September 2024
Leaving the safety of one’s enterprise at 75 years of age might feel like an intimidating prospect for lesser mortals, yet Phil Mogg is no mere human, and the English singer felt there was nothing to lose stepping out on his own. In 2019, when UFO, the ensemble Phil had been fronting since 1968, celebrated their half-century anniversary and went on permanent hiatus, he planned to retire anyway, and the heart attack the veteran suffered in August 2022 seemed to indicate he would never perform again. Yet a little bit further down the line, fans found themselves hearing that easily immediately recognizable, and invigorated, voice in a new context, if not exactly in a new stylistic framework, on "Moggs Motel" where fresh music and alluring lyrics came together with flourish and panache. And sense of humor too – because contemplating one’s mortality without a smile should appear alien to this fine gentleman, which is why our conversation turned out so funny.
– Phil, last time we spoke was when "Sharks" got out.
Wow! It’s been so long! I got my own hair then. The hair thing becomes inevitable. You either look at it and go, “Uh, that’s a lovely head of hair!” or you go, “That’s got to go!” So what was left had to go, and I went for this sort of Yul Brynner look. (Laughs.)
– You and Professor Carter both.
No, he’s got some. He’s very blonde, but he’s got his hair.
– Now it’s time to check into “Moggs Motel” whose signboard doesn’t have an apostrophe. Does that mean there’s a few Moggs, that it’s a family business?
Yes, for sure. You could call it a family business. The people who are involved are all kind of family, so I would say it is a very much a family organization. Neil, Tony [Newton], Joe [Lazarus] and Tommy [Gentry] are all part of the motel staff. The senior staff at the motel. And the apostrophe doesn’t really fit. If it was a real “Moggs Motel” and if we were advertising, you wouldn’t have an apostrophe. Yeah, it’s very much a family affair – as in that great song. (Sings.) “It’s a family affair…” I’ve forgotten the band’s name, but do you remember that black group?
– Yeah, SLY & THE FAMILY STONE. So what do you have here: a solo album or a new band?
It started off as a chance meeting with Tony. I hadn’t seen him for ages but I met him at the American Embassy in London, where we were getting visas. I had already said that I was going to step down from UFO just before that lockdown we had from Covid, so I mentioned that I had an idea, that I wanted to try and do some other stuff. And he said, “Well, I’ve got some material if you’re interested. I’ll send it to”; and likewise, when I was talking to Neil, he said, “Oh, I’ve got some bits and pieces and some ideas!” So I had Tony sending me stuff and Neil sending me some backing tracks, and then we had all that time off in the lockdown thing. So that was how it came about. I had time on my hands to play around with these tunes and songs, plus the fact that these guys, they’re all Londoners and live fairly local to me, so I could go with Tony in the studio in about an hour and a half. It was just a chance and it fitted into the slot – different material and a different approach. When you start off in a band, you get your mates together and you’re trying to pull some material together, so it reminded me of going back twenty years or whatever. It was great fun, and now it is a band called MOGGS MOTEL. I would say it’s a band because I’m more of a team player than a solo player, and it’s a team effort there. It was meant to be a solo project, but it developed into more of a band.
– Just like it did with MOGG & THE SIGN OF 4? So you prefer this collective situation?
Well, yeah, because if it all goes wrong, I can blame someone else. (Laughs.) If I was going to go out and play these songs, I’d like to be with the people that made the album, if you see what I mean. A little bit of that camaraderie with a band, which you get, it’s like a football team.
– Let’s look at the whole package, please. Here’s a neon-lit motel, there you wear this pork-pie hat, and then there’s a piece titled “Wrong House”: do I get a film-noir vibe about the album?
Yes, I like the noir bit. There’s a very Seventies feel in there, like by Lalo Schifrin who used to do the music for the “Dirty Harry” movies from that period. The piece before the one you mentioned is called “Harry’s Place” – Neil’s playing the flute on that, and then we go into “Wrong House”: it just fitted together nicely as a flow. And the album is meant to flow – where we put the bits in between or together, it’s meant to flow like a bit of a story and follow the tunes through. They’re all little tunes or songs with stories going through it. It’s a bit like reading a small book.
