Friday, Nov. 17, 2006 | 6:57 a.m.
What: Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Cannery
Tickets: $19.95; 507-5700
Peter Noone was barely 15 years old when Herman's Hermits hit the music scene in the early '60s, churning out hits such as "I'm Henry VIII, I Am," "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," "Wonderful World" and "Just a Little Bit Better."
Ten years later, still a young man, he left the band and retired for a while before finding new careers, including TV (a musical version of "The Canterville Ghost" and "Pinocchio"), films ("Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," "Hold On!" and "When the Boys Meet the Girls") and Broadway ("The Pirates of Penzance").
He recently spoke to the Sun from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Q: A lot of rockers from the '60s and '70s didn't survive - Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison. How did you make it through the drug years?
When I came along I was too young. I got exposed to people who were old enough (to do drugs) and it wasn't an attractive thing to me. I was lucky. I grew up with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones around me. I was in awe of the Beatles. I was a kid, so I was safe from it all. I wasn't even invited to the parties. Most bands were protective of me. One of the Stones told me if he saw me doing drugs he would beat me up. That's quite incredible isn't it, when you think about what has happened?
When did start your career?
My first check in show business was in 1961. It won't be long before I have my 50th anniversary - and I've still got 28 years on my mortgage.
Have you taken any breaks in the past 45 years?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. When I first left Herman's Hermits in 1973, I moved to the south of France and I thought I had retired, but I just couldn't. I just couldn't. And I got more and more busy and eventually I said the only thing I really wanted to do was to do a Broadway show, and then after I did them, I was basically back in show business. I worked for a long, long time to get a Broadway show and I finally got one, then I got another one and suddenly three years had gone on Broadway.
How did you get back into performing with the Hermits?
These people in Canada I knew who owned a club had been insisting for 10 years that I come and play there. I kept telling them I really didn't want to, I really didn't feel good about it and they said, "Well, we've got a band here that has learned all your songs. All you need to do is show up and plug in and off you go." So I got there and I was onstage, enjoying my first song when I thought, "My God, this is great. This is like home."
This was back in 1984 or '85, something like that, when I came back. And I discovered that when I came back I was interested in everything again. I took long enough away from it - the music business - that it all appeared new again. So for the last 19 years or so I've been like slowly getting back into Herman's Hermits - I became Herman again and started to tour again. The first year I did 10 dates, the second year I did 20 dates and it kept growing. Now we're doing 150 days a year.
The touring isn't bothering you, now that you're older?
I pace myself. We think of it as sort of like being athletes. As long as we can keep hitting home runs, we're going to stay in the major leagues. We don't want to play the Holiday Inn Express, if you know what I mean. So we just keep it going as fast as we can.
Sometimes we do 10 nights on the road straight without a day off. The more you do it, the more it becomes sort of second nature.
What do you do with your downtime?
I don't have any downtime. I help run a business - Herman's Hermits - with Keith (Hopwood), an original member of the band. That takes a lot of time. And I spend a couple of hours a day to keep the Web site on track. I wish I had more time.
Where are you based these days?
I have two home bases, Santa Barbara and London. This year I'm in Santa Barbara all year. My daughter goes to school there, so it's perfect.
How has your music survived?
We consider ourselves to be a contemporary oldies band. The closest thing to us would be someone like the Smothers Brothers. We're like the rock 'n' roll version of the Smothers Brothers. We're not on the TV, but we have a fan following that shows up wherever we are. It's like the Smothers Brothers meet the Grateful Dead - some of them come to a hundred shows a year. We're like part of the culture, a subculture, really.
Do you do a lot of touring in this country?
We used to do mostly parts of Europe and places in Asia - China, Singapore - but recently we've been hot in America.
What changed?
I think we've got the show to match the audience now. We finally figured out we're not Boyz II Men or something, we're Herman's Hermits. We went back and listened to our original records, and we tried to get the fun of the original thing back into the show and I think that's what people really want. It's funny, isn't it, that people actually want you to be who you say you are? And if you disappoint them, they get really angry. So we've gotten rid of the long-haired '70s guitar solos and gotten back to being Herman's Hermits. We've started to look like Herman's Hermits again, just further along down the road.
What are your concerts like?
We do hits, but sometimes I like to do a Stones song or a Johnny Cash song. It really depends on the audience.
Do you perform often in Vegas?
This is a rare trip for us for a public event. We do lots of private parties there - maybe once a month - but we don't get exposed to the pubic very often there.
Why?
Until recently, Vegas was into that Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Rat Pack thing. When you used to think of Vegas, you thought of people older than Herman's Hermits. But Vegas has changed. I think what has happened is that a lot of our fans go to Vegas now. It has got something for everybody.
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