Black Widow | Interview | Clive Jones

Black Widow formed in Leicester, England in September 1969. The band were mostly known for their early use of Satanic and occult imagery in their music and stage act.

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“The ‘Sacrifice’ album was based on an occult story.”

Where and when did you grow up? Was music a big part of your family life? 

Clive Jones: Thank you for asking me to do this interview. I come from a musical family my father, mother and sister all played the piano. My father was even in a dance band and made a record himself although I have the only copy made.

Who were your major influences?

So I started lessons on the piano, later at school we had a recorder group. I later moved to clarinet and after school days my parents bought me a saxophone after joining Pesky Gee! I did a few gigs on the same bill as Jethro Tull!

I bought there first album ‘This Was’ learnt ‘Serenade to a Cuckoo’ from the album and that’s how I started.

I first listened to music in the 60’s a great time when all my friends were into the Beatles I loved the girl groups from the USA and my hero was and still is Phil Spector and his “Wall of Sound” (now he was really heavy).

Frank Lee Union was your first band followed by Inside Outfit which was later renamed into Pesky Gee!. In 1969 you recorded single ‘Where Is My Mind’/’Place Of Heartbreak’, followed by debut full-length ‘Exclamation Mark’.

Yes, Frank Lee Union was my first band although there never was anyone named Frank Lee. I worked in a department store and a guy there had a band when he found out I played sax he asked me if I was interested in joining, I didn’t think I would be good enough, but I actually found out it was easier than I though. I remember coming home and telling mum and dad we were better than the Beatles. I was so excited. Sadly Frank Lee only lasted about 6 months but also from work I was asked if I wanted to try out for another band “Inside Outfit” I got the job and as you know we later changed the name to Pesky Gee!

Kay Garret was our singer and I have to say I’ve never had such fun. This must be back in 1966?

Pesky Gee! was originally a soul band but later when soul was fading we came to like the more prog rock sound. We used to do Vanilla Fudge ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ and when they released the follow up we decided to cover it and it became the single.

Pesky Gee! were discovered in Warrington by a songwriter and singer Malcolm Rabbit from the group “Fairytale”. He approached the band and said he had a song for us ‘A Place Of Heartbreak’. The next day we learnt it and he introduced us to his London management sadly for Malcolm it became the b side.

They took us into the PYE studios in the middle of the night and in 4 hours we had recorded the album. It has many mistakes and we kept asking to re record some stuff but were told it would all be ok in the mix 40+ years later the mistakes are still there, but many people seem to like the album.

We have always though we recorded at that time of night because someone was being paid to let us use the studio.

The funny story to Pesky Gee! album ‘Exclamation Mark’ is that our name has an! at the end of it we really liked that as no one else had it. Our manager rang PYE records to say don’t forget to put the ! on the end of the name but some silly secretary got it wrong and they didn’t put the ! at the end of the name but called the album “Exclamation Mark”.

What do you recall from the gigs?

Well I remember one gig where we were playing ‘Piece Of Mind’ by the group Family in that number I played sax and clarinet so I had my hands full, the stage had these columns placed on it that went to the ceiling thinking it would in a break in the song look cool to lean against one to my horror they were not solid and as my hands were full. I could not stop one falling over it landed on the drummer knocking every drum over and with a domino effect also knocked all the other columns over. Somehow we managed to keep playing but then had to re build the stage.

“True black magic album”

“Banned by the BBC”

‘Sacrifice’ was released in 1970 accompanied with ‘Come to the Sabbat’/’Way to Power’ single. 

Well at the time of recording Kay had sadly left us for personal reasons The ‘Sacrifice’ album was based on an occult story. I had co written ‘Come To The Sabbat’ with our guitarist Jim Gannon and that was the most commercial song on the album and was picked as the single (it was tipped to go to number 1 in the charts but in the end was banned by the BBC and got no plays on the radio).

I think the ‘Sacrifice’ album was recorded at Dee Lane Lea studios. I remember it was a huge place and you felt very lost in there.

