Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [101]
It was a fantastic success with a terrific atmosphere. We were all playing together for the first time, and because we were doing it for Ronnie, rather than for money, we left our egos at the door and it was a blast. In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much that it was decided that if everyone would agree, we should take the show on the road to try to make a lot of money for ARMS. The result was a successful tour of America, playing twenty-thousand-seat arenas in Dallas, San Francisco, LA, and New York, with all of us having a thoroughly great time.
Reflecting on the years after I came out of Hazelden, I now realize that there was no reason for me to be making records at all. A more intelligent approach to rebuilding my life would have been to leave recording for a while to try something else, and spend a few years finding out what it was that I really wanted to do rather than just step back into the accepted pattern from the past. But that was not to be. Whether the pressures were contractual or habitual is irrelevant, as I was back on the treadmill looking for another formula for a successful album.
Roger’s suggestion was a collaboration with Phil Collins, who was riding high at the time. Though I wasn’t a fan of Genesis, Phil and I had become good friends over the years, a friendship strengthened during the breakup of his marriage to his first wife, Andrea, when he used to come over to Hurtwood and pour his heart out to Pattie and me. I had even played guitar on “If Leaving Me Is Easy,” a track on his first album, Face Value. Though at first Roger’s plan just seemed like a pretty obvious marketing ploy, in the end I decided it wasn’t such a bad idea. It did mean, however, that I would have to come up with some new material when I wasn’t really ready to.
While considering the best way to go about this, I remembered a trip I had made to Wales many years before, when I had gone there alone with my dog and stayed in the Borders for a couple of weeks and had the time of my life. It seemed like that might be a good place to return to, so I got Nigel Carroll to go and find me a cottage in the area. He rented a place near Beulah, in the Brecon Beacons, and I went up there with some recording equipment and started writing. Actually, I spent most of my time chopping wood, as all the hot water and the central heating system came from a back boiler heated by the fire. The cottage was miles from anywhere and I hardly ever spoke to anyone. I’d go to the pub and have a lemonade and a cheese sandwich, and nobody even looked at me. It was very odd.
Until I started trying to write this new material, I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to shift myself away from writing just for me. I would complete a song and play it back and feel happy with it, and then I’d be out in my car and one of Phil’s hits would come on the radio, and I’d think, “My God, I’m nowhere near this kind of stuff.” It was hard trying to fit into his mold. On my return from Wales, I called Phil and told him I had a few new songs, and we decided to go and work on them in George Martin’s Air Studios in Montserrat, in the Caribbean. The idea was to jam a little, try out my songs, see if we could write something together, and maybe do some covers. “Knock on Wood” was one I was keen to try.
I had the same band, except that Jamie Oldaker had replaced Roger Hawkins on drums, and Phil had also brought in Peter Robinson to play synthesizer, a new direction for me. We were soon having a great time, and the plan was working. “Between now (twelve midnight) and yesterday,” I wrote in my diary on March 12, 1984, “we’ve got five great tracks…. Phil is so great to work with, you get