ALL IT TAKES Is ONE Listen & This 1979 1-Hit Wonder Will Become a FAVORITE! | Professor of Rock

oh man I am so pumped about this one coming up an interview about one of my favorite songs of 1979 I think it's the coolest song in 1979 truly technically this band is a one hit wonder but what a story behind this song first of all it sat on the shelf for years because the label was changing Distributors so it put it behind and then a worker strike at the record plant might have kept it from being a number one hit because the factory couldn't print the record so the fans could even buy it and then when it did become a hit finally the band immediately broke up then a decade later the song finally hit number one when it was used in an insurance commercial the long and winding story of a classic hit it's coming up next on Professor Rock hey music junkies professor of rock always here to celebrate the greatest arest and the greatest songs of all time you know if you remember waiting a line around the block to see that great summer blockbuster back in the day you're going to dig this channel uh make sure that you subscribe below right now click the Bell so that you never miss an episode and for even more content and behind the scenes footage check us out on patreon and also take a look at our merch below we have the Vintage years collection as well as just professor of rock merch it's right below so it's time for another edition of our series B the lightning this is where we celebrate a song that was king for a day or for many days even weeks we honor artists and bands and that one glorious hit that they have that rocketed up the charts for reasons unknown they didn't have another hit we all know them for the the term one hit wonder but you know and here we try to Step Beyond that and honor them as lightning and a bottle some of the great songs of all time and today we go for a ride in the driver's seat with sniffing the tears the number 15 us billboard hit from 1979 with original lead singer and songwriter Paul Roberts [Music] Roberts is also a gifted painter this was a perfect song for its time with a you know cool acoustic guitar opening turned into a 70s like a guitar attack with a dollop a Sleek Moog synthesizer that was driving toward the future with irresistible background vocals [Music] this was a song that stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I heard it it's one of the best bottle lightning tunes of the late '70s for my money and I got a chance to catch up with singer songwriter Paul Roberts about the song and he gave us some insight including where the heck the band name stiffen the tears came from always thought that was a cool name I don't usually like to ask the band name question but this one's interesting so as we go into this interview I do want to thank our awesome sponsor zeni iar the glasses I always Jam here with zeny you have sty for every single budget you can do rimless glasses right now you just pick your frames and then you choose from a variety of lens shapes including rectangle there's heart-shaped so many others check it out today at zen.com here's Paul Roberts and the driver's [Music] seat all right driver's seat was really ahead of its time it was one of the key tracks that the ushered in New Wave in my opinion at the dawn of the80s and integral part of the album Rock format which was coming on strong in America at that period and on the pop side driver's seat was undoubtedly catchy and it was fresh and it just didn't sound like anything on top 40 radio at that [Music] [Applause] time I think it's because you know when when we when we did the demos it was sort of it was sort of accidental I mean it was It was kind of the you know that it was a group of musicians had never played together before and it was like well what can we do with this you know so uh so in that sense uh we weren't sort of aiming to kind of be very commercial or do this or do that it just kind of It kind of gained its own uh momentum you know and and and in the end everybody was saying hey this is really this is this is good you know uh but it wasn't kind of set out you know it wasn't uh it wasn't planned let's put it that way you what can I well so new lines in love very cool track but it fell to chart anywhere the highest it got on the Billboard Hot 100 is number [Music] 108 and so kind of set the stage for that comeback single and you were just a new bam but came to decision for that second single which of course was driver's seat [Music] with you Luigi was a big believer in the hit potential of driver's seat and it sounds like you guys shared that belief everybody did I mean to be to be you know honest I mean i' I'd had people before before we even did the before we did it uh you know I mean when I was singing I was singing that song in Paris in a restaurant and I and and another Busker came up he said would you mind if I did that song you know I think that's a really great song so you know it was it was that was sort of you know one of the it was one it was always a contender it was in my mind and I think in and you know so when we came to do the album you know Lou certainly knew that that was the one that we wanted to kind of get right you [Music] know like I said became an international hit in 79 but you were saying that the Genesis of the song goes back to 73 when you were in a band called I believe it was ashes of moon right no no ashes of moon that never existed that this was an I did an interview with somebody back in the day and they said you know uh how did Sniff and the tears come about and I said well it came out of the ashes of