we were the hottest band in the world, with so much promise, so much to tell.....
CHAPTER 8: Love That Missile...
It was new year and we hit the ground running...or is that flying? Expectation was so high and growing bigger day by day. We needed to make a classic record.
With EMI’s money in the bank now Sputnik HQ was a hive of activity and a hive of employees all on PAYE. Magenta was working full time for us now and even had an assistant, a new Ultravixen, Victoria Kyme. Yes two PR’s full time for just one band! The press was becoming almost uncontrollable as the expectation of that first record increased daily. Was it hype? I didn't think so. Yes, I was aware that a great photo, a photo that told a story was the most important element. And boy we had great photos. I knew every time a Sputnik photo dropped on a bored picture editors desk at some paper or magazine it screamed Print ME! Print me Big, Give me the COVER!! But I believed in the band and the ideas, so I felt people wanted to write about us because it WAS such a great story.
Brian Carr had suggested we use Touche Ross as our accountants - they normally are the accountants for huge corporations. Well you can see what I was thinking... Huge. And it was all done straight with the tax man too, we were like the Department of fucking Industry already! It all fitted the image and of course the name Touche Ross became part of the story.
I didn’t think about the amount of money that was hemorrhaging out of the bank account already, before we’d made a record. Oh, also, what do you think my huge accountants first bill was like just three months later. Thats right you guessed it. HUGE. But hey, we are unstoppable!!
Moroder flew in first class with his programmer and engineer and we all set up camp at Westside Studios just up the road from 392b HQ. We decorated the studio with TV sets playing the Terminator and Movie Posters everywhere
If Magenta knew about Press then JSP knew about Television and television was chasing us now. A new series by LWT called South of Watford wanted to make a whole half hour program about the creation of the band. I got to tell the story to camera and they got to film in the Pink studio, in YAYA and at the record company.
It was a story of the age. Presented by Hugh Laurie.... you know him now as the House Doctor. There were countless other maverick film makers from all over the world following the band as well. What an archive I would have in years to come I thought.