This interview was carried out in November 2020 in the early stages of research for the Hugh Hopper biography and is published here for the first time in memory of John Marshall, who died yesterday.
John Marshall with Soft Machine – taken from Switzerland 1974 – (Cuneiform Records)
John Marshall: My memory is extraordinarily patchy. Especially these days. That’s a warning!
Phil Howitt: Hugh was very kind enough to produce a sort of a calendar of all the gigs he could remember ever doing, so he left this legacy of a very detailed timeline of all the gigs and all the recordings. It’s not complete, but I would imagine it’s 95% there. So in terms of the specifics, I already have them, but just as important are the thoughts and the memories and anything that comes to mind. I’m really interested in ‘1984’ and what you can remember of that.
JM: There’s a black hole there ’cause I’ve not heard it in years, probably since it was mixed. I tend to check out recordings to see if they are acceptable to be released or when you have to make choices and things. And generally that’s it.
Let’s see. I joined (Soft Machine) in ‘72 wasn’t it? And I was playing with Jack Bruce. And it was interesting. Jack rang up one morning. I think it was in December of ‘71 or something like that. Or the beginning of the year ‘72. Or his manager did, saying that the band was folding and Jack was going off to the States with Leslie West and Corky Laing and so that was it, which was a shame because he was a fairly exceptional bass player. And I have this thing about bass players – the relationship with the drums and bass is very special, and I’ve been lucky because of looking at the people I have played with – it’s fantastic. The great thing is that they are all different and it’s wonderful, so that happened that morning with the phone call and then in the evening when I went along there was a drum clinic. By Carl Palmer for Paiste someone like that and that was in Gerard Street, over a pub and after that I went on to Ronnies – it was the habit to hang out at Ronnies until late.
And it turned out that Sean Murphy, who was the manager of Softs, came up to me and said ‘do you want to come and play with Softs?’, so I thought either you’re very well informed or you’re just taking a chance, because it was the same day, so I thought OK, why not. I knew nothing about the band. I heard them very briefly when they played at Ronnies, one time I heard them so I just got the general idea of what sort of stuff they were doing because I would have known Elton because of his work with Keith Tippett. I knew Elton from the jazz scene anyway but I don’t think we would have played together.
So, Sean said, we’re thinking of changing drummers but he didn’t say any more than that. It was quite an experience, so I said, OK why don’t we get together for rehearsal and we’ll see how it works out, I had a vague idea of what sort of area they were in, although Ian Carr was upset that I didn’t eventually go back to Nucleus. I thought, whatever happens, try something new, go for something different that I haven’t done before, and so I went along to the first rehearsal and blimey it was like going into a refrigerator, the relations in the band – the atmosphere in the band was in a bad way. Basically it was Elton and Phil on one side and Mike and Hugh the other, it was all about Elton and Phil wanting to play jazz free the uncompromising free stuff and Mike and Hugh were feeling kind of excluded. We did this rehearsal, this play, and I thought fine, afterwards Hugh said to me ‘that’s great, it’s nice to have someone who listens to what we play!’.
And I thought, that’s a strange thing to say, I thought that’s what everyone does! But then they said, we’re part way through an album and we’d like you to do some different tracks, would you like to do them, so I said OK and they sent me some of what they had already done, and I must admit it sounded pretty good to me what they had already done, it was a bit puzzling…
PH: did they already have recordings of the tracks which you ended up on with Phil playing on them?
JM: I don’t know, that’s an interesting question. That I don’t know.
PH: So when you said they sent you the music, are you literally talking about the sheet music?
JM: It would have been sheet music if they sent anything. It was how it was always done, you got a lead sheet and that’s what I was used to doing and I preferred that way really because it leaves it open – you come up with your own interpretation, that for me whatever had gone on before, if I’m going to get involved in it, then the music starts now… There seems to have been too much history in that band to do much else than think about the present.
I would have thought that my attitude would have been the music starts here, I don’t want to do a version of what happened before or deliberately do something different, I just want to play the music as it comes. Probably there was a discussion about what was going to happen, I honestly don’t remember.