On ‘Come To The Sabbat’ we wanted to use strings and we had some children (I think they were about 15 years old ?) from a music school come with there teacher. We taught them the part they played it perfectly first time and that was it I often wondered if they knew what they had played on. Yes the album is one if not the first true black magic album we used the correct words and did quite a bit of research. Jim wrote most of the songs and did a great job. We used all the correct words and obtained a lot of knowledge from Alex Sanders the then King of the witches.

How about the cover artwork?

A lot of people like the cover. I was not so keen myself. It has always looked like two bananas and a sparrow to me but we had no choice. It was picked by the management. The inside cover was designed by Circa in Leicester where we came from and was cartoon demons but quite clever at the time I got in touch with one of the guys from Circa for the new Black Widow album but in the end we went with Hugh Gilmour who has done a few Black Widow covers over the years and is well known for his rock covers.

“We were banned in the US after Charles Manson did his black magic murders”

Did you play many gigs?

We never managed to get to the states as we were banned there after Charles Manson did his black magic murders they thought sending us over there so soon after would not be a good thing so our management sent Black Sabbath who they had recently signed up, who then denied anything to do with black magic.

You also worked with Alex Sanders. 

Our management put us in touch with Alex and his wife Maxine and they helped us get everything correct on the album and also helped with the live show. Sometimes Maxine was our live sacrifice.

Alex passed over many years ago but I’m still in touch with Maxine and she has kindly written some sleeve notes for the new Black Widow album. She also wrote about her time with the band in her book ‘Firechild’. I hope to meet her again soon

Two more albums were released.

I didn’t really like the two follow up albums. We had dropped the black magic by then against the wishes of myself and some of the band. ‘Black Widow’ had some good songs.

‘Mary Clark’ or ‘Legend of Creation’ would have been good singles but we went with a cover of ‘I Wish You Would’, not a great follow up for us and it had no flute on it. The instrument that had really been prominent in the first single. I also didn’t like that the albums had no proper titles to go from ‘Black Widow’ to ‘Black Widow III’. Everyone asked what happened to ‘Black Widow II’?

The band fall apart and you formed Agony Bag.

Well it didn’t happen for Black Widow. We started to fall out and two of the guys became very difficult to work with. They wanted to drop the black magic. Something we should of stuck with, but they got there way and it was a disaster we just became an ordinary band.

It was not a happy time for myself. The two guys thought they were gods gift to music. They also brought drugs into the band and that was it. We lost our good reputation. Even though we replaced them it was too late. They had ruined the band it was time to split. I started Agony Bag about 2 years later after meeting up with Clive Box the original drummer (These two guys had thrown Clive out the band).

Clive had great ideas and I always wanted to be singer and front man. Something we did not really have in B/W, so the easiest way to do that was start the band myself. I wrote all the songs for Agony Bag and our manager used to work on the James Bond films with Sean Connery and taught me all about stagecraft. It was a fun time again and Agony Bag were well before there time and if you look on YouTube at our video ‘Rabies is a Killer’ you will see why.

 

In 1997 you released ‘Black Widow IV’. The album wasn’t released in its time. ‘Return to the Sabbat’ followed with an alternative version of you first album with Kay Garrett as the singer.

We had left our management by then and we started to record the next album. Jim had left the band and we were very happy about that. We now worked together as a band again. Halfway through Kip the singer left and was replaced by an American called Rick E. He had been the singer with “Twisted Sister” but left before Dee Snyder joined them as he thought they were going nowhere. Rick was a great singer, but I don’t think our songs were right for him that he did in Black Widow years later. I heard him sing heavy rock and realised that’s what we should have been doing with him. But before we could get a contract. The band finished and along with a demo of ‘Sacrifice’ the two albums spent 30+ years under my bed at the time Black Widow was a dead band.
A friend and fan of the band later started a record company when I told him about the two albums, he went crazy and wanted to release them so they came out on Mystic Records. By this time everyone wanted to know about the black magic band that had started the whole Devil worship thing going.

