When and where were you born? Are you originally from Ealing London, UK? When did you first begin to have a fascination with music and wanted to play? What was growing up like for you? Was music something that was familiar around your household? Do you have any siblings?

I was born a long long time ago in 1946 in Perivale, which is in the Borough of Ealing. I don’t remember much about my childhood (but as they say if you can remember it you weren’t there) and although my dad was a drummer in a band in his youth I was not particularly interested in music. I do remember though that when I was eleven a couple of my school mates (Jim Avery later to be in Thunderclap Newman being one of them) used to bang on about using banjo strings on their guitars but I had no idea what they were on about and even less interest in it.

What was a typical weekend like for you prior to playing in bands? What would you and your friends do for fun? Did you have any other fascinations and interests outside of music? When and where was your first concert and when did it dawn on you that you wanted to pursue music for the rest of your life?

A few years later in 1957 I had another brush with music when I used to go round to a school mates house where we used to record us singing over Buddy Holly records and pretend it was our band. I didn’t know who Buddy Holly or Elvis were and I didn’t really care it was just a fun thing to do. This all changed in 1960 when Apache by The Shadows came to my attention, my balls dropped instantly and I knew where my destiny lie. I set my sights on buying a guitar and was confident that I would be able to play a tune within one hour so I bought a Hophner Colorama from a shop in Wembley and mastered my first tune (Ghost Rider in the Sky) as confidently predicted within an hour.

The beginning way back when circa: 1961. Cook with Chris Jackson and Bob Douch.

Where would you go to see shows in your community? What was the first concert you attended and what group left a heavy impression on in those early days? Did you participate in any bands prior to July? If so, what were those experiences like for you early on? How did you meet your bandmates Alan James, Chris Jackson, John Field, Tom Newman and Tony Duhig? What initially led to the decision to start the group and how did the name for the band come about? What was the band’s process and approach for writing music?

I left school in 1962 when I was fifteen and got an apprenticeship in the print trade but my heart was in music and I got the sack for bunking off one time too many. With my ‘proper job’ working life behind me, I became a ‘professional musician’, initially with some old school mates (including Chris Jackson) trying to emulate The Shadows. Most of the old mates left and Alan James and Tom Newman joined me & Chris, we started out as the ‘Dreamers’ playing shadows & then the Beatles material but with the advent of Freddie & The Dreamers we became The Tomcats.

Los Tomcats with Fans in Spain. From the archive of Cammilla Duhig.

We used to rehearse in Chris’s house and on one occasion we saw Johnny Kidd and the Pirates having a coffee in the cafe opposite Chris’s house so we gave them a full volume rendition of ‘Shaking all Over’. There was a brilliant live venue in Hayes that me and my mates would go to on Fridays and Saturdays amongst the bands that impressed were the Rolling Stones, Freddie and the Dreamers and the Hollies. As the Tomcats we later established ourselves as a Rhythm & Blues band, ending up being managed by Alexis Korner and became the resident band at Beat City, in Oxford Street.

Los Tomcats & Friends at the La Laguna Tenerife circa: 1966. From Left to Right: Tony Duhig - Alan James - X - X - Tom Newman - Chris Jackson & Jon Field.

We have since found out that one of the demos we recorded at Regent Sound (a Chuck Berry number) impressed the ‘Stones’ and they stole our thunder by recorded and releasing it before us. One of the gigs we did when we first started touring the UK as The Tomcats, was 'Ma' Regans Ballroom circuit in Birmingham. We played at the Old Hill Plaza, The Ritz Kings Heath, The Brum Cavern, the Plaza Handsworth and on one occasion we played 3 venues in one night, on the same bill with The Redcaps, The Brumbeats and The Searchers. When we played with John Lee Hooker at Beat City we thought we would pay homage to him by playing our version of ‘Dimples’ – a big mistake, we were hauled off stage by the management.They were heady fun days in the early sixties, but all good things come to an end and so it was with the Tomcats, or was it? After the original Tomcats split Tom and Chris Jackson linked up with Tony Duhig and John Field from another local group ‘The Second Thoughts’ and went to Spain as ‘Los Tomcats’. Alan James joined up with the guys in Spain about six months later and they stayed there for a couple of years.