In general I’ve always taken the attitude – we’re here, this is the music, and it’s what we do with that is the important thing now.
PH: you mention relationships with bass players, how did Hugh strike you then? I am assuming that he’s not similar to most of the bass players you’d played with
pic courtesy of Cuneiform Records from the 2023 release
JM: True. First of all, of course he was already part of that music so I just went along and dealt with what was happening then and then the music had been developed with him as part of it, so it all fitted perfectly, so I thought my first job was to get inside the music and see what we were doing.
He was a one-off, everybody is. The things that bass players are after in those days were a little bit different. It takes a while to appreciate people for what they do rather than what everybody else is doing and I came more and more to appreciate how important he was to the music, and how it was a reflection on him too. I’ve always looked on it as one of the pleasures and challenges of playing with people is developing a strong relationship with them and so that means trying to adapt to what they are doing or finding a way that works. Some people are OK with that and other people are more, no how I want to do it is this way and if it’s like that then I’m not interested. I don’t take that approach.
PH: so you say he was a one off – what made him different?
JM: It’s very difficult to say, isn’t it? Because you identify how people play with how they are. I mean he wasn’t interested in that sort of very technical high energy, way of playing and. It just fitted with they were doing.
The main thing is you know when you sort of join a project like this is to find a way of doing it that makes sense and so you can be true to how you want to play and everybody feels that comfortable. That is typically true of bass and drums, I think because if that’s not working, then you might as well forget it.
It became slightly problematic when Karl joined really because Karl is an extraordinary, fantastic musician and you know we’d played together an awful lot, and we were very good friends. In fact it was discussed when we discussed who would replace Elton. Someone who could do both, But I said because I’m sort of party free as it were – we were very good friends and we worked a lot. If we assume that I would vote for him anyway, I thought that the decision really had to come from Hugh and Mike. So that’s how that happened. Gradually, you know, this sort of chasm started to open. It didn’t start to open, it was already there. I didn’t take much notice of it at first but it gradually became obvious. It wasn’t a relationship made in heaven.
PH: You’re talking Karl and Hugh here?
JM: Yeah, yeah sure. I think basically just everybody got on with it, it was a relatively uncommunicative band and when we weren’t actually doing gigs we didn’t hang out. I mean Karl and I did because we had other projects that we were doing together
PH: what else were you working on together?
JM: he was always doing stuff. At that time we were still sharing a flat together and I think he had his own little projects. This is where I feel a bit guilty because I can’t remember. We were and still are very good friends and worked on various things together over the years.
PH: How did Karl joining the band change the music then, apart from the personal dynamics?
JM: he was a very interesting combination of very structured stuff because the original bust up if you like with Phil and Elton was structured versus free, and Karl was much more structured in the sense that the groove was one or two chord things but they were definitely compositions but it always seemed to me that the strength of this stuff was that he came up with these things, these very strong statements but there was loads of room to do what you like in them. During that period I was doing so many other things, particularly in Europe on the European scene so in that sense I was the Soft Machine drummer but I was doing other things. If it had been the only thing I was doing it would have had much more effect. Mainly it was turn up and drum and we would play music and see how it worked out.
PH: It’s curious looking at Hugh’s timeline because later on it was completely different but 72/73/74 he’s playing with Soft Machine and only Soft Machine whereas it sounds like you were much more a jazz drummer in terms of doing different things.
JM: and a lot of it was on the European scene more than in Britain so I was doing all those things and eventually with Eberhard Weber, and Arild Andersen – you note bass players and those are the relationships I value. I assumed that everybody else was on the same page which they were but to different intensities.
PH: so there’s the ‘1984’ album but also there’s the ‘1983’ track on Six, both of which suggest that Hugh’s own musical interests are starting to move away from working with Soft Machine, working with the band. Do you remember that?
alternative covers for Hugh Hopper’s 1984 (CBS/Mantra/Cuneiform) on which John Marshall guested
JM: I do remember thinking ‘1984’ sessions, I thought wow, this is a record for a major company it’s being given a pretty free hand in terms of what Hugh had. I just have that vague memory of it being much freer than I would normally expect going to Advision which was I think the studio we always used to use. That was interesting from that point of view and it was playing with people that I knew of but hadn’t played with. The ‘1983’ thing was a kind of freeish thing just one thing on that album. It’s a double album isn’t it. I haven’t heard these for years. I’ve heard everything I’ve played, why would I want to listen to any more of it! I enjoyed the difference – there’s no reason why everything should be the same style and the danger of course is that you get someone like who is such a strong personality musically as Karl is it’s good to have input from others like Mike and Hugh just to level it up as it were.
