John Verity - Guitarist & Producer
Image by Roy Cano
Here at Enter Sadmen HQ we don’t have many rules, but there are two that we’re pretty intransigent about: we don’t review Greatest Hits or compilation albums, and we generally only consider albums released between 1970 and 1995 (though between you and me, we’ll probably make an exception in the cases of both Zeppelin and Purple … ).
But that means we risk missing out on some of the legendary behaviour and music of the decade that ultimately gave birth to the entire heavy rock genre - the Swinging Sixties, where rock and roll was subversive and anarchic and loud and grubby. All the things, in fact, that drew us to it in the first place.
Luckily, we occasionally get to sit down and chat with people who fuelled that underground swell, riding in on the vapour trails of distortion created by BB King and Hendrix et al. And just as well, really, because it meant we had the chance to spend a couple of hours one evening with John Verity, front man for the John Verity Band who had some hilarious tales of derring-do to share from his early days on the scene during the mid- to late-Sixties all the way to the trials and tribulations of his transition to record producer during the Eighties.
Over the course of our chat John, who counts spells with Argent, Phoenix and The Dave Berry Band and an ill-tempered support slot for Jimi Hendrix on his CV, recounts the night a member of Hendrix’s road crew tried to sabotage their set, how their manager was dropped four floors from an apartment block by Miami cops in a drug bust, being ‘persuaded’ to leave the United States by the US immigration service, how record execs at Carrere managed to review Saxon’s debut album played at the wrong speed, and the moment he thought (wrongly) that Motorhead manager Doug Richards would fire him from a production job on an early 80s live album …
You can listen to the episode by clicking the player below (or find it in all the usual places, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Soundcliud, Tunein, Pandora and Iheartradio). You can also scroll down to discover the top 10 albums that have inspired John along the way, and tune in to the episode to hear him talk about why they’re his desert island picks.
John’s latest album, Passion, is available to buy, stream and download now and you can keep up to date with tour news and all things JV on Facebook at www.facebook.com/johnveritymusic
John’s Top 10 Albums of All Time
10. The Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965)
“This was the moment they moved away from beiing a pop band. The stuff on here has got some substance and I suppose it lit the songwriting flame in me - all of a sudden, things were changing.”
9. BB King - Live At The Regal (1965)
“A lot of musicians say this is one of the things that started them off. The audience is going bananas all the way through it and it makes you think, Wow … this is what it could be like!
"The adulation is there and he’s just on fire. It leaps out of the speakers, you know? The guy had chops.”
8. BB King - Indianola Mississippi Seeds (1970)
“One of the nicest things about this album is he’s working with a real rock producer - Bill Szymczyk - who did stuff with Joe Walsh and the James Gang, and he brought modern musicians in with BB - and it just really works.”
7. Joe Walsh - The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get (1973)
“When I signed to ABC I got sent all their stuff and that turned me on to a load of different things. It was great! Anyway, I’d never heard of Joe Walsh and this album dropped through my door and I put it on … and it was fantastic. There’s some brilliant stuff on here.”
6. John Mayall & The Blues Breakers - Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (1966)
“Most guitarists will own up that this changed their lives, really. maybe not at the younger end, but for us older guys this was the first time any of us had heard a Les Paul through a Marshall amp and what it could sound like. It was unbelievable.
“People are vey unkind about Eric Clapton, but he changed everything.”
5. Jeff Beck- The Jeff Beck Group (1972)
“The first two Jeff Beck albums were really the template for Led Zeppelin. Beck must have been really pissed off when Jimmy Page put Zeppelin together because it was basicall The Jeff Beck Group with Robert Plant.
“Zeppelin even lifted a couple of songs off the first two Beck albums!”
4. Terry Reid - Superlungs (1973)
“Terry Reid was supposed to be the singer in Led Zeppelin - he was offered the gig first. In the late 60s he was quite hot and he was probably the first rock artist to be produced by Mickie Most.
”He had this amazing voice. We opened for Terry when I was with the Dave Berry Band and he had the same high register as me - and it was then that I realised I could be a singer, too.”
3. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (1969)
“I don’t think people now can really appreciate what the first Zeppelin album did - it was really ground breaking.
“It was so powerful compared to how everything else sounded then. Everyrthing was really big - the way Bonham played, the big sound. Everything was ambient - nothing about the sound was dead.”
2. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland (1968)
“Hendrix was in a typical production situation in that he was being forced to be a pop artist, and he wasn’t that. But his record company was trying to make him write 3 minute pop singles like The Wind Cries Mary.
“When he did this, he was let loose and as a result the album is amazing. I saw him on his first club tour of the UK and the place was full of other guitarists with their chins on the floor. It was just killer.”
1. Jackson Browne - Anything by Jackson* Browne
“If you write songs for a living, listening to Jackson Browne can make you feel like giving up. His songs can either bring you down or inspire you.
“You find yourself listening to his work and thinking, Where did he get that from?”
* John didn’t specify any one album, but Late For The Sky is widely seen as Jackson Browne’s best recorded work, and so we have chosen that album cover to reflect the scope of his output.
