Memoirs of a Hermit: Setting the Record Straight with Herman’s Hermit’s Barry Whitwam

60's super group Herman's Hermits, featuring lead singer Peter "Herman" Noone

One of the biggest misfortunes that can happen on the Pop Culture journey is to have a story go untold because the wrong people are asked to provide the details.  Sometimes, in order to get the true behind-the-scenes stories about our icons and the people that shaped our pop culture landscape, it’s necessary to bypass the household names and move to the other people who were there, because they have their stories to tell too.  This couldn’t be truer for Barry “the Bean” Whitwam.  Although you may not immediately know his name, there is no doubt that anybody who knows music hasn’t heard of the band he is a part of.  Since 1964 Barry Whitwam has been the drummer for Manchester, England’s legendary pop band Herman’s Hermits.  Fronted by Peter Noone, one of pop culture’s most important teen idols, Herman’s Hermits lead the second wave of the 1960′s British Invasion with hits such as “I’m Into Something Good,”  “Henry the VIII”, and “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.”  However, despite the fact that everybody knows Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits, very little has been revealed about the Herman’s Hermits story. 

Herman's Hermits' drummer Barry Whitwam. Could Herman have existed without his Hermits?

However, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.  Allow me to explain how I became acquainted with Barry Whitwam, and how the information that is about to be revealed to you came to my attention.  Earlier this summer I brought my mother to see Peter Noone in concert.  Growing up as a kid, a pair of Herman’s Hermits LPs were two of the only rock albums in my parents’ collection, as they were one of my mother’s favorite bands when she was growing up.  As a result, I grew up on the group and had my own interest and affection for the band.  We arrived at the show to find a large Union Jack banner on the stage with the name Herman’s Hermits across it.  When the show started four young guys in their thirties walked on the stage to the sound of Fat Les’ “Vindaloo.”  One of them announced Peter Noone, and out came Herman himself. The group then burst into “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat.”  As I sat their watching them, despite the fact that Peter Noone put on an entertaining show, I thought to myself that although he was indeed Herman, the band accompanying him was not the Hermits.  I began to wonder: whatever happened to the real Hermits? 

Getting home that night I began to do some research on Herman’s Hermits and I came to two astonishing discoveries.  First, despite numinous articles about Herman’s Hermits being available on the internet, the majority of them were substanceless.  With the exception of a list of their members, hit songs, TV and film appearances, and a few dates, the only other information available was that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were session musicians on some tracks, and the origin story of Peter Noone’s moniker “Herman.”  There was no solid or tangible history or story of this band.  Herman’ Hermits was a band without a history or a story. 

Barry Whitwam's Herman's Hermits. Can the Hermits exist with a Herman?

The second discovery was that there was, in fact, a second band calling themselves Herman’s Hermits based out of England being fronted by Herman’s Hermits’ original drummer Barry Whitwam.  Two Herman’s Hermits?  This, I felt, was a story to investigate.  However, like most cynics, I began to wonder how Herman’s Hermits could exist without Peter Noone.  He was, after all, the front man.  So I wrote Barry Whitwam an e-mail where I posed the question “how can Herman’s Hermits be Herman’s Hermits without Herman and how can Herman be Herman’s Hermits without the Hermits?”  Days later I received an e-mail from Barry telling me that he would tell me his story and explain the whole thing to me.

Barry Whitwam is a very proper and well-spoken English gentleman who is proud of the legacy he was a part of with Herman’s Hermits.  However, since 1975 Barry has felt that he has had to fight in order to keep that legacy and the dignity of the band, as well as his other former band mates Karl Green, Keith Hopwood, and the late Derrick Leckenby’s role in that history honored.  He also presented me with stories about the difficulties of dealing with an icon such as Peter Noone.  Court battles, payment disputes and personal conflicts are just some of the hardships that Barry and the Hermits have had to overcome in the fight to be remembered as Herman’s Hermits.  However, in our conversation Barry Whitwam revealed, for the first time, the true origins and history of the Herman’s Hermits and just how Herman’s Hermits can be Herman’s Hermits without Herman.

Come with me as we allow Barry to tell his side of the story as

CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE PRESENTS:

MEMOIRS OF A HERMIT: 

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT WITH HERMAN’S HERMITS’ BARRY WHITWAM

I contacted Barry Whitwam via telephone from his home in England in July 2007.  The following is the exact transcription of our conversation.

Sam:  So Barry,  hopefully we can shed some light on the story of Herman’s Hermits, because it seems that any solid bits of information on the origins of Herman’s Hermits are few and far between, and that all the articles and write ups lack any substance.  [Herman’s Hermits] seems to be a band without a history and a band without a story.  When I’ve done my research it always says, “the Hermits was formed in 1963″, but how did the Hermits actually first form?