PH: do you have any memories at all – I’ve heard or read things of Hugh working with Hugh working with tape loops, which I assume you would have come across. Or possibly a gig in Hamburg when Hugh came on to play a version of ‘1983’ on his own.
JM: Was Hugh just doing a solo thing?
PH: I was talking to Gary Boyle about this. Because Hugh had left the band and Roy was on bass. And Hugh had been asked to perform on his own as one of four sets. Soft Machine played two, Linda Hoyle one. And Hugh did one with tape loops going around the stage.
JM: They were massive! I remember that because it was literally around the stage, I don’t know how long they were in terms of yards (or metres, it was Hamburg!). And of course Linda would have been there that would have been through Karl, he had been doing things with her, I might have been involved. There’s an awful lot in the discographies where I am listed and other more commercial things.
PH: There’s then this big gap after Hugh has left Soft Machine. I think I asked you about a one off gig in 99 with Hugh, Elton and Keith Tippett. Does that ring any bells at all
JM: no. Where was it?
PH: Augustusburg. I presume that is Germany or Austria.
JM: It’s sad with Keith dying, because in the last few years we’d been doing things with him again. Keeping in touch with Julie who is a very exceptional woman actually and she is absolutely destroyed by this because they were so close. Augustusburg rings a bell but I don’t know why. Was it the band with Keith guesting?
PH: there are other no related gigs, other than the fact that it was Hugh, Elton and you, maybe this was the start of Soft Works. It was September 1999 and not connected to any other gigs at all.
JM: I’ll try and find a diary for then. It could have been a festival, and in the middle of a tour which was happening, and add on Keith as special guest.
Soft Works – Abracadabra/Abracadabra in Osaka (Moonjune)
PH: and then moving on to Soft Works
JM: I got a phone call. As far as I was concerned Soft Machine had finished and everybody was getting on with what they were getting on with and I was quite busy doing things especially on the continent and Elton rang up and said there’s a guy, a friend of his in New York called Leonardo (Pavkovic) and he wants to put Soft Machine together again. So I said, as with recordings when they are done, they’re done, and with groups, when they’re done they’re done because they are of their times. Best of luck with it but I don’t think I’m too interested.
I thought about it for a little while and the other main reason as you’ve pointed out I had played with all of the others and I reckoned they were very stylistically … especially Allan, it didn’t seem to be a goer to me musically. So I said I didn’t think I was interested. But then I thought about it and I thought, well, sometimes successful collaborations come out of very unlikely collaborations, things which on paper shouldn’t work. There’s nothing much to lose here. Whatever happens I get to play with people I like playing with. If it doesn’t take off it doesn’t take off. Nothing negative about that. So I rang back and said I’ll do it.
We went ahead and did it. We kind of sorted the music out so everyone got a chance to play to their strengths. And it came out and I think it came out surprisingly well considering the differences in the players.
photo by Geoff Dennison
I don’t know what would have happened if Allan hadn’t decided not to go on with it. But perhaps it was better like that. Allan is a complete one off. I’ve played with him a lot and loved it but he has a very special way of playing which basically he should be in charge of, because of his personality. I’m not saying he shouldn’t play with somebody else, I’m not saying that at all but he is best when he is doing his thing and when he left he said he wasn’t interested in doing it and the history of the Soft Machine from the Seventies started again as it were, John (Etheridge) was up for doing it which was great actually, he’s a super player … and person. And that’s the other thing – I think it always comes with age, when you’re younger you want to change the world maybe, and you’re much more hardline sometimes and when you’re older you just enjoy playing.
