Neil Innes’ name may not be well-known, but his work at the intersection of music and humor is rightly celebrated. In the late ‘60s, Innes was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, a British psychedelic/vaudeville act that enjoyed a solitary yet memorable hit: “I’m the Urban Spaceman.” Later, he was an adjunct member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, supplying music and comedy bits for the troupe’s TV series, stages shows, and movies. And he was also a co-creator (along with Eric Idle) of the Rutles, the Beatles parody act whose "All You Need Is Cash" mocked rock documentaries years before This Is Spinal Tap.
Innes is currently on an American tour, which brings him to Off Broadway on Sunday night. It’s a solo show that he says will feature “bits of Bonzos, bits of Rutles, bits of Python.” Mostly, though, it’s a loosely themed evening called "A People's Guide to World Domination."
He spoke to us by phone from a tour stop in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Tell me about forming the Bonzos. What did you hope that band would be?
We were all art students at different schools in London. I heard from a chap who lived in the same house that there was a loose affiliation of people up at the Royal College of Art every Tuesday night, playing this terrible old English jazz, and they were called the Bonzo Dog Dada Band—Dada being a turn-of-the century anti-art movement. We later dropped the “Dada” and called it “Doo-dah” because it was less troublesome to explain. We used to search the flea markets and junk shops for old 78s and find these treasures, like “Ali Baba’s Camel” and “Hunting Tigers Out in India” and “The Stork Has Brought a Son and Daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Mickey's Mouse” and learn them. Eventually we moved into pubs to play instead of the Royal College of Art canteen, and there we became quite notorious and it sort of took off. We never planned to be in show business, we just found ourselves there.
How did you get swept up into the Beatles’ world? Paul McCartney co-produced “I’m the Urban Spaceman” and the band appeared in Magical Mystery Tour.
In a funny kind of way, because we were just mucking about and having fun. Nearly all the other musicians that could call “serious” were jealous of us. Eric Clapton used to say, “I wish I could muck about like that. I’d love to come onstage with a parrot on my shoulder.” But you can’t if you have a poster with a silly afro perm saying “Clapton Is God.” Viv used to hang out a lot with John [Lennon]. And Paul. It was in a club called the Speakeasy, where a lot of show business people used to drink after hours. They used to stand at the bar drinking gin and tonics, talking like old English country gents: “Put another one in there, dear boy.” And it was there that Viv said, “They want us to do a single. But we don’t want to do a single, we’re happy the way we are. And in any case, our manager/producer says, ‘Next one, no one takes more than three hours.’” So Paul just said, “Well, I’ll produce it for you.” We went back to our manager, saying, “All right, we’ll do the single, dammit. But you’re not producing it.” And he went, [sarcastically] “Oooh, who do you think you’re going to get?” It was a wonderful moment.
The day came, and in breezed Paul, saying ‘Hello, how are you? Oh, and I’ve just written this.” And he sat down at the grand piano and started playing “Hey Jude.” And I thought he was winding up this guy, ‘cause it was taking ages, this dirge. The Beatles probably hadn’t even heard it yet. He’d probably literally written it the night before. And it was magic. [For “Spaceman”] he double-tracked the drums, played ukulele—such a jolly little record that it is. And at the end, it was cruel, because we said, “Oh, we don’t want Paul’s name on it.” We didn’t want success on someone else’s coattail. Our manager said, “Well, what name are we going to put there?” and someone said, “Apollo C. Vermouth.” And Paul said, “Yeah, that’s great. I’m happy to do that.” Naughty boys, we were naughty boys.
“Urban Spaceman” is probably your best-known song, but in recent years “Death Cab for Cutie” was appropriated by an American band for its name. What did you think when you heard that?
I thought, how strange and how quaint! I got the title from an American comic crime magazine. I found it in a street market. I think it was called True Crime. And on the cover were two headline stories. One was “Death Cab for Cutie” and the other was “It Was a Great Party Until Somebody Found a Hammer.” It’s the only song, I think, that Viv [Stanshall] and I wrote in the same room. We were just sort of riffing on “Death Cab for Cutie” and he went all Elvis. And the next thing you know, Paul picked that for Magical Mystery Tour, which is probably where the band first heard it.
Where did you first encounter the Pythons—or rather, the individuals that would eventually become the Pythons?
We were summoned, as it were, to be part of a team making a children’s program called Do Not Adjust Your Set: Michael Palin and Terry Jones, who were writing together, and Eric Idle; David Jason, a wonderful character actor; Denise Coffey, who is a brilliant comedian; and Terry Gilliam joined, doing animation on the second series. So I kind of knew the Pythons before they were Pythons. In 1969, when we finished the first series of 13 half-hour programs, the Bonzos went off to America and by the time we came back, the others had formed with John Cleese and Graham Chapman into Monty Python’s Flying Circus. And the Bonzos had had enough after five years. Eric just rang me up and said, ‘What are you up to?” He said, Come and help us out with some songs, we’re going to do an album.” I went and had supper with them after one of their shows at the BBC. I said, ‘Well, what sort of songs have you written?” And Eric said, “Well, Michael’s written this thing about agrarian reform in the middle ages.” (laughs) You know, ‘Right, that’s catchy. Let’s get on that before Motown does.’
John, who’s very businesslike said, ‘What kind of music do you think would be good for that.” I said [baffled] “I dunno. Reggae?” But I had a very, very joyful next few years working with Python. For the next 10 years or more I seemed to find myself attached to them quite a bit.
I want to ask you about the Rutles, which mocked the Beatles—albeit in a loving way—not that long after they broke up. It’s regarded as a classic now, but it wasn’t a success at the time, correct?
No. But it wasn’t really mocking the Beatles so much as mocking that kind of documentary. Somebody called it a mockumentary and that’s pretty accurate.
Eric and I had made this show for BBC2 called Rutland Weekend Television. Rutland is the smallest county in England and therefore, logically, if it had a TV station, it would have the smallest budget. So it was a license to make cheap television and deconstruct television again. And so my job was to come up with musical items and visuals to go with it. And I thought, “Why don’t we parody A Hard Day’s Night?” You know, it’s black and white and it’s speeded up like Benny Hill. Four guys in wigs and tight trousers running around a field. Cheap!
At the time, things were getting silly regarding the Beatles. Somebody was offering them $20 million each to get onstage. And Saturday Night Live were running with the gag. They had George Harrison on, and Lorne Michaels, the producer, was waving three thousand dollars in cash—that’s the musician’s union rate for four musicians on television—for a Beatles reunion. Lorne explained to George that he’d have to get the others and they’d have to split the money— maybe they could give Ringo less. And then they got Eric Idle to host the show, because he said he could get the Beatles on the show for three hundred dollars.
So we’d already made this film, and Lorne though it would be fun to show as a clip. And so, Eric Idle’s going to host the show, and right at the end he said, ‘Well, it’s a bad phone line.” He hasn’t got the Beatles, he’s got the Rutles. And they showed that clip. And the mail bag was amazing. So Lorne says, “What do we do?” So he went downstairs and got the money to make the whole story, “All You Need Is Cash,” the story of the prefab four. I remember, we were sitting in the office and everybody looked at me and he said, “Can you write 20 more Rutles songs by next Thursday?” I said, ‘Well, I’ll try.”
It went out on primetime on the network. And I’m proud—I think to this day, it’s still the lowest rating on network television. But at the same time, who remembers the episode of Charlie’s Angels that it was up against?
Neil Innes performs at Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp, at 8 p.m. Sunday, May 22. Tickets are $15-$18 Call 314-773-3363.