Barry:  Well, it was in about 1962 that the Hermits started, but the band was named The Heartbeats.  Then The Heartbeats changed its name to Herman and the Hermits and it lasted for two years, and they kept going down to London to try to make a record, and about early ’64 they went down to London and Mickie Most was trying to record them and they basically couldn’t get a track down, and there was a big argument in the studio and the band broke up.  Then Harvey Lisberg, who was the manager of that band, had seen my band with Derek Leckenby and Ian Wallow and we were a three piece and he wanted us to be the new Hermits and we liked the idea.  Well, not at first, because we had seen them and we thought they were pretty bad. 

Sam:  Well, who was in the Hermits at this time?

Herman and his Hermits (left to right) Keith Hopwood, Derek "Lek" Leckenby, Peter Noone, Karl Green and Barry Whitwam

Barry:  There was Karl Green, Keith Hopwood, Peter Noone, Alan Wrigley on bass, and Steve Titterington on drums.  Anyways, Harvey Lisberg wanted myself, Derek Leckenby, and Ian Wallow, and we were called the Wailers, to be the new Hermits.  And as I said, we didn’t like them at first because we had seen them, but Harvey Lisberg showed us the diary.  They were working seven days a week and I said, “wait, hold on a minute.  Let me think again here”.  I was already professional then, so I said to Derek, I’m already professional and the band will improve from the new Hermits so within a couple of weeks Peter Noone, Karl Green, and Keith Hopwood made friends again, and myself and Derek Leckenby and the provisory, it was Derek Lockenby’s idea, that we change the name from Herman and the Hermits to Herman’s Hermits.  Modernize it.  We felt that it was a bit old-fashioned, so it was Derek Leckenby that made the name Herman’s Hermits.  That was on April 1st, 1964.  That was the formation of Herman’s Hermits.  That worked out very well indeed.  We were working seven days a week.

Sam:  Did it take you gentlemen very long to make it big?

Record producer Mickie Most

Barry:  Well, Harvey Lisberg phoned Mickie Most and said, “the band’s reformed”, and he said, well, work a couple of months and come back and see us, and we did, and it was mid-June. Mickie Most came up to Manchester to see the new band, and he liked the new improvements.  Derek Leckenby was on lead, Karl Green on bass, Keith Hopwood on rhythm, and myself on drums.  Mickie Most said, alright, I like the band now, and he left a demo of “I’m Into Something Good” and he said learn that and come down in a weeks’ time and we’ll make a record, which we did.  We learnt it, went down to London, and we got to EMI studios in Manchester square.  It started at ten o’clock and we were finished by twelve o’clock and back on the road back to Manchester.  It took two hours.  An A side and B side mixed.  Then Mickie went on holiday for fifteen weeks and when he came back he listened to it again and he actually didn’t like it.  His wife, Christine Most, said that it was a number one record and so they released it, and sure enough, by September it got to number one in England and stayed there for three weeks.

Sam:  So it was pretty much an overnight success.

Barry:  Yes.  Well from April 1st to September.  That’s six months. 

Sam:  After that was it just a whirlwind for you guys?  Did you see that coming?

Barry:  We didn’t see it coming.  It was the biggest thrill of my life getting to number one because I was already professional, and in the mid-sixties you didn’t see young people in the streets walking in the afternoon.  You knew they were out of work and there wasn’t many people out of work then.  People used to look at me strangely thinking, “what’s he doing walking the streets?”  Then I got to number one and it was justified.  The hard work I’d put in, and I’d taken the gamble at packing in my day job to concentrate on drumming.

Sam: And what year was “I’m Into Something Good” a hit?

Barry:  That was 1964.

Sam:  Well, that was the year after the Beatles came to America.  Now Herman’s Hermits was one of the big bands that came out of the second wave of the British Invasion.  I mean if the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the first wave then…

Barry:  Well there was the Dave Clark Five, and then there was us and the Animals in the second wave, as you said.

Sam:  Well, obviously in the 1960′s, there was something exciting and special in the British music scene because it dominated the world’s music charts.  Was there some kind of kinship between the bands?  Did you guys all know each other?

Herman's Hermits perform on Hullabaloo

Barry:  Yes we did.  Yeah.  We all knew each other because we were all traveling up and down the motorways in England, and you’d always meet in the truck stops in the middle of the night when you were trying to get home, and you’d drink coffee and talk about your gigs and what you were doing.  There was a bit of rivalry because you always wanted to be better, but there was something that Mickie Most said to us.  [He said] that careers are kind of like dart boards.  You got a little section of the young, innocent boys next door, and that was like a little section of a dart board, and if you go and try to do what is in somebody else’s section, it won’t work.  You got to get your own thing and you stay there.  So we didn’t try to copy anybody else.  We just stuck to what we were doing and we enjoyed it, and nobody tried to do what we did until the Monkees came along.

