{"id":534311,"date":"2026-03-20T07:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T07:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/534311\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T07:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T07:10:13","slug":"ten-years-afters-leo-lyons-lemmy-janis-jimi-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/534311\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Years After’s Leo Lyons: Lemmy, Janis, Jimi and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

You could listen to Leo Lyons all day. Firstly, there\u2019s his playing: as co-founder of Ten Years After<\/a>, the now 81-year-old-bassist has driven a thousand heavy-blues anthems since \u201966, his fingers hammering like typewriter bars, neck-and-neck with the high-speed guitar playing of frontman Alvin Lee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For evidence of the old pub argument that the Nottingham-formed band could even outgun Cream<\/a>, track down the new Deluxe Edition of 1969\u2019s career-high album Ssssh, its live disc featuring the four-piece jamming so hard in Helsinki that you feel the sweat and blisters vicariously.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s Lyons\u2019s war stories we have come to hear from him today. Over the next hour \u2013 and without ever seeming boastful \u2013 this natural-born raconteur unpacks a career of remarkable serendipity, dropping names like anvils as he recalls his role in some of rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s all-time flashpoints.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

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\u201cSometimes I feel like Forrest Gump,\u201d he says, smiling.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lightning\n<\/p>\n

You turned professional when you were sixteen. Didn\u2019t everybody tell you you were mad?<\/p>\n

Yeah, they did. But my father had been killed in the war, and my mother told me: \u201cI was always stopped from doing what I wanted to do, so you have my blessing.\u201d I was probably twenty-five before we started making any money. But I never looked back. Being in a band, it\u2019s ninety-nine per cent rejection. You don\u2019t have to be arrogant. You can listen to criticism. But you can\u2019t let it phase you. When we started out, nobody wanted to hear what we were doing. You just have to keep going until the world changes to the way you are.<\/p>\n

Do you remember the first time you saw Alvin Lee play guitar?<\/p>\n

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I\u2019d joined a band called The Atomites. But the guitar player\u2019s dad said he couldn\u2019t turn professional. So the manager turned up at my house with a guitar and amp, and said: \u201cYou\u2019re playing on the next gig.\u201d Which I did \u2013 terribly. So we put out an advert, and fifteen-year-old Alvin Lee answered it. We had the same idols \u2013 he was into Chuck Berry, Sun Records, Elvis\u2026 I think we often thought that I was Bill Black and he was Scotty Moore.<\/p>\n

Alvin was fast, even then. And as my mum said: \u201cWell you must be fast too, because you\u2019re keeping up with him!\u201d When we played together it was like a duel. I remember our manager saying: \u201cI always thought you\u2019d start fighting in the middle of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were like brothers. And like brothers, we fought a lot. Alvin could be difficult. I remember him saying: \u201cIt\u2019s only a pub gig, why bother?\u201d And I\u2019d say: \u201cWell if you\u2019re not going to bother for a pub, you\u2019re always going to be playing in a pub.\u201d On the way to gigs we\u2019d often stop the van, get out, have a fight, get back in, go on and play the gig. But we shared so much. All the tough times. No food. All living in one room in a doss house.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Your pre-Ten Years After band The Jaybirds, were briefly a project for troubled producer Joe Meek in the early sixties.<\/p>\n

Joe was fine with us. But I know a lot of guys who had real problems. Like [Tornados drummer] Clem Cattini. Joe decided he didn\u2019t need him for one session and threw his drums down the stairs. Joe also had this big spiritual thing. He\u2019d have s\u00e9ances and thought he was channelling Buddy Holly. Homosexuality was a prisonable offence, and there was some \u2018body in a suitcase\u2019 murder around that time. Joe was always worried about being outed [in relation to that]. And then of course he shot himself.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ten\n<\/p>\n

Ten Years After circa 1967: (L-R) Rick Lee, Alvin Lee, Chick Churchill, Leo Lyons (Image credit: Pictorial Press Ltd \/ Alamy Stock Photo)<\/p>\n

The Jaybirds played Hamburg\u2019s now legendary Star Club.<\/p>\n

It was 1962, the first time we\u2019d gone to Europe. The Star Club was at the bottom of the Reeperbahn, by all the strip clubs and brothels. I was eighteen. Alvin was seventeen \u2013 he shouldn\u2019t even have been there. Our digs were over a ladies\u2019 mud wrestling club, five to a room, in bunk beds. The Beatles had stayed there too, and on the wall there was a drawing of Jesus on the cross wearing hobnail boots. Apparently Lennon had drawn it.<\/p>\n

What did your Star Club residency involve?<\/p>\n

We played an hour on, an hour off, all through the night, seven days a week. The lady in the toilet was selling Preludin, tablets to keep you awake. But it got our chops together. George Harrison<\/a> once said: \u201cI went to Hamburg a boy and came back a man\u201d. I can relate to that.<\/p>\n

