![]() Be nice to go doodling around the islands here. I've got a little twinkling of an idea, to get one of these brand new ultra-light mini-copters. I had a licence for single and twin-engine aircraft and helicopters. ![]() Unfortunately, Virgin don't fly to the Bahamas so I don't get to use it much. If I fly with anyone else, I can't sit there on my own so I have to pay for their first class seat as well. We don't talk about the old days, although when he was over we did drink a bottle of champagne and he insisted I play him loads of his favourite old tracks of mine, all the silly ones like Don Alfonso. He was over here a few weeks ago – I'd done an arrangement of Tubular Bells for piano, for schools, and he jetted in for it. How long was it before Richard Branson responded to your suggestion, via morse code, to "Fuck Off, RB"? (5) Mike Oldfield and Richard Branson in 1973. For the UK alone I've got a seven-times platinum disc award. ![]() I did get a proper breakdown about 20 years ago and it was up to 12m even then. Is it 14 or 17 million sales for Tubular Bells? But it's always the outsider, the black sheep, that becomes the blockbuster. They obviously wanted to play it safe and sign acts that were like ones that were already selling. I suppose it's an unenviable job – choosing signings for record labels. Was it the prog equivalent of Decca turning down the Beatles? I imagine that, once Tubular Bells got to No 1, they probably got the sack. Um, I must say, I did once spend half an hour Googling the A&R men who booted me out the door, thinking I was a complete nutcase. You can't say I'm any one kind of artist.ĭid you ever call up record companies who rejected Tubular Bells and go, "Ner ner ne ner ner"? ![]() My last album was entirely classical (3), and this one is entirely live-band rock music (4). It was just music – vibrations in the air. I listened to Ravel, Roedelius, Bartók, Stravinsky … or it might be Stevie Wonder or Led Zeppelin. ![]() Who did you feel most kinship with out of that early-70s scene? ![]()
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