moon because the band that that Luigi was in was called Moon yeah and that was so I was just making a you know a rather sort of metaphorical kind distinction but but no the original band that I had in the early '70s was when the song was first kind of uh written was um was called Sniff and the tears we we did we did play around the pub scene in London and and all that you [Music] know it's interesting because I've read so many different stories and some of said ashes of moon some of said Moon I thought well maybe it started out as Moon and then they changed the the name just so funny the urban legends and the things ashes and Moon's not a bad name but it did no it didn't never exist I don't usually talk about band names because I think that's a a tired process that people ask oh how'd you get your name and everything but I do think sniffing the tears is a very cool story about how you got your name well it's it's quite a long story I me I won't go on too far with it but it's a in my sort of uh early s i i I tried to write a dystopian novel believe it about about the idea that that there some catastrophe happens in the world whereby uh that the only people left are are basically Asian you Chinese and and and African and the white race has been kind of decimated or disappeared and there's this guy working in a place called the records and he discovers rock music by looking through old sort of things and comes across this band called the tears and uh and so I sort of when we came to try and choose a name I I was talking to the my manager I said well we could what about the tears you know and he said well why not sniff in the tears because I had hay fever I I was always sniffing so he said well you know sniff in the tears might be better you know and uh and so that's how it came about and I then sort of sort of made the made it sniff m like rock and roll so you [Music] know well driver's seat is ultimately a song about the range of emotions after a breakup and I'd love to just ask you about some of the lyrics and break down the eloquence of of these lyrics the first verse is actually people hear it wrong it's doing all right a little jiving on a Saturday night night which most people hear a little driving on a Saturday night D sat night and then the second verse you sing about Jenny who was sweet but she had another way of looking at [Music] life the way I I've sort of looked at it really was jny was sweet she always smiled for the people [Music] she basically a friend woman who everybody fell in love with uh you know including me of course and uh but but she was she was not going to be anybody's you know so she was she was on her own uh trip [Music] really that wasn't going to work out really and so it's it's my it's my my uh not that I had this great relationship but that I could have had a great relationship but it wasn't going to happen that was so yeah more like that well I've always been intrigued by the line there is no [Music] Elite what did you mean by that I was always curious well I think people people see things uh see see life in in sort of in in a kind of pyramid terms you know that that that there's a there's a sort of scale you know where you find yourself in the scale I just I just don't believe in that I think you you find yourself in yourself not in relationship to other people and their success or failure you [Music] know well the driver's seat yeah I mean I think it just means uh not literally getting into a car but just taking control of your own destiny that's all yeah this you know don't let other people uh you know decide your your life you decide your own life [Music] driver seat and your vocal on driver's seat it has a unique Dynamic shift you sing some of the song in a a contemplative [Music] style and then you inject some intensely emotional emphasis in other parts like the Jenny was sweet there is no Elite pickup pickup section before the bridge yeah [Music] yeah up did you fashion your style after a particular singer that inspired you or not really I I just thought I thought that because there was a you know when we had the originally you know there was going to be a breakdown where which went into the drum beat and then sort of worked his way up again I just wanted a little bit of anger you know to come into the into the play you go from reflection to a bit of anger and then back to you know the the the result you know so uh it was just that really and so so it's sort of contemplating the way you CH turn stuff over in your mind when you're trying to kind of sort through the debris you know and and work out where you go from here you know it's mixture of emotions well speaking of the original band Chris Burkin on bass and lo Netto on guitar and Luigi as we said on drums and he produced pickle heart as well and then Mick who sadly passed away in 2018 delivered the guitar intro for driver seat and you hear that intro today like I was playing it the other day my kids thought it was a new song I mean that's how that is how great I feel like the recording was because when you hear the the acoustic guitar come in with that it sounds brand new well that's good that's nice to hear yeah yeah [Laughter] the guitar work and driver's seat I just think it's outstanding including the solo and the song's outro give us kind of the behind the scenes crafting of those guitar parts well I mean one of the things that that happened I mean obviously L was sort of playing you know the the the the more rhythmic parts and the and the Riff was Mick you know the that was Mick [Applause] [Music] it's a very simple Rift but it's it's quite powerful and