Sam:  I think that kind of market that you grasped, of the innocent and inoffensive boy-next-door thing played out well once John Lennon made the comment about the Beatles being bigger then Jesus, and suddenly the Beatles were considered threatening and no longer chaste.  It was like Herman’s Hermits replaced them as being the safe British band for the teeny boppers.  Peter Noone was absolutely inoffensive.

Barry:  Well, he was quite young.  He was sixteen.  I was eighteen.  Karl Green was eighteen.

Sam:  God.  You guys were all just kids!

Barry:  Yeah.  We were just kids.  We were just a garage band.

Sam:  So when did the Hermits first come over to North America?

Barry:  Early 1965 we came over and did all the radio shows and TV shows and promoted “I’m Into Something Good”.

Sam:  Now, I’ve seen clips of Herman’s Hermits on Hullabaloo and I know you did that show quite a few times, but I never seen clips of you on Ed Sullivan.  Did you guys do Sullivan?

Barry:  We did that show about four of five times.

Sam:  What was Ed Sullivan like?

Ed Sullivan: " I think he took a shine to us."

Barry:  Well, he only showed up about ten minutes before the thing went out on air, and he was reading stuff off of cue cards and he was quite inoffensive, and I think he took a shine to us.  There wasn’t a lot of personality to him.  He just folded his arms and walked about a bit, but it was an exciting show because it was live.

Sam:  So when you heard the performances on Sullivan there was no lip syncing.

Barry:  No no no.  It was live.

Sam:  So what about on Hullabaloo and Shin-Dig?  They weren’t live?

Barry:  I think we recorded the tracks earlier in the day, and then you would mime to them what you’ve already recorded. 

Sam:  Now, as I said earlier, Herman’s Hermits had this inoffensive quality as part of the band’s image.  Were you guys really that inoffensive?

Barry:  Oh no.  Well, we weren’t arrogant or obnoxious.  We enjoyed having a good time, but after the show somebody would sneak out and get a couple of six packs and a bottle of whiskey because we were too young to drink in America, so we always had a good time after the show.

Sam:  Well, there was a time after John’s Jesus comments when the Hermits seemed to eclipse the Beatles in popularity in America. 

Barry:  It was in 1965 and 1966 that we sold more records then the Beatles, and we were touring all the time so we were more in your face, as it were, in the States.

Sam:  When you guys came to a city was there the same kind of frenzied response that you would see in old news clips of the Beatles?

Barry:  It was pretty much the same.  After the first tour with the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars we took a Greyhound bus. When Billy Stewart almost had a shootout on the bus, we decided to get off the bus and travel separately for our safety, so we traveled in a station wagon after that and then another tour we got on commercial airlines, and as you arrived at an airport you were there on the gates, as it were, and all the teenagers mobbed.  It was great!  Then we decided to have our own private plane to tour the States.

Sam:  So, did you feel claustrophobic in that sort of environment?

Barry:  Sometimes, night after night, there was no time to let your hair down, and you couldn’t go out to much without security, but it didn’t bother me too much.  No.  I wouldn’t say it affected us.

Sam:  Now, with all those screaming girls and everything, do you have any wild tales of crazy groupies you could share with us?

Barry:  Not really, because when we were touring the States we were still under twenty-one, and the statutory age of those girls was eighteen or twenty one, and most of our fans were sixteen or under, so there was no way you were going to pull up a bird to your room if they were underage.  You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison.  So you had some control over that situation.

Sam:  So you guys were more responsible about that kind of thing.

Barry:  That’s right.  We were told by the managements or agencies about the age limit and told, “behave yourself boys”, because we didn’t want to get ourselves in trouble, since it only takes one incident with an underage girl and you’re finished.

Sam:  Now, it was around this time that you made the movies as well.  The first one was Hold On?

Barry:  That was the second one.  The first one was When the Boys Meet the Girls.    We only had just a cameo part.  The two major ones were Hold On and Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter. 

Sam:  I own a copy of Mrs. Brown somewhere on VHS, but I’ve never seen Hold On.

Barry:  It wasn’t a bad film really.  MGM put in our contract that we had to make two films.  [We made the films] basically so we could make a soundtrack so they could sell two more albums, and it was enjoyable making them.  They were good, just lighthearted films. 