– Well, you explicitly mention stories in “Sunny Side Of Heaven” and “Storyville”! And then, there’s “Princess Bride” whose coda reminded me of the theme song from the movie, “Storybook Love” by Mark Knopfler and Willy DeVille. Was that the intention?
I remember “The Princess Bride” movie, and I’ve heard quite a bit of Mark Knopfler, but no, I haven’t heard that one. I’ll have a listen now. I’ve got it written down. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, there’s a band called the FLAHERTY BROTHERHOOD: they’re like a commune, and they have a real cool song called “Cold Black Water” – I picked it up on YouTube, so go check it out.
– Your album sounds sinister, intense and relentless. Did you specifically wanted to make it heavier in style than what you’d done with UFO?
Well, it was the result of writing with different people. Working with different people, you come up with different ideas, and having access to people with a different approach was real good from a writing point of view. Tony’s got a different take on how he sees things, and Neil’s got a different take, but if I get that material together and we do a little bit of cooking, we come up with something else. It’s a bit like cooking a pie, apple pie.
– If you’re talking about writing, circle back to “Harry’s Place”: it’s an instrumental piece, and you’re not an instrumentalist. How did that come about?
That was what I was trying to say. We got to that part and wanted to link the two songs together, and I was thinking about the Steve McQueen movies like “Bullitt” and the “Dirty Harry” movies – actually, it was mainly the “Dirty Harry” – and one of Neil’s main instruments is a flute, so it was pretty obvious to say to him, “What have you got up your sleeve? What can you do here?” And between Neil and Tony, they came up with “Harry’s Place” which was rather good: my dad’s name was Harry, [IRON MAIDEN bassist in whose studio “Moggs Motel” was recorded] Steve Harris’ nickname is Harry, “Dirty Harry”… So I thought “Hang on, I think I got that right. Yeah, it’s interesting!”
– Did you realize that, seeing the album’s title, people might think of Bates Motel?
More than likely. It was “Bates Hotel” or “Motel? I can’t remember now. But then, when you’re out on the road or you’re traveling and everything, you normally end up staying at a motel – mainly because they’re cheaper than hotels. I think Frank Zappa had a song, didn’t he, “4000 Motels” or “400 Motels” [the “200 Motels” album. – DME]. So, motel is kind of apt for the band because we spent most of our life there.
– Motel, as opposed to hotel, is usually where you stay on route to some place. So where are you going now that you’ve chosen the motel?
It’s a mystery! (Laughs.) We got together by chance to do this and had a great time doing it, but where we go from here, it’s a bit like who knows. Nobody knows! You know where you’d like to go but where you go, you don’t really have a clue. So, I don’t have a clue. It’s all some sort of mystery debate. We’ll see what happens, one of those things. And incidentally, you mentioning Bates Motel? I’ll give you fifty quid if you can guess where the car on the cover comes from. It’s a 1958 Plymouth Fury and it’s been heavily featured in a movie.
– Well, I wouldn’t tell, sorry.
No? Who is one of the most famous horror story writers?
– Don’t tell me that it’s Christine.
Oh, yeah, we got it! It is. Brilliant. I owe you, what did I say, five pounds. (Laughs.) That’s Christine, and it works for that motel sort of thing. It’s a beautiful car, too.
– Since you mentioned writers… I found this album very interesting from the point of view of your literary references: you have Bukowski in there, you have Captain Ahab, you even use such words as “anaglypta” that I think a lot of your fans have no idea about. You’re an avid reader, right?
Yeah, I enjoy reading, which I only discovered when I was about twenty-two. And the “anaglypta” bit… Do you know what anaglypta is?
– I do.
It’s a type of wallpaper, which in actual fact we have here in our house and which I love. If you’ve ever been in a bedroom with the curtains or the ceiling patterns, you can see different things in them or in the wallpaper – like little scenes, late at night maybe, lying in bed, when you’re looking at the stuff and you see a face somewhere or maybe a car, or something else.
– But anaglypta is on a totally different sensory level: you can touch it, you can feel it, it’s like bas-relief.
It is. But I like anaglypta the word, too. The word has a nice ring to it: (enunciating) anaglypta!
– As does the name of Bukowski, I’ll give you that.
Bukowski, I read quite a lot of his stuff. So yeah, there’s a lot of book-reading in there.