The first album came out as ‘Black Widow 4’ not a title I wanted but due to a mistake that’s what it was called and then we released ‘Return to the Sabbat’, that was the ‘Sacrifice’ album but this time with Kay Garret as one of the singers. This album also has the most fantastic cover. When you turn it makes a different picture something quite unique.

When was the last time you did live black magic show?

We recorded the live black magic show back in 1971. It was the last time we did the black magic show. We played Beatclub in Germany to a live audience. I remember we played one song the 10 minute version of ‘Sacrifice’ but in the afternoon they had asked if they could film the black magic show. It was the last time Clive Box played with us and before the audience arrived they filmed the whole show.

 

I had forgotten about it but remembered we had recorded ‘Sacrifice’. I tried to get that recording for a long time but was told it was in bad condition, but one day I got a call to say it had been restored. It was sent to me. I sat down to watch it and to my surprise it started with the song ‘In Ancient Days’. The song that was the start of the black magic show then I remembered we had recorded the show in the afternoon here was the whole show of the ‘Sacrifice’ album. So Mystic and I bought the rights and it came out as ‘Demons Of The Night Gather To See Black Widow’ the title of a poster I had. Although it’s in Black & White it’s a great memory of the show that was banned at the time and had caused all the press to write about us.

What can you say about ‘Demons of the Night Gather to See Black Widow Live’?

Black Widow went there own ways but a couple of years back I met Geoff Griffith the bass player and we both had the idea to bring back Black Widow so it was great that we decided to work together.

Geoff also had a studio (unfortunately the studio was in Thailand) but ignoring that fact we set to work writing and we went back to the black magic we loved and should never of left. A year or so later with a guest spot from Tony Martin (Black Sabbath) and also Kay Garret and Paolo “Apollo” Negri a great keyboard wizard from Italy the album is at last finished and titled ‘Sleeping With Demons’. Geoff and myself wrote all the songs and I also wrote a song for Kay.

It was great to work with her again. She had not been in the studios for many years. We have also started our own record label, so we have full control over the release. It was great to think we are bringing back one of the most influential bands of all time and this time I really enjoyed recording even though I had to travel to Thailand for my parts. Geoff would pick me up on his motorbike from my hotel and we would travel to the mountains turn right at the elephants and there was his home and studio (true).

There is also a release of a live bootleg gig.

Yes there is after all these years a bootleg live gig I found that was recorded when we did the Yes tour in Italy. A guy had recorded the gig on a small tape and kept it for all these years. I’ve had it cleaned up as best I can and also released a few Black Widow things that have never been out before and a song of the never released Kay Garret album. I thought it’s better to have this out than kept again under the bed. I guess it’s for collectors and fans the title is ‘See’s The Light Of Day’ ad will be released on Black Widow Records in Italy.

What else currently occupies your life?

Well I have been asked to record as a guest with many artists over the years like Death SS, Taxi, Paolo “Apollo” Negri, Dilemma Of Nicole, and many others. I also write for many artists in pop music as well. Bands like The Airwaves from Sweden have a great song out that I co wrote ‘Hey You, Ring Me Tonight’. I have for many years been working on my musical ‘Metalheart’ and I hope to finish that soon with guest artists.

So many things are happening at he moment, but what I’m concentrating on is ‘Sleeping with Demons’ first.

Any other plans?

Well it’s possible some of us would tour and we have been offered a few things I want to play festivals but like I say, lets see what happens with the album. Last year I was a guest with the band Propagandhi from Canada. They had recorded ‘Come To The Sabbat’ and it was amazing all the young kids knew the song. I could not believe it and what a fantastic band they are.

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

Thank you Klemen for this interview. If anyone wants to get in touch I will always answer any questions. Please listen to a sample of the new album on our website www.smackmanagement.co.uk
I hope to meet many new and old fans when we get to do live shows. So anyone please come and say hello! Clive Jones

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