PH: Most of the people in that band had played with each other already. There were two pairs that didn’t. You would have played with everyone, but the two pairs would have been Elton and Allan and Hugh and Allan. I’m curious at how Hugh and Allan would have got on both musically and personally.
JM: I think personally it wasn’t a problem. That’s exactly the question I asked myself because it seemed to me that their styles were completely different. And that was the cause of my doubt, whether it was a goer musically. Because there’s a whole side of Allan’s playing that Hugh was not interested in, technically if nothing else. That sort of high energy stuff we both enjoyed doing but I said, if Hugh’s not particularly interested in that sort of thing, let’s just do that as a duo sort of thing. And he called it Madame Vintage or something. So basically it was making the group represent what the people did, because they were always on home ground and not standing there or sitting there, saying I like the next one, waiting for the previous one to finish. And in that regards it was a mature band and I enjoyed that. Allan is a total one off all the way round almost from every angle. I liked him dearly and I liked his music and it was a good thing to do. And the fact that it was shortlived, well that’s how things are.
PH: And when things moved on to John joining or rejoining, things were a lot more sort of musically harmonious.
John Marshall with Soft Works – photo from Soft Works – Abracadabra (Moonjune)
JM: yes, well there was never any friction or anything. We were all kind of on the same page in terms of musical interests and the way we liked to play and everybody’s sort of interested in making it work as a group. It worked out well, it’s still going!
PH: you were asking me about the chronology and it was John coming in, and then Theo (Travis) replacing Elton when Elton died and then Roy (Babbington) coming in after Hugh died. I think you had a connection with Theo, was it your idea to bring Theo into Soft Machine Legacy
JM: that’s a good question because I can’t remember. It just seemed so natural. We had played together (on the Marshall Travis Wood album). Had he already played with John?
PH: I think he had.
JM: When someone leaves, you need to get someone new in, it’s how you feel about them, in terms of personality, it’s not like you’ve got play like the guy before, it seemed to be a natural… As well as that you want someone who can bring somebody different as well. That’s the very important thing, just replacing someone with the same kind of function is shortsighted. Also I’m not sure if he was doing much keyboards but that’s worked out, it’s always helpful if you can get someone who can write interesting material, it just holds everything together.
John Etheridge/John Marshall with Soft Machine – photo Geoff Dennison
PH: I’ve seen since you recorded the last album I’ve seen you 5 or 6 times. Am interested – did you feel it made a difference when you dropped the Legacy bit and become Soft Machine again? It’s almost like you went up a gear when that happened.
JM: I didn’t take much notice of it. It always struck me that it was clumsy, the Legacy thing because we were Soft Machine but I assume there was some toes that didn’t need to be trodden on. I never liked the Legacy thing, it implies you’re doing a version of impersonation or tribute band or something. It was us! It all dates back it goes right back to when Robert left really because there was a review in a German music magazine, a long one, but the guy went on all the time about the fact that it wasn’t the original band. It’s 50 years ago. I know what people are saying but the music speaks for itself.
PH: (in my opinion) it completely misses the point. It’s been wonderful seeing you perform.
JM: It’s been very enjoyable. It’s partly through age. You don’t need sharp elbows any more. We can just enjoy playing. It’s been great and of course this particular line up is fantastic. It’s a Rolls Royce in terms of how we play. We just play what comes next and we all get on. We are very lucky….
John Marshall, Band on the Wall, Manchester, 2017 – picture Simon Kerry
Thanks to Geoff Dennison and Simon Kerry for use of photos of John playing with Soft Machine
Thanks to Steve Feigenbaum (Cuneiform Records) and Leonardo Pavkovic (Moonjune Records) for use of images from Soft Machine/Soft Machine Legacy releases
John Marshall’s 2023 releases:
Soft Machine – Other Doors – https://softmachine-moonjune.bandcamp.com/album/other-doors
Soft Machine – The Dutch Lesson – https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-dutch-lesson
The Canterbury scene(zine) continued.... 
Great stuff, Phil. John was such a great drummer. Really sad that he’s no longer with us, but the recordings live on. Looking forward to the Hopper book
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