Before ten p.m. it was young people. After that you got the drunks, sailors, gangsters, hookers, transvestites. The gangsters would send four whiskys over to the band on a tray and we\u2019d be told: \u201cPlay My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean.\u201d You\u2019d drink it, play the song, then four more whiskys would come over \u2013 \u201cPlay My Bonnie again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fights would break out. Manfred Weissleder was the boss, but Horst Fascher, who\u2019d been a boxing champion, until he killed someone and ended up in prison, was in charge of the bands and waiters. He\u2019d suddenly appear in the Star Club, and all the waiters would follow him to sort out some trouble in another club.<\/p>\n

How do you survive in that environment?<\/p>\n

It was great at first. And if you\u2019re drunk or taking drugs all the time, maybe you could get through it like that. But for me it got too much. I used to go to the seaman\u2019s mission \u2013 where you could have a sausage sandwich, a cup of tea and play snooker \u2013 just to get away from it. Then I\u2019d go back for the gig. There was also The Top Ten Club, where I first met [now well-travelled guitarist] Albert Lee. I\u2019d go round and sit in with the band, give the bass player a chance to spend time with his girlfriend.<\/p>\n

When you returned to London, The Jaybirds became Ten Years After.<\/p>\n

The first record [1967] was trying to replicate our live set. Then we did Undead [1968], which was live, with the recording console in the Decca canteen and the cables going over the roof into [club] Klooks Kleek. The thing with Ten Years After was we didn\u2019t rehearse. But maybe that\u2019s why it worked. As Alvin admitted: \u201cOh, I wrote the lyrics in the taxi on the way to the studio\u201d. But the songs were fairly basic, chord-wise. It was the energy and the playing, not so much the lyrics, that made it.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ten\n<\/p>\n

Ten Years After onstage in Denmark in 1969 (Image credit: Jan Persson\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said TYA\u2019s second album Stonedhenge was best with a spliff.<\/p>\n

Yeah \u2013 played stoned and listened to stoned.<\/p>\n

Is it true that album title gave Spinal Tap the idea?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. But our tour manager from the late sixties was a guy called Derek Sutton, and he was technical advisor on that film. He probably told them a few tales.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also said that 1969\u2019s Ssssh album was so-titled because the band played so loud?<\/p>\n

Well, I would say it was Alvin who was so loud. But he was always coming over to me, sticking his head in my speaker and saying: \u201cAll I can hear is bass!\u201d<\/p>\n

American promoter Bill Graham invited TYA across the Atlantic. What was America like then for a lad from Nottinghamshire? <\/p>\n

Mind blowing. Particularly for Alvin and I, because we grew up on Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis. The A&R guy met us at the airport in a limo. We stayed at the Sunset Marquis, with movie stars like Dennis Hopper sitting around the pool. The cars. The sunshine. The palm trees. The California girls \u2013 I think they make them all in some sort of factory, because they all come out looking gorgeous.<\/p>\n

A friend had introduced me to hash, but while we were there it was all this California grass. And people actually listened at the gigs. At the time, if you played a UK blues club there\u2019d be a guy sat there with his beer. He ain\u2019t going to clap at the end of the show. Whereas the audiences there, they were really appreciative. After that first US tour, I was in tears walking off the plane back into the rainy UK.<\/p>\n

In 1969 TYA also played some fabled US festivals. What are your memories of the Newport Jazz Festival and Woodstock? <\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, my strongest memory of Newport is my amp blowing up. Before we played Woodstock, we were on tour with Nina Simone. We\u2019d just come from Missouri, where she\u2019d sung I\u2019m Black And I\u2019m Proud to an all-Black audience. Then these four English hippies come on. The other guys froze. But I said: \u201cPlay, play, play.\u201d We started with Woodchoppers Ball and the audience were great.<\/p>\n

Next day we flew to New York for Woodstock. We took a helicopter to the site. Then the storm came, it started raining and suddenly everything is running behind. The stage was sliding down the hill. It was getting dangerous. There were cables flooded with water all over the stage. Now, they would stop the concert. But Alvin said: \u201cWell, if we get electrocuted our records will sell better.\u201d So we did it. The foolishness of youth.<\/p>\n

It was a buzz seeing that many people. Like something from Mad Max, with all the fires and steaming bodies. It was a difficult gig and not our best performance, because with all that humidity the guitars kept going out of tune. But we went down really well.<\/p>\n

What was the scene like backstage?<\/p>\n

It was chaos. I remember Pete Townshend<\/a> coming up to me saying: \u201cDon\u2019t eat anything! It\u2019s all spiked with acid!\u2019 And I thought: \u201cOh great, there goes my breakfast, lunch and dinner.\u201d I remember waving to Janis Joplin<\/a> as she walked by with a bottle in her hand. We already knew Janis, because she\u2019d played with us at the Fillmore, along with the Grateful Dead<\/a>. Unfortunately, on that occasion she passed out on stage. Another time, I was standing in the wings when she came off stage. I asked: \u201cHow did that feel, Janis?\u201d And she said: \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve been fucked by the entire audience!\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, we stayed at the Landmark Hotel, where Janis died, maybe a week after we\u2019d left. The last time I ever saw her was when she came into my room, looking for a guy in another band that she fancied. You never know when it\u2019s the last time.<\/p>\n

