Photo of Herman's Hermits from a 1967 CBS television special on rock music.

(Credit: CBS)

Sun 31 August 2025 18:45, UK

Imagine being just 15 years old, still in the very thick of your school days and heady teenage adolescence, when you’re thrust onto the world stage. Not only that, you become bigger than The Beatles. That’s pretty terrifying. 

But the fact that he basically took it all in his stride is perhaps what set Peter Noone out from the rest, as the frontman of Herman’s Hermits. Embarking out on world domination when your mum was still cooking your dinners for you? It was all in a day’s work. 

Yet Herman’s Hermits went as far to the edge of the universe as they could possibly go, before ultimately, it all came tumbling down. Now, the band are left as ageing relics barely even remembered among those who were there to witness their ascension to fame at the time. But they outsold The Beatles, for God’s sake, and you don’t see Paul McCartney and Co being treated like that. So where did it all go wrong?

In many ways, Herman’s Hermits followed a very similar trajectory to the Fab Four themselves, cultivating the peak of their fame over the course of the 1960s before disbanding at the turn of the following decade. Similarly, they were buoyed by the potency of the force of the British invasion, making them a stalwart on both sides of the Atlantic with a myriad of hits under their belts.

Tunes like ‘Mrs Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’, ‘I’m Henry VIII, I Am’, and ‘I’m Into Something Good’ shot them to the pinnacle of success – with the latter taking them to the top of the UK charts – but it seemed that, despite this golden run, longevity was not guaranteed. Herman’s Hermits sold a total of 51 million records over the course of their career, and even outsold The Beatles in 1965, but it’s a case that some artists just have that certain sticking power while others don’t. 

It perhaps also isn’t helped by the fact that following the peak of Herman’s Hermits’ success, Noone decided to entirely pivot in direction. By 1983, he was performing on stages of a very different kind, swapping rock god domination for theatrical luvvie in a three-year-long run of Pirates of Penzance between Britain and Broadway. In the midst of this, it was near enough forgotten that this was the same man at the helm of a group who could have been bigger than the ones who claimed they were bigger than Jesus.

Even though Herman’s Hermits reformed sporadically over the years, and Noone began performing solo again, billed as Herman’s Hermits with Peter Noone, it never had the same glint in the eye as before. It’s the hypothetical equivalent of The Beatles getting back together to release music and do a reunion tour by the time they were all in their 60s. They may have been popular at the time, but it just wouldn’t work anymore. 

It’s a classic case of nostalgia worn thin and having sold out far too soon. Sometimes a level of enigma and resistance to temptation really does pay dividends in ensuring the long-lived legacy of a band – and this is something that Herman’s Hermits didn’t quite take heed of. They may have been more popular than The Beatles for a time, but the key to this iconic status is making it last longer than a year.

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