Sam:  Have you heard if they will ever be available on DVD anytime soon?

Barry:  I don’t know about DVD, but you see them around on about three o’clock in the morning on TV.  That’s how terrible insomniacs get to sleep.

Sam:  Well, that’s how I got my copy of Mrs. Brown.  I own the soundtrack too.  That’s a great little album with some really nice songs.  The first song is possibly one of my favorite Herman’s Hermits songs.

Barry:  Oh yeah.  “It’s Nice to Be Out In the Morning”. 

Sam:  Yeah.  That’s a great tune.

Barry:  That’s a great song.  Yeah.

Sam:  I don’t know why that song didn’t hit the top forty.

Barry:  Well, MGM just wanted to release a soundtrack.

Sam:  So they weren’t issuing singles?

Barry:  No.

Sam:  Now, in the bio on your web-site you talk about an encounter with Elvis Presley.

Barry Whitwam and Elvis Presely in Hawaii

Barry:  That’s right.  Yeah.  That was brilliant!  We’d just finished a tour and ended up in Hawaii, and we were due to travel home the next day, but the night before Colonel Tom Parker rang up and talked to our manager and said Elvis would like to meet the band.  So we were supposed to go home, so I said I’d go and see Elvis, and Peter Noone said he’d go but the other boys said, “no, we’ve been on the road for two months”, and they went home so they didn’t go and see him.  It was a great day.  We went down to the beach where he was filming Paradise, Hawaiian Style and we had a tour with him between his takes.

Sam:  What was Elvis like?  What was it like to be around him?

Barry:  Brilliant!  He had all this entourage.  Actually, when we got on the beach the director said he was just taking a twenty minute break to change a scene, and he’s gone off on his bike with his friends, and about twenty minutes later we heard a big roar of motorcycles coming up the beach and he was in the lead and there was about seven outriders on either side of him.  What an entrance!  It was interesting.  He asked about our hairstyles and he couldn’t figure out why it was so popular.

Sam:  Now, I’ve spoken to other people who have met him and they all say he was just an old-school Southern gentleman.

Barry:  He was a gentleman.  Yeah.  He was calling everybody ‘sir’ although he was Elvis. 

Sam:  So what was his interest in Herman’s Hermits?

Barry:  He was just curious to see us, really.  He had seen us on the TV and had heard our records and he wanted to see what we were like.

Sam:  Was there anybody else that you met during the sixties when you were touring that was a highlight, or that captivated you?

Barry:  Well, we met so many different people when we were doing TV shows.  Dean Martin and Danny Kaye, Jackie Gleason.  The rumor is that we did the Johnny Carson Show.  We never did that show.  We did everybody else’s show but not that one.  But the Dean Martin show was really good.  He was a very funny fella.  But when we were on the road we would never really meet other main bands, because we were own our own tours.  But what we did was after we did a few tours we had a policy that we would take another English band with us.  That’s when we had our own plane.  The first group we brought out was Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.

Sam:  Yeah.  They are a great underrated band.

Herman's Hermits almost got "busted" with The Animals

Barry:  Then the next one we brought out was, I think, the Hollies.  The plane wasn’t pressurized and the Hollies’ drummer Bobby Elliot was sick everyday because he was bouncing around, and we’d be flying over fifteen thousand feet and he had no oxygen.  Then the next one was Herman’s Hermits and the Animals and they were interesting to perform with because they were into drugs and we weren’t.  One particular occasion we were flying from America into Toronto and the tour manager said, “right.  No drugs.  We’re going into Toronto, Canada and they are very strict on drugs so get rid of them now before we take off”.  So we were flying and we were just about to go across the border into Canadian territory and I saw Chas Chandler and Eric Burdon with a wooden coffee grinder and they had a great big block of hash and they put it in the top and were grinding it down. There was a little drawer at the bottom and it came out all shredded.  So the tour manager went ballistic and Eric Burdon didn’t give a toss about that, really, so we landed and it was a charted plane, so we went to a different terminal and as soon as the wheels stopped the Canadian National Guard surrounded the plane and they had machine guns and dogs.  So the tour manager said, “it’s a drug bust.  They’re going to come in here looking for drugs.”  So Eric Burdon and Chas Chandler were stuffing the drugs down the chemical toilet.  Chas Chandler ate as much as he could, as did Eric Burdon and Hilton Valentine, so they stalled as long as possible and they got rid of everything.  So the dogs came up and they could smell it.  The dogs were barking.  It took about twenty minutes before the searchers finished.  They couldn’t find anything.  By this time Chas Chandler, Eric Burdon, and Hilton Valentine are out of their brains because they had probably eaten a half a pound each.  They couldn’t find it but they said, “we can smell it.  We know it’s been on here but we couldn’t find it, either we’d be taking the plane and the rest of you”.  The next band we had on tour was Herman’s Hermits in big letters, and in tiny letters, The Who and the Blues Magoos.  So the Blues Magoos opened the show.  The Who went on second and then we closed the show.  So we had The Who for a warm up which was pretty good.