A photo from Camilla Duhig's Los Tomcats archive: Tony and Jon at Tom's (shotgun) wedding reception in Spain.

What were those early shows like before you guys recorded your infamous debut LP? Where would you guys play around town and what were those experiences like for you? Tell me about the band’s rehearsal space, or where you would practice. How did the deal with Major Minor come about? What were those experiences of writing as well as recording that record like for you? When and where did that take place in 1968 and would you mind giving me a little background on each of the songs that are featured on the LP?

When Los Tomcats returned from Spain in 1966 Tom & I hooked up again and started writing songs for a band that we had formed with my old school mate Jim Avery (latterly of Thunderclap Newman). We just missed out on a recording contract but Tom & I did get a songwriting contract with Chappells music under the wing of Deke Arlen. We wrote a number of songs for up and coming artists that never quite made it, but with the arrogance of youth we remained steadfast in our dream to be Rock Stars. The elephant in the room was obviously 'the Beatles'; we were of course knocked out by Sgt Pepper but we aimed to be their equals on the world stage. Our plan for World domination started in Jon Fields upstairs living room where Tom, Jon & I would meet up to discuss forming a new band to play the stuff that Tom and I had written, at that time our songs were being likened to The Floyd, which baffled us as we hadn't even heard of them, so we must conclude that they sounded like us. I have never really been interested in any other bands other than the Shadows and then the Beatles so it's difficult to say what I was experiencing music/culture wise but I guess you could say my head was in the day (or as some would say “up my arse’).

Original July in Walpole Park, Ealing, London, England.
Alan James, Tom Newman, Tony Duhig, Jon Field, Chris Jackson.

I suggested the name August for our new band but Tom and Jon didn’t like that so I suggested July Fields as an option. Regrettably Jon Field edged me out of our new band once he had my songs, to link up with Tony Duhig again, and from then on I was totally excluded from the band. Therefore I had nothing to do with the production/arrangements, which was all down to the brilliance of Tom and Jon. July's sound came about from experimenting with different instruments e.g Tom on sitar and Tony with wah-wah's, volume pedals and a fuzz box made by Tom, they also used Leslie speakers etc. Tom and my songs were the starting point then the band added their input with the sound. The band recorded a number of tracks including My Clown and Dandelion Seeds on a couple of Revox tape recorders in a make shift studio in The Organ Shop in Ealing and then Jon and Tony hawked them around various music promoters playing the tracks through a 4x12 cabinet that they had to hump around, eventually they secured the deal with Major Minor.

The Original Major Minor Press Release for My Clown.

I wasn’t involved with recording the Album but Tom always says that it wasn't the greatest time in his music career. They thought that they would be given time to experiment further with the sounds that they had created but they weren’t. The Album was recorded over 1 weekend and many of the tracks were first takes, e.g. Dandelion Seeds and My Clown. The producer (Tommy Scott) had hired some session musicians to play on some numbers and the band didn't have a say in that. Things were added to some numbers after the guys had left the studio, thinking that it was all finished. I was very dissapointed when the album was released as all of my six tracks had been credited to Tom. Apparently the record company didn’t want to buy both Tom and I out of the Chapple contract so they just ran with Tom. This situation was not resolved until some forty years later.

Early July in Walpole Park, Ealing, West London circa: 1968.

What was the first order of business once the record was released? Did you guys play any shows, or tour in order to support the release? What eventually happened to the band after that? When you reflect on those early days, what are you most proud of? What was your favorite song as well as a gig you guys played together during that time from ‘68 to ‘69?

The band played all of the prestigious clubs in London, Birmingham, Newcastle and also the Royal Albert Hall and Universities and Colleges throughout the country (I wasn’t invited to any of them) but Tom told me that they were let down by a succession of greedy managers and agents, and a record company that didn't promote our album because they were going broke, so eventually hunger and lack of money led to the band splitting up. Tom and I gave the Tomcats another run out in 1975 as a promo for Toms album ‘Fine old Tom’ that was released on Virgin, we used to rehearse in the Virgin Record warehouse in Paddington, but that was about it for a long time. Tony Duhig and Jon Field formed Jade Warrior. Tom Newman became a world renowned recording engineer/producer, (Tubular Bells with Mike Oldfield) I produced guitars for the top echelon of the music industry. Chris Jackson carried on playing drums with other bands and Alan took up a career in the photographic world.

