Tubular Bells by Richard Newman

Author:Richard Newman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785452291
Publisher: Self Publishing

54

THE MAKING OF MIKE OLDFIELD’S TUBULAR BELLS

“I was the only personality down there who was upfront

enough to carry the day-to-day running of the place.

Then John Aden came as an accountant, because I was

useless at figures and Simon Heyworth hated figures,

so none of us wanted to do any proper paperwork. It ended

up as myself and Simon running the show with Phil Newell

in the background.”

At this point Richard Branson and his second in command

at Virgin, Simon Draper, had not actually committed

themselves to taking on ‘Tubular Bells’. Eventually, however,

the beseeching to Draper and Branson paid off.

Tom Newman:

“I think Michael had also kept on at them

and it got to a point where I went to London, talked seriously

about doing ‘Tubular Bells’ with Simon Draper, Nik Powell

(then organising the financial affairs at Virgin) and Richard

Branson. Michael wasn’t there at the time. Simon Draper

phoned Michael, then Michael and I sat down at The Manor

and talked about the structure and how he wanted to do it

and then we started.

“I can only suppose that Simon Draper was as affected by it

as I was. During the time between starting the studio proper

and the beginning of the recording, I prompted and phoned

and pestered Simon Draper and Richard Branson maybe

half a dozen times. Because every time Michael appeared he

said, ‘Have you spoken to Richard recently?’ He constantly

barracked me, so I said, ‘No, I’ll phone him.’ So I would

phone Richard, or whoever I could get.”

Tom Newman insists that, although Oldfield had some ideas

which he wanted to include in ‘Tubular Bells’, they were by no

means formulated into an organised structure.

Tom Newman:

“Michael had some basic ideas.

He had the riff at the front of side one and the Caveman idea

(listed on the album as Piltdown Man). He had other bits of

melody but they weren’t properly connected and he wasn’t

sure which bits would follow which. He knew what would

come first and he knew the first couple of changes, but he got

lost around the part when the acoustic guitar came in. It was

loosely together, but nothing was rigidly fixed.

“But Michael had this fire in his belly. He hustled me

because I was the only person he could hustle. He found me

in someone who was as close as he could ever get to and so

he had no inhibitions about hustling me.

“Michael was very quiet at that time. He was excited but

I could tell he was excited because he was so quiet. He was

a quiet person anyway, but there was quiet and there were

qualities of quietness that you could divine in him if you

knew him.

“When we went in Michael had done another demo, but this

one didn’t mean much to me. For some reason I didn’t like it

that much, partly because the bits that I’d really loved from the

original tape were not there. For instance, I was really pissed off

that the Hoover tune wasn’t there, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“Michael was very quiet at that time.

He was excited but I could tell he was

excited because he was so quiet.”

TOM NEWMAN

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