Sam:  Were they a bunch of good lads?

Barry:  Yeah they were.  They weren’t that mad on tour.  We were just as mad as they were.

Sam:  Was this before Keith Moon was trashing hotel rooms and having orgies?

Barry shares a toast with legendary Who drummer Keith Moon

Barry:  Yeah.  We had to show the Who how to trash a room. (Laughs)   We introduced Keith Moon to cherry bombs.  He found a new use for them.  He went back to the hotel room and said, “I’ve left something in there”, and he pulled out a cherry bomb, went into the toilet, lit it and was holding it in his hand, and while it was fizzing his timing was impeccable.  He dropped it in the loo, pushed the toilet, and as the cherry bomb was going down the tube it exploded and blew the toilet off the wall.  But we had to pay all our damage.

Sam:  So did Herman’s Hermits trash hotel rooms a lot?

Barry:  Oh no.  No.  Every now and then we would have a bit of a water fight but nothing like that.  Mainly our damage was wet carpets and bedding.  We didn’t break anything.

Sam:  You weren’t taking cricket bats to televisions.

Barry:  No, we never did that at all.

Sam:  Now, a lot of members of bands become individualized within the band.  I mean, each of the Beatles had their own characterizations, and the Rolling Stones did as well.  One of the things I thought was awful about Herman’s Hermits is that Peter Noone was stuck out in front and the world didn’t get to know the other Hermits. 

Barry:  That’s correct.  Yes.

Sam:  How and why did that happen?

Barry:  I still think that happens today.  You get a group and whoever sings the leads, well, all the cameras are going to go to the lead vocal and that person becomes kind of the spokesman, and if there are any interviews usually they call out the singer and say, “hey, come over here.  We want to interview you because you are singing the lead”.  That was part of it.  We didn’t get upset about it.  It was a way of life. 

Sam:  Well, could you tell me a little bit about the rest of the Hermits?

The Hermits without Herman. Keith, Karl and Barry at Lek's wedding

Barry:  Right.  Karl Green and myself were sort of more athletic.  When there was a swimming pool, we’d be in the pool.  If there was any surfing, we would do it.  If there was any motorbike riding, me and Karl would do that.  Derek Leckenby and Keith Hopwood were more the studious type.  They were always writing and always playing guitars.  Those two kind of stuck together, and me and Keith sort of stuck together.  It was a good mixture.  I think I was more the joker of the band.  Always mucking about like most drummers were.  I don’t know why.  It’s found in the drums I presume.  We all got along great together.

Sam:  Now in Randi Reisfield and Danny Field’s book Who’s Your Fave Rave, Peter Noone says that he was very disconnected from the rest of you guys, and that he was doing different things and going to different places that you guys wouldn’t go to.  Do you know what he meant by that?

"He makes out that he was always drinking and eating meals with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles but I don't think so"

Barry:  I think it was about 1966 that he went and lived in London.  Maybe even before then.  1965 even.  The rest of us stayed in Manchester where we were from, so maybe that’s what he meant.  I don’t know.  I think when he got married that he was a bit more aloof.  I mean, we didn’t hang around together after ’65 in England.  We’d go in our own cars, do the gig, and then go home in our own transport.  So he makes out that he was always drinking and eating meals with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles but I don’t think so.

Sam:  Now, when we’ve spoken in the last couple of days, and in the e-mails that you sent me, you’ve brought forth the idea that Peter Noone likes to portray that he was the entire band and you guys were the hired help.

Barry:  That’s right.  Yes.

Sam:  Where do you feel this idea came from?  Why do you think is he doing this?  Do you think he thinks he’s being funny?

Peter Noone....meglomaniac?

