30 Years Ago: Golden Earring lays a little "Radar Love" on UBC

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      Thirty years ago tomorrow–on April 21, 1984–Dutch rockers Golden Earring played a concert at UBC. The band was touring behind its N.E.W.S. album, and singer Barry Hay called me from L.A., where the band was touring with Florida rockers .38 Special.

      There’s conflicting info about where at UBC the show actually took place. The March 27, ’84 issue of The Ubyssey had an ad for the show under the AMS Concerts banner saying it was at the War Memorial Gym, but in my story that ran in the April 20 issue of the Straight it mentions the UBC Sub Ballroom. I wonder if the show wasn’t selling that great and they moved it to the smaller venue.

      If anyone else out there is old enough to remember, please fill me in.

       

      It was ten years ago that Golden Earring first hit it big in North America with “Radar Love”, and then two years ago with “Twilight Zone”. Was it hard to keep the band together during that eight year stretch between hits?

      Not really. We’re real pals; we’re just stuck with each other. And we were touring and everything. As a matter of fact, the band is now more together than ever.

      You went into a bit of a jazzy/progressive vein for a while there didn’t you?

      Yeah. Robert Jan Stips had a lot to do with that. He’s a jazz player, a keyboardist. These guest musicians, they had their little finger in the pie, you know. And I think it was interesting for our career. Nothing happened money-wise, but it sure was good experience. It got us where we are now.

      When you finished recording “Twilight Zone” did you have the feeling that it would be a hit?

      I knew it was going to be a hit the moment I heard it. And I’m saying this because it’s the truth. Usually I’m not really sure about those things, but when George [guitarist George Kooymans] played it I knew it right away.

      Along with Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, “Twilight Zone” must be one of the most covered Top 40 tunes in Vancouver’s rock clubs.

      Really?

      Yeah, bands are always playing it.

      Wow. I’d love to see bands pick up on that.

      Do you know whether bands play it at the clubs in Holland?

      No, there’s hardly any bands that I know of in Holland that cover. Everybody’s trying to do their original stuff. We don’t have that club circuit where bands to Top 40 stuff.

      What’s the music scene like in Holland these days?

      It’s not really happening at all. I mean, it’s a small country. I’m pissed off that there’s hardly any competition at the moment. There was a band called Doe Maar that was singing in Dutch. They were very, very successful, and they broke up and started a sort of Dutch wave scene. But that really didn’t tickle my palate, if you know what I mean, because basically we’re rock and rollers, and that was reggae music.

      Now that’s all over, and I’m sitting back and waiting for a young, fresh band to jump out of Holland and do something. But I’m afraid it’s not gonna happen. I think it’s all up to us [laughs].

      Getting back to “Twilight Zone” for a minute. Was that title inspired by the TV series with Rod Serling?

      Yeah, we ripped it off. And on the new album we have a song called “Mission Impossible”.

      I understand you toured Europe and North America with the Who during the early seventies, around the time of Who’s Next and Quadrophenia. Were they–and Keith Moon in particular–really as wild on the road as legend has it?

      Yeah, they were pretty wild. Especially Moon. Townshend is anti-social, and Daltrey and Entwistle are just good blokes, you know. Moon was extremely social; a crazy and wonderful guy. Only the good die young.

      Another band that you’ve toured with–which also had a tragic end–was Lynyrd Skynyrd.

      We were on the road with them for a long time. We had a bus, and we toured England with them. I was real good buddiees with Ronnie Van Zant. We got beat up together.

      You got beat up together? How did that happen?

      Well, we were drunk in a club, and we thought that the audience wasn’t really reacting to the band that was playing. We thought it was a great band. It wasn’t, of course. We started hassling and harrassing people [breaks up] and telling them to clap and applaud. And then we got beat up by the bouncers. We ended up in the Liverpool rain, bleeding and black-eyed and just laughing our asses off.

      Wasn’t that a strange pairing, southern boogie with European hard-rock?

      Well, I like to consider Golden Earring as a boogie band too, you know. It’s funny. At first I thought the combination was not going to work, but it does. Like the people that come out to see .38 Special, you can easily say that they love us. So we don’t have any problem in that department.

      Comments

      6 Comments

      Correction

      Apr 20, 2014 at 5:40pm

      "Doe Maar", not "Doenaar".

      Martin Dunphy

      Apr 20, 2014 at 5:49pm

      Hey, Newt:
      I don't know if it is an apocryphal story or not, but I heard many years ago that when Golden Earring first recorded "Radar Love", their singers' English was so poor that they essentially memorized the lyrics and inflection for the studio recording, not that you could tell.

      Of course, that was 10 or 11 years before you conducted this interview.

      Steve Newton

      Apr 20, 2014 at 7:28pm

      correction made for "Doe Maar", thanks Correction

      pickle55

      Apr 20, 2014 at 10:49pm

      I was there (pretty sure it was in the sub ballroom) - great show - I seem to remember that the lead singer (Barry Hay) & I both had a cold that night

      Patrick

      Apr 20, 2014 at 11:17pm

      Check www.radar-love.net and find out alle about 600+ versions of Radar Love and the amazing Golden Earring history from 1961 till now...

      Casper Roos (Golden Earring Research)

      Apr 21, 2014 at 6:49am

      @Martin Dunphy:

      Never believe stories you hear. Try to get something confirmed. When Radar Love was released the band already had singer Barry Hay for six years who's native country is India en grew up with an English father. He spoke and speaks English very well. I really doubt your statement the band had to memorise the lyrics for Radar Love way back in 1973. When the band started out in the early Sixties (!!) memorizing lyrics could have been the case as they just got out of school and at the time it wasn't a common thing to write your own lyrics in English. But in 1973 the band wrote lyrics in a good way sometimes even checked by foreigners (John Fenton) who co-wrote songs with them for the Moontan album Radar Love is on as well.

      So don't rely on rumours better do some research...

      And Steve: thanks for the fine article! Much appreciated!

      Greetings all the way from the Netherlands, Casper Roos (Golden Earring research fan website)

      http://members.ziggo.nl/casper.roos/1980stour.html#1984