The original JULY. Walpole Park, Ealing, London, England in circa: 1968
Left to right: Tom Newman, Alan James, Tony Duhig, Jon Field and Chris Jackson

Superman from Tom Newman's album 'Fine Old Tom' Virgin circa: 1975. Written by Ned Callan (AKA Peter Cook).

What have you been up to in recent years? Are you still currently playing music? Are you in contact with any of the other members? The band has recorded and released a few albums in the last ten years, or so. Can you tell me about working on 2013’s “Ressurection” and 2020’s

In 1995 , Out of the blue, the guys in July got a call from John Reed of the Record Collector (Issue 190), he was doing a piece for the magazine on July. The guys met with him separately (no time to arrange a proper meeting) and in June 1995 the article appeared, but this wasn't enough to entice them back together. In 2008 ,Yet again, out of the blue, a call came from British Psychedelia expert David Wells. Rev-Ola records had re-mixed and were re-releasing the July album on CD and he wanted input for the sleeve notes he was writing. The band co-operated but were sceptical. They needn't have worried, the Rev-Ola re-mix was much better than the original, and achieved a sound more akin to their old live performances. In the first 3 months after release the new version had outsold the original and topped Rev-Ola's sales list.

Meantime, Alan's curiosity got the better of him and he began digging round the Internet to see what had been happening. He discovered that In the intervening years July had reached 'cult' status and both The Tomcats EPs and the July Album had been changing hands for fantastic sums of money. Their songs had been on play-lists for both main-stream and independent radio stations, in the UK, US, South America, Spain, Japan and Europe. With thought ‘hey guys we're famous and we didn't know it!!!! Oct 2008, Alan, Chris and I put out the word that we were looking for Tom, he was found to be in Ireland and we arranged a reunion. It was a great day with lots of laughs, and we agreed a subsequent meet to play together to see what it sounded like. So one month later, we met up and amazingly it seemed like we had never been apart. I had written some new songs and it became more and more evident that JULY had some unfinished business…

Initially we thought we should re-form as The Tomcats and we recorded Temporal Anomaly at Alan's house in Suffolk but as Tom had a studio in Ireland on his ex naval minesweeper, Tom and I took the recordings back to Ireland to master them. Unfortunately, it soon become apparent that many of the bass and drum tracks just didn't cut the mustard so Tom and I re-recorded them which greatly upset Alan and Chris so we ditched the album and turned our attention to being July again. We then recorded ‘Resurrection’ and everyone said it was instantly recognizable as JULY, which was encouraging as it was our aim to make a record that reflected our journey to 2012 whilst maintaining the essence of '68 July. Personally I think it is a much better album than the '68 one and whilst it was well received it is a real piss off that whole tranches of July fans can't seem to look beyond '68. If the same thing had happened with the Beatles there would have been no White Album/Sgt. Pepper etc. just endless variants of Please Please Me.

“The Wight Album”? What was it like to occupy that JULY headspace after all these years?

Well, Once upon a time there were two teenagers who dreamt of being Rock Stars. They never gave up on their dream and whilst the boys may have grown old they still had something to say: this was probably the last chance for them to say it. What started out as something to do in our dotage grew into the monster that was to become the Wight Album, a project that spent a couple of our remaining years but gave the teenagers within us a second breath. It is without doubt the best thing we have done and should be considered to be amongst the best albums of its genre, unfortunately, very few people will actually bother or have the chance to listen to it. The mainstream media is a closed shop and anything on the fringes just doesn’t get the oxygen of publicity.

RIP the likes of John Peel, Alan Freeman and Bob Harris.

Dakota Brown

Peter Cook - July

Phil Klitgaard - Grand Theft/Bluebird

The Ed Askew Interview