Barry:  No.  He thinks he’s being deadly serious.  He believes it too.  From 1964 to 1971 when he left we were a very hard working band.  He couldn’t do a show without us.  We were always there.  All the TV shows and the radio shows.  We were always there even if we weren’t asked any questions.  All the interviews.  Even as I said before, they would always want to ask the lead singer the questions, so we were still there so we all worked just as equally hard.  We all traveled in the same mode.  We were all in the same limousines and the same autos and the same planes together until he left.  That was on tour in America.  In England we’d make our own way to shows.  We would drive over and come back at night.  But it all started in 1970 near the end.  He wanted to be separate from the group.  He wanted to venture out as a solo artist, but before that on one) of our albums, I think it was “Lady Barbara”, it was titled as “Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits.”  So he was trying to get the two things separated.  He was Peter Noone, and the band was Herman’s Hermits.  That’s the way it was billed at some of the shows.  “Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits”, or “Peter Noone with Herman’s Hermits.”  So when he left in 1971, he went out to pursue his solo career and we carried on, the four of us, and we got another guy in called Peter Cowap, and we made an album that, unfortunately, didn’t get released.  It was a great album though.  Really good stuff on it.  Then in 1973 a promoter in America wanted to put a reinvasion tour together.  It was to be Gerry and the Pacemakers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, the Searchers, Billy J. Kramer, and Herman’s Hermits, and we went to tour with Peter Noone again for three weeks.  It was attended as well as intended because it was too soon for a reinvasion. During those negotiations our English agent said there wasn’t much money involved because it was the first time with that promoter, so we didn’t know if we would make any money.  So we all agreed on the set fee.  Everybody was in agreement and we basically all got the same.  But then, halfway through the tour we found out that Peter Noone had renegotiated for about eight or nine times more then we were supposed to be getting.  Well we didn’t think that was very nice, so after that tour we teamed up with an old friend of ours named Ray Renary and he said the Herman’s Hermits went well during the tour.  I think we could get some bookings here so we started to tour America as Herman’s Hermits without Peter Noone, billing ourselves as Herman’s Hermits because he was doing his own thing as Peter Noone.  We were touring the States four times a year, and that carried on up until 1975 when Peter wanted to rejoin the band, but we were wounded by the last time when he did the dirty on us.  So we said that we would want an equal split.  No, he didn’t agree for that.  He wanted the lions’ share.  So we said no, you’re not coming back.  So then he put together a tour in England called “Peter Noone with Herman’s Hermits” without us.  So we put an injunction on his tour in England, and we were flying out in a couple of days to do another tour of the States and so we put an injunction on him, and Peter changed all the adverbs to “Peter Noone and Herman’s Hits.”  So then he put an injunction out on us in America to stop us from doing what we’d been doing. After that, a year of wasting a lot of money paying lawyers, we got a high court ruling in England that basically said that Peter Noone can’t use the name Herman in conjunction with Hermits.  He can use the name Peter “Herman” Noone but not the name Herman’s Hermits.  The three of us, the rest of us, Karl Green, Derek Leckenby, and myself, had the rights to use the name Herman’s Hermits worldwide forever.  In the agreement we offered to pay Peter Noone a certain amount of money over ten years for any hardship that it might have caused him, which we did.  We paid him a percentage of our tours over ten years.  We should have got a record of the payments down to the last penny.  So we carried on without him, and then Peter was doing his own thing in America and going out on tour.  He was in a band called the Tremblers in the late 1980s.  Then, in the mid 1980s, early 1990s he got involved with Paradise Artists who obviously persuaded Peter to put Herman’s Hermits in the title or double your fee, which he did.  So we fired letters out to his management and Peter Noone saying we have a court order that forbids Peter Noone from using the name Hermits in conjunction with Herman, but they didn’t respond to that and they just carried on.

Sam:  You never heard anything back from them at all?

Accoring to Barry Whitwam, Peter Noone can not legally tour under the name Herman's Hermits

Barry:  Well, we got a letter telling us to cease and desist.  They didn’t recognize our court order worldwide.  They wouldn’t recognize it in America we found out ten years later when we almost went to litigation over it again.  So we carried on touring as Herman’s Hermits, and he was going out there as Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone, but not a lot, until 2002.  I was talking with Paradise Artists to see if we could resolve this situation and maybe come up with one Herman’s Hermits featuring me and maybe one of my band over here, and two of his band over in America, so we’d have one Herman’s Hermits.  So while I was waiting for a response for that we got served with papers just as we were going on stage in England.  The whole band got served with papers from the federal court of California, which we found out that we had to answer in twenty eight days or we’d lose everything by American law.  So we did that and then we got a court litigation.  It was very, very expensive.  During that period we stopped going to the States, but Peter was using the name all the time by then as soon as he served me with the papers.  That basically shut us down, as it were, in America.  We were only touring about six or eight weeks in a year.  The rest of the time we were traveling around the rest of the world.  So he flooded the market with himself and most of the time he was just using pick-up bands.  I saw one of his shows.  There hadn’t been any rehearsals and it sounded absolutely terrible.  No harmonies.  He must have sent a tape the week before to a local band, and the local band probably did the best they could to stretch probably a forty-five minute show to an hour show where they wouldn’t rehearse the harmonies.  You can’t learn that overnight.  It took a long time to tone them down to sound sweet.  So basically in 2005 we stopped going to the States and concentrated on the rest of the world, because there wasn’t much of a market there for us, because I think he [Peter Noone] saw where we’d been and decided to work there himself.  He used to do all the Vegas places right after us.  Basically he closed us down in the States.

