Last year eccentric English singer-songwriter John Otway celebrated his 5000th gig. Yet it's taken till this month for him to tour New Zealand.
Self-dubbed "rock n roll's greatest failure", in 1977 Otway shot to UK attention for his antics playing on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test.
John Otway Photo: supplied
'(Cor baby That's) Really Free' with his sometime musical side-kick Wild Willy Barratt became a minor hit, but the kind of success that matters to record companies didn't follow.
Playing guitar and theremin, Otway has built a cult following the hard way: small venues and publicity stunts. Yet his everyman appeal is such that, for his 2000th gig in 1998 he sold out the Royal Albert Hall.
“I was supposed to come over [to New Zealand] after that first hit in 1977. and it's taken over 40 years to finally make it, but I'm doing it. It's great."
In the UK in the 1970s and 1980s the Old Grey Whistle Test was required viewing for a certain kind of of music obsessive.
Otway and Barratt performed a shambolic and explosive performance of ‘Really Free’ on OGWT which culminated in Otway crushing his testicles on Barratt’s amplifier in a failed ‘jump off the amp’ stunt.
This crushing professional blow, viewed by more than 5 million people, boosted Otway’s professional fortunes, he told Kim Hill.
“It was incredibly painful, but it was also incredibly successful. We were playing small pub gigs to sort of 50 people. And that went out on television and the next gig, five or 600 people turned out to see me do it again. And within a couple of weeks, we were in the charts. And I haven't done a sensible day's work since.”
The success of ‘Really Free’ led to major label interest and he scored a huge advance, in the region of 250,000 pounds sterling, from Polydor.
“Oh, it was great. It went to my head. But I had a great time. But the time wasn't very long. What I always assumed was the first rung of the ladder to success was, in fact, the whole ladder.”
Polydor dropped a bundle on Otway’s short-lived pop career, so being an honourable man, he performed a benefit gig for the label.
“Polydor had made a quite a bit of a loss that year, and quite a bit of that loss was down to me. So, I thought it's only fair to give something back.”
Otway was to never reach such heady heights again, but has built a career on a loyal set of fans and relentless live shows.
After ‘Really Free’ the hits were pretty sparse, he says, until Bunsen Burner in 2002.
“It wasn't for lack of trying”, he says.
“I've been very lucky. I mean I always wanted to do it for a living and I've always managed to make a living out of it. There's always been people that have been prepared to see me, I’ve got a really good fan base. And they obviously enjoy the shows, I enjoyed them, I love doing it, and it is good fun.”
He might not play huge shows but he plays many of them, Otway says, and this has built his fanbase.
“I've been a jobbing musician playing 100 gigs a year and one thing about doing that number of gigs is you do actually get to play a lot of people, certainly, in the UK, I’m a microstar.”
Details on John Otway's New Zealand tour are here.