– Back to music. I still don’t have the disc on my hands, so I don’t know if there are soloists mentioned on each song. But from the two videos that you put out, I see that Neil is rocking there. He was a secondary guitarist and main keyboard player in UFO. Did you expect that when you decided to take him on board?
Well, we’ve always been friends, from way back in UFO when he came in – in 1982 I think, after Paul Raymond disappeared – and we’ve always gotten along very well. And now he sent me some stuff with the guitar on, and I thought, “Wow, this is really good. Has Gary [Moore] been sending you messages?” So, basically, Neil’s taken over that kind of guitar style there, while Tommy has a different style altogether, and the idea was that we’d blend the two styles together – which I think we did in “Apple Pie”: Tommy does more of the “Excuse me, can you move your car?” solo, and Neil’s is, “Could you move your car, please?” More of a gentle approach. But they’re both really good in how they play, and they fit together well.
– Were all the songs on “Moggs Motel” were prepared especially for this album? It’s not like they’re leftovers from UFO or whatever.
No, it’s all brand new. Everything was completely new to me. I’ve never worked with Tony before, although I’ve known him for twenty years or so, and I’ve never worked with Joe or Tommy before. Neil was the only guy that I’ve actually worked with before. And it was quite a delight!
– Usually when somebody goes for a solo album – in your case, offshoot project, spin-off, whatever you call it – they usually change style, but you remained in this hard rock vein. Is that what you prefer? You didn’t want to go for a, say, pop record or soul record?
No, I wouldn’t know how to do pop; that’s way out of my league. When you grow up listening to Howlin’ Wolf, and you discover THE NEW YARDBIRDS, Terry Reid at “Revolution” and Joe Cocker, Stevie Marriott and everything from that era, which I think was rather a fabulous point in music, it becomes ingrained in you, all that influence sticks with you, and you learn from all that stuff.
– Marriott being your favorite singer, there are a few pieces on this new album – like “Tinker Tailor” and “Sunny Side Of Heaven” – that made me think of SMALL FACES, of Steve singing with P.P. Arnold, and even of HUMBLE PIE.
I’ve never thought of that, but I’m glad you mentioned it, because there’s every possibility that is somewhere in your deep psyche. Marriott was was so small but he had such a big voice and, what’s the word, a certain swagger, a certain style. It’s one of those blokes you like. You couldn’t really dislike it.
– And “Tinker Tailor” was not a direct reference to THE YARDBIRDS song?
No, it was not. That’s different. I think what we’re doing here leans a little bit more towards a bluesier style – but then, I’m not sure. I don’t really know. I was going to say, “I haven’t got a clue!” (Laughs.)
– Your album appears on a market that’s a bit oversaturated with UFO-related products. There are reissues of classic UFO albums, live releases, Herr Schenker putting out an album of UFO tunes. Do you feel like there’s a surge of interest to the band and you’re unwillingly joining this tendency?
I’ve left the UFO thing behind a little bit and I’ve been more or less concentrating on running a motel, which takes a lot of time, so I haven’t really looked at much what was going on there, but I’ve noticed there’s been a lot of resurgence in UFO material. There are albums going back in the charts now that were released twenty years ago, albums that kids or young adults have only just discovered. And Michael… Is it like a covers album? Blimey!
– His versions of the band’s pieces, so I guess you should expect a bit of royalties from his album.
Well, who knows with Michael? Hopefully. It’s one of those things where I’m not really interested. It doesn’t interest me at all. It’s not because of being so involved in UFO – I mean, I love the stuff we’ve done and everything, some of the tunes I really love – but it doesn’t interest me that much. It’s something we’ve done, that’s kind of been and gone. Most of that material was, like, 50 years ago, which is a fucking long time, and I fancy something fresh. But I keep thinking this: it’s usually fans that make the band, and if you forget that, you’re really screwed.
– So UFO is over and you run a motel now?
Yes, and we’re still taking bookings. I’ve got a few spare rooms. I can put you in a small suite, which is just behind the doghouse. The doghouse I’ve attached to the bar, which I’m calling “Tonga Town Bar”: if you spend so much time in the bar, you can sneak into the doghouse, recover, go home, and your wife’s going to go, “Oh, you’re looking remarkably well. Where have you been?” “Oh, I spent the night at ‘Moggs Motel’! It’s been a lovely time!” Yeah, so I’m kind of a motel man now.