Sam:  What kind of a man would you say Peter Noone is?

Barry:  Very bitter.  He’s very bitter because he lost the name in 1975.  He was paid for his pains for over ten years, and then stole the name anyways afterwards.  Not many fans know that, really.  They just think that I’ve got no rights to the name but we actually went into court.  It was fair.  One person can’t be the whole band, and we had the name Herman’s Hermits and he wanted to be Peter Noone, and that’s the bed he slept in for fifteen years.  So he’s very bitter that he lost that.  Anybody that sees our show in England that actually goes to his web-site or his e-mail and says that we saw Barry and the rest of the boys in England and it was a brilliant night gets a response within five minutes, because he’s usually on his web-site or the chat room… well, a chap says to me the other week that he sent out an e-mail to Peter and told him what a great show that we had in England and he got an e-mail back that said, “do you have shit for brains”.  That’s what Peter Noone e-mailed him back.  [Peter Noone said that] you must have shit for brains if you like that band.    Since 1975 the campaign has been to discredit the Hermits for playing on the records.  He’s always said that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played on all the records.  Those are absolute lies.  The only records that we didn’t actually do the backing on were records that had brass and violins and there weren’t many of those.  The reason for that was because John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, before they were in Led Zeppelin, were session men, and Mickie Most would say that they would bring in the drums and the bass and the guitar parts with the violins and stuff because it was easier, because all the musicians would be reading the same music and that’s the way that went down for not many songs. Everything he says is that it was Jimmy Page, and Jimmy Page probably can’t remember any of the songs that he played.  If you look at our top ten in America, “I’m Into Something Good”, it was us.  All Hermits.  There was only a piano added on.  That was on a two track machine so we played at the same time.  That got to number thirteen. “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat”, there were no other instruments.  That got to number two.  “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” got to number one.  “I’m Henry the VIII”.  Number one. “A Must to Avoid”.  Number eight.  “Listen People”.  “Leaning on the Lamppost”.  That’s six in the top ten with Jimmy Page or anybody else not involved!  Another seventy of the tracks on the albums is only the Hermits.  I think I worked it out, and I think in only thirty percent of all the songs ever recorded the Hermits didn’t do the backing, but the Hermits were always on the vocals doing the harmonies.  So he’s trying to discredit us, saying that we didn’t have anything to do with anything.

How involved were Led Zepplin with Herman's Hermits?

Sam:  Would you say that he is dropping these Led Zeppelin names to almost make him look hard-core and edgy, or that is just a nothing more then a bad game of name-dropping?

Barry:  Well he started this in 1975, trying to discredit us, because he took the decision from the high court very hard.  So even today, in the last article I read in June 24th in Daytona Beach… someone sent me an article where he basically said that the Hermits had nothing to do with anything and basically we should have been cleaning the toilets in the BBC studios while he was recording Top of the Pops.  He says that we were lucky if we got our pictures on the sleeves of the albums.  I read this, and all I could think was that this was absolute rubbish!  The people that know me know that we were there all the time.  [They know about] the hard work we put in for seven years.  He didn’t do anything on his own regarding Herman’s Hermits.  It was a five man input.  Having said that, using Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones as a sort of weapon is damaging the good name of Herman’s Hermits.  Derek Leckenby played all the leads and he did!  [He played] all the live shows and probably eighty percent of the tracks that had the violins and the brass on.  They weren’t the biggest hits.  Only the ones that had the five of us playing because that was a more honest sound. 

Sam:  Did you always feel that Peter Noone has this sort of attitude toward the rest of the band?

Even during happier times Peter Noone managed to climb to the top of the pyramid

Barry:  He was always sort of an extrovert.  During the time that he was with Herman’s Hermits up until 1971 he was opinionated and started to believe his own write ups in articles about him, but it was in 1975 that it all changed.  He had his way up until then.  The management wasn’t strong and they spoiled him.  He had been pampered, and in 1975 he got a slap in the face and he never got over it, I don’t think.

Sam:  When was the last time you saw Peter Noone?

Barry:  At Mickie Most’s funeral.  Three years ago.

Sam:  Did you guys speak?

Barry:  No.  We did not speak.  He came along and hugged me, I think.  I think that was because he was embarrassed because of all the litigations.  It must have been about two hundred thousand in lawyers’ fees because of him not getting back to me.  Instead of talking he sued me.  It must have cost him as much as it had cost us.  I think he was embarrassed to see me. 