Did you run into Hendrix at Woodstock?<\/p>\n

Only in the hotel before. I wasn\u2019t his best pal, but I knew him. When he first came to London, I was at a club seeing Rory Gallagher<\/a>, when Chas Chandler introduced us and said: \u201cWe\u2019re looking for a bass player, do you want the gig?\u201d But I\u2019d put in too much time working with Alvin. We hadn\u2019t made it yet but we were on the way. So I passed on that.<\/p>\n

Where did Ten Years After start going wrong?<\/p>\n

We\u2019d do two or three records a year. Tour America at least twenty-one weeks a year. German tours, English tours\u2026 It\u2019s hard work. One of the problems was when the \u2018guitar hero\u2019 thing came in and the management and label decided it would now be Alvin Lee And Ten Years After. I told our manager: \u201cI don\u2019t think Alvin can handle it. It\u2019s too much pressure for him.\u201d And it was.<\/p>\n

Woodstock made it even worse. He could have shared some of the pressure. He didn\u2019t want to do all the interviews, but he wouldn\u2019t share them. He didn\u2019t want to eat the cake, but he didn\u2019t want to share the cake either.<\/p>\n

On the last record we made together, he said to me: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come up with any more riffs, like you used to do?\u201d I said to him: \u201cI don\u2019t get any credit for the work I put in.\u201d So there was tension. We were always breaking up and getting back together. We\u2019d go out on tour, and for a few nights it\u2019d be great. Then he\u2019d find some excuse [to complain], like: \u201cThey\u2019ve put blue lights on us\u201d, or \u201cThe bass is too loud\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ten\n<\/p>\n

Ten Years After’s first four albums: Ten Years After, Undead, Stonedhenge and Ssssh (Image credit: Deram)<\/p>\n

Did you have anyone to confide in during those difficult times?<\/p>\n

When I was getting edgy with Ten Years After, Peter Grant<\/a> would say to me: \u201cLeo, if you want to start your own band, I\u2019ll help you.\u201d But I hadn\u2019t got the guts to do it. I got on well with Peter. He used to be a wrestler called Count Bruno Alassio. When he was managing Zeppelin, their tour manager told me: \u201cYou know, you\u2019re the only guy who can call him Count Bruno without getting beaten up.\u201d So Peter had a softer side. What was it The Eagles said about their manager \u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s an asshole \u2013 but he\u2019s our asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten Years After split in 1975, but your career as a producer was already rolling. What do you remember about working with Mot\u00f6rhead?<\/p>\n

Lemmy liked my bass playing, so he was fine with me. But he could be intimidating. I remember we got to the studio but there\u2019s no Lemmy. I called him up and he said: \u201cI\u2019m really ill, man.\u201d I said: \u201cOkay, don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll play bass, then you can dub yours on when you feel better.\u201d He came down straight away. He wasn\u2019t having that.<\/p>\n

Then he spread a line of cocaine across the desk, by which time the engineer was shaking in fear. We start this song, and he\u2019s doing the vocal when I say: \u201cHey, you could do a better take than that, Lemmy.\u201d And he says: [gruff voice] \u201cIn whose opinion?\u201d You know, he\u2019d had some cocaine. And I said: \u201cWell, in my opinion. You\u2019ve asked me to produce the record. Now, I can walk away, or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, the next day he called me up: \u201cI can do a better vocal.\u201d But we didn\u2019t do any more recording, because the record company didn\u2019t pay the bill and the studio kept the tapes. I honestly don\u2019t even know which album it was for. I think we did Louie Louie and something else.<\/p>\n

Ten Years After reunited in 1988. But you\u2019ve said Alvin\u2019s death, in 2013, was a decisive factor in you stepping away from the line-up.<\/p>\n

Yeah. No disrespect to the other guys, but you can see historically that it was always Alvin\u2019s and my band. I did go back with Ten Years After, without Alvin [in the post-millennium]. He said he didn\u2019t want to do it. And it was great for a time. But\u2026 I don\u2019t know. It wasn\u2019t the same for me. Then when he died, that was the turning point. We weren\u2019t working together at the time. But we always had a closeness, like estranged brothers. His death really hit me.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s next for you? <\/p>\n

Do you know, I\u2019m not sure. Last year my drummer in Hundred-Seventy Split [Damon Sawyer] died. We\u2019d been together eleven years. I\u2019m still getting over the shock. I cancelled what work we had and haven\u2019t done a show since. But I\u2019ll probably play some shows in 2026. I haven\u2019t given up.<\/p>\n

The three-CD Deluxe Edition of Ssssh is out now via Chrysalis Records.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ten Years After: Ssssh (Deluxe Edition) – Today’s Best Prices<\/p>\n

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