The Nice : Keith Emerson
Welcome back my friends . . .

cc: Thinking of your past then; you've got your autobiography out soon and unusually you really have written it yourself. Did the writing experience help you make sense of who Keith Emerson is today?

KE: Actually I hope my book doesn't just reflect on me totally, I hope it reflects on the period of music I was involved in. I hope it gives a certain feeling of what it was like back then with the touring and so on. Although it's my autobiography I wanted it to be a reflection of the times - it was pretty wild with the groupies and everything else, but it's got nothing on Mötley Crüe, I can tell you!

cc: What sort of stuff do you read - who influenced your style?

KE: I was very much inspired by Clive James, Bill Bryson, Terry Pratchett . . . that style of writing.

cc: You go for the dry humour then? I can't normally get into the fantasy genre but what Terry Pratchett does makes it quite accessible - it doesn't take itself too seriously, like some of them.

KE: Yeah, that's why I like it! I don't claim to aspire to any of these great authors but they were an influence in the way that I approached the writing of my book.

cc: So how did you get into writing it, what gave you the idea?

KE: Really what started it off was my mother who had kept all these scrap-books of my career in her loft. She said 'did you know I kept all these' and I went 'wow!' No I didn't. I spent ages looking through them, and I thought if anyone's going to write a book about me, I should be the one. You know, I think its very sad that someone like Eric Clapton has had so many biographies written, but he's never done it for himself. I thought it would be great if he'd written his own - and if Hendrix was still alive for him to have written up his own memoirs . . .

cc: Are you planning to write anything else, like maybe try your hand at some comedy fiction like Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden? You've done the groundwork - that thing in your book about the fox wrecking an office and your studio is pretty funny stuff!

KE: And that's absolutely true, but one of the tamer incidents! I don't know about writing novels, but I'd certainly like to write a sequel to my book. I'll probably start on that next year some time.

cc: Sticking with the comedy connection; I understand Jim Davidson is a big ELP fan. Are you a Jim Davidson fan?

KE: He's a great mate. I'm not saying that just because he likes my music! I was introduced to him in a club in London by one of his earlier wives. I wasn't living in England at the time, I was in the Bahamas and really didn't have any idea of who Jim was. I'd seen a clip of something he did on one of these talent shows before he was discovered and I thought he was very funny. He came up to me and said he was a real fan, and after that we used to hang out an awful lot together. He invited me to one of his stand-up comedy shows, I just laughed my head off.

cc: Didn't he use some of your music for one of his programmes?

KE: Yeah, he wanted to use something for one of his pantomimes, and I said "Jim, you can't use that you're gonna scare the children." He said: [affects cockney accent] "No mate its really gonna work, trust me."

cc: What did he use?

KE: Oh, stuff from The Score and Emerson, Lake & Powell - and of course when he did The Generation Game, ELP recorded Welcome Back My Friends for that.

cc: He puts himself about a bit - he does a lot of Forces work.

KE: Yeah, he's a very generous guy - not that I'd want to approach him on that level. But I just hope he takes care of his finances - he's got four wives to support!

And with that I left Keith Emerson to enjoy his breakfast in the Californian sunshine.

:: Tom Alford