Late 1975

New album starting next month, fully booked until August – Be Bop Deluxe seem to have it all worked out. Geoff Barton reports

We’re starting a new album in October," proclaims Charlie Tumahai, triumphantly. "We were going to record, it abroad, "Brussels," interjects Bill Nelson brusquely, and Tumahai winces, but almost imperceptibly; "We were set to begin work on it at Morgan Studios in Brussels. For money reasons mainly — you’re not taxed so much on album sales if you record overseas. But in the end the studios weren’t up to what we really wanted."

"There’s also the difficulty of the language barrier," submits. Tumahai, "it’s bad enough in a recording studio anyway..." "It’s even harder when you’re abroad and you’re finding it hard to communicate as well," Nelson’s Yorkshire tones interject once more. "So now we’re going to record it at Abbey Road.

We’ve done some mixing and a few overdubbed vocals there before. It looks good." We’re sitting in a small, bustling restaurant not far from BeBop Deluxe’s offices. The interview takes on a set pattern almost immediately: Tumahai. Maori/Tahitian, dark-skinned, quarter inch black stubble jutting out at right-angles to his chin, will take the initiative and be the first to answer a question; but after a mere sentence — two if he’s lucky — the less impetuous, more intense Nelson will butt in with his own concise (and final) reply. There’s little bad feeling, however. My guess is that Tumahai respects and recognises Nelson as the band’s leader, it’s guitar hero and focal point (after all, this is Nelson’s Mk III Be-Bop) and is all too willing to back down quietly.

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