Sam:  So the Hermits have pretty much been touring since 1964.

When Derek "Lek" Leckenby died in 1994 Barry Whitwam became the last of the original members in Herman's Hermits

Barry:  That’s right.  Non-stop.

Sam:  You’ve never broken up?

Barry:  Well, what would happen is that people would leave for their own reasons.  I’ve been doing it for 43 years non-stop.  Derek Leckenby did it up until four days before he died.  He was very ill on the last tour in Oregon and we got him home and he basically died.  He had cancer.  We were in Oregon and we got him home on a Wednesday.  He was very, very bad and he died on the Saturday.

Sam:  Now tell us about the current lineup of Herman’s Hermits.

Barry:  On bass and lead vocals is Geoff Foote  He was involved with us in 1971 and he wrote our first single, which was “She’s a Lady.”  Not the Tom Jones song, but it got to number one all across Europe and number 20 in the UK charts.  It was very big in Scandinavia.  Then he joined us in 1988 for two years and he’s been back with us for about ten years now.  We also have Eddy Carter, who is also a lead singer and plays lead guitar.  Our keyboard player is named Kevan Lingard, and is also a singer.  So all the songs with the brass and violins we can do ourselves now on the keyboard.  We do the harmonies with all three singers going at it, and we all take turns at doing the leads on songs, and it sounds very good indeed.

Sam:  You said you’re touring Australia later this year?

Barry:  In August we tour Australia.  We have another tour of Sweden.  We got Germany, France, Denmark, and England before Christmas.

Sam:  Do you ever encounter fans that come to your shows that are looking for Peter Noone?

Barry:  Well, the way we are advertised is that we have a big poster of us.  All the TV slots never show Peter Noone’s image.  The radio will play our rerecorded versions of the song to advertise us.  You got people coming up saying “whatever happened to Peter Noone?”  They are curious but they know he’s not going to be here at one of our shows.  I mean that we will get comments that we sound a lot better then we did in the 60s.  (Laughs)

Sam:  You’re still performing the Herman Hermit’s standards as well as new stuff.

Barry:  Oh yeah.  We still play some of the singles too.  Like Jezebel.  We still play that.  Great track.  And we play a medley of other artists to break it up a little bit.  We do about an hour and a half on stage.  Drum solos and things like that.

Sam:   Now I have one last question for you.  Now you’ve been doing this for 43 years and you don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Barry:  No, no.

Sam:  Well if there is one message, or one thing, that you want to throw out to music fans, Herman’s Hermits fans and British invasion fans, that they should know about the band, and the history, and the importance of Herman’s Hermits’ legacy, what would it be?

Barry:  I think I would like to tell the fans that whatever they read about Herman’s Hermits, and if Peter Noone has said it or written it, that I wouldn’t believe ten percent of it. 

Sam:  You think that it’s most likely going to be a lie?

Barry:  Yes.  No matter what he says about the Hermits more then 90% of it is lies.

Sam:  Well alright Barry.  Thanks for talking with us and sharing your story with us.

Barry:  You’re very welcome Sam. 

In every conflict there are two sides of the story.  Obviously, the only people that know the truth about the history and hardships of Herman’s Hermits are Peter Noone and Barry Whitwam as well as Karl Green and Keith Hopwood.  In the end it is up to each individual reader, music lover, and Herman’ Hermits fan to decide who they believe.  However, I ask each reader to take into account not just the words these men have had to say, but the substance surrounding their claims as well as the documentation to back these claims up.  One thing I do know for sure is that Barry Whitwam does indeed have documentation of the 1975 court order that he speaks of.  I have seen a scan of the order myself.  It is also clear by the amount of history that Barry offers to us about Herman’s Hermits that Barry is willing to give us a bigger picture than has been offered to us before.  Personally, I can’t help but put faith in Barry’s story.

However, in the end, we shouldn’t dwell on the hardships and rivalries that have been experienced by Herman’s Hermits and, instead, remember Peter and his Manchester lads as the fresh-faced and inoffensive hitmakers that they were in the mid 1960′s.  No matter what the truth is, let us always enjoy the music they made, and love the way those songs make us feel.  To both Barry and Peter, thank you for Herman’s Hermits.

(NOTE:  A number of the photos used for this article came directly from Barry Whitwam’s Herman’s Hermits web-site and are not property of Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict.  For more information, photos and tour dates for the current incarnation of Herman’s Hermits please check out Barry’s site at http://www.hermanshermits.co.uk.  There is lots of information and memories available.)