originally I mean on the demo it it it went right through the song you know uh but um Steve lipsum who was the uh engineer on the you know who did you know was got very involved in the whole thing and uh he's since become quite a you know successful producer you know he's done Annie Lennox all kinds of people but he was uh yeah he and bazer who was the the other the the engineer from pathway who who Lou sort of said oh he should come along because he was involved in the demos and you know it' be nice to have him there for a second opinion you know and um we were we hadn't come in hadn't got into the studio and uh they' sort of basically they kind of edited all the guitar uh the guitar was out of the verses so you you had the Riff and then you went to the verse and then so there was a lot more air you know basically it wasn't so full [Music] [Applause] on and I think that created a dynamic which really really worked you know because then the piano kind of took over and you just in the [Music] groove so you you know when the when the rift came back in you got this lift you know and so on you went you know I never remember [Music] with yeah that was kind of an important uh kind of you know part of the where came together really driver seat and then at the end you know we sort of everything drops out on this climatic kind of take your place in the driver's seat and then you know you just get the the drum beat [Music] yeah and then then then it all comes gradually back in it's partly because you know it was it was a song without a conventional chorus you know it didn't really have that so uh you know it it it to sort of make it kind of episodic you know so that you there was a build that you know you just you just wanted to hear that you know that progression again [Music] what also brings the mystery in is that electronic fluttering effect right that's the mo [Music] synthesizer you know Keith did the synth work he had he had a MOG synthesizer which was you know the thing in those days and so yeah so he did all that and uh that was that was that was new [Music] nol maalla lead singer for the band Moon delivered that baritone I think the yeah and the chor the [Music] bridge I've worked with no ever since because he's just he's a great singer I mean just on in his own terms but uh he's great his voice goes really well with my voice I think you know it's a he's my favorite uh backing vocalist you [Music] know it was a long rise to getting to that prominence because like you said it was a a song that you played way back in the day clear back in in 1973 but you record it and the demo and everything but I I understand though that when it came out in the UK they were on strike at the record oh well yeah we did we did top of the pops which is which is great you know to do top of the pops you're sort of guaranteed but uh but what happens is is that you everybody you know it's this is the nature of pop music in those days when people bought Records Was that you sort of you know you you you rushed out and got it you know but uh the the Emi pressing plant went on strike at that precise moment so you literally couldn't buy it you know for for for sort of two or three weeks afterwards you just couldn't get it so it lost a lot of momentum you know I think and um yeah no it really did I think it yeah I think we we it was doing all right which is why we did top of the pops but then suddenly you know you couldn't get and I mean the album had had already been delayed a year because we made it you know in 78 and you know quite early on and uh and it was delayed because the the record company was changing its distributor distributor you know so you had the we a whole year we had to wait a whole year which was which was awful because a lot of the lot of the journalists then said oh that they're trying to sound like d Strait actually we we did our album before D Strait did theirs so you know that that can't be true going back to the Netherlands though driver's seat Rose to number four on the first run in 1980 in that country but how a pop culture Renaissance in 1991 in Holland went all the way to number one so many years later only time only only place we were ever number one I think that was fantastic yeah no I I I you know Holland is I'm just literally um a few months ago did a did a couple of gigs in Holland you know just before they locked down again you know it was sort of we did a couple of shows there just me and Les doing acoustic thing you know what are your feelings about driver seet all these years later well I mean I I've I've written a lot of songs since you know but I mean it's a it's a song I still like I mean I I I don't I never tired of playing it hey leaves a comment about driver's seat by sniffing the tears a bottle lightning classic if there ever was one what are your memories of this song what do you think of it let us know in the comments below if you dig our content make sure to subscribe Bel so you never miss out on our videos

Channel: Professor of Rock

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Keywords: professor of rock, professor of rock 70s, behind the music, vinyl story, classic albums, song story, 70s, 70s rock, 70s greatest hits, 70s music, 70s hits, 70s nostalgia, rock band, rock, pop, classic rock, seventies, sniff n the tears, professor of rock bottled lightning, professor of rock sniff n the tears, pop rock, one hit wonder, paul roberts, power pop, paul roberts interview, driver's seat, 1 hit wonder, 70s one hit wonder, sniff n the tears driver's seat, new wave

Id: s2JqpEjeV6k

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024