they'd ask, "Who are The Beatles?"

Read on to find out about their eventual leap to fame ...