Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes
Fin !

Fin was the famous whisky-and-smoked-gravel voice of Waysted.

He disappeared for ages, but recently re-surfaced as the singer of the theme tune to The Office, the show which stars Ricky Gervais as David Brent.

I met up with him for a wee dram and a slice of haggis, and we talked about the good, the bad, and the Waysted years.

Fin, it's so good to talk to you at last! Ever since I first became Head Girl of the SITN School For Dropouts, people have been asking 'Where's Fin?' Nobody's ever been able to get hold of you, and then crash bang wallop, you turn up virtually on our doorstep. Here you are, in West London, en route for Milton Keynes! So.... first of all, what have you been doing lately? I've been recording a couple of things with Big George, the TV man. Big George is TV's Mr. Musicology - we've just finished recording some tracks as a follow-on from recording the theme to The Office. It sounds great, it's all there, all the tracks, but George wants to take it into the studio and tweak it up a bit, but yeh, it's sounding good.

Big George and I go back a long way. I first knew him when he played bass for Q Tips. I sang with Q Tips for a while after Paul Young had left. I did a couple of things recently with Big George, vocals on theme tunes and a few things, but about a year ago I broke my arm really badly.

Oh no - is it ok now? How did that happen? I was at a friend's house, playing him a lot of Tom Waits, introducing him to Tom's music, and anyway I left the house, started down the stairs, but I didn't turn the light on. Half way down I missed a step, fell down the rest of the stairs and badly broke my arm.

Blimey, you were lucky not to break your neck! I'm lucky to still have my arm, there was a baby buggy at the bottom of the stairs and I got tangled up with that, all my weight went on my left arm, and my arm came out at the joint - it didn't snap, it came right out of the socket - I was in hospital for two weeks - I've never had so much pain. It was a compound fracture.

This will have been about the time we were all looking for you, yeh? Paul and Pete were trying to contact you to sort out the Waysted re-releases, and we were looking all over for you and couldn't find you anywhere. Yes, that's right, I'd been doing my Karaoke show in Denmark, and then moved on to Ibiza with it - I'm the Karaoke King, hahahaha. I'd come back to Britain, and was living in West London at the time I broke my arm, and that was when Paul phoned me, when I was in hospital. Paul found out I was there, from a friend. There I was, lying in agony the day after the operation. I couldn't have painkillers, and I hadn't had any painkillers for two days - it was agony, with pins in my arms, sticking out, and I'd never had pain like it, and that was the day that Paul caught up with me. Just when you thought life couldn't get any worse, hahaha, and then Paul rang! Yeh! Paul rang about 3 times and he was a bit pished too, and he was tellin the nurses 'Just get hold of Fin!' I spoke to Paul after, and he wanted me to go over there to Florida, but it was all on a wing and a prayer and I'm a bit too long in the tooth for that, but it was good to be in contact again. Did you know Pete and Paul are touring at the moment? No! Are they? Who's singing? Pete's singing. Pete thinks he's Keith Richards, hahaha. Have you heard his new album? Has he sent you a copy? No! I'll make sure he does - he sends you his love! I'm surprised he's still alive So am I! In fact, so is he!

Your voice still sounds amazingly like the Waysted Fin on The Office theme tune. Do you do anything special to keep your voice the way it is? Errr... no, just plenty of liquid! Pete taught me everything about drink, and I've suffered for that in the past, of course, but no, plenty of drink, that's what keeps the voice right!

When you started out with Flying Squad you made a record that Francis Rossi of Status Quo produced... Cor blimey - yeh! You know about that?
We've got experts on the case here - true Finfans! They want to know if there is any likelihood of that one being re-released? Nooo, no way, that was back in 1978, I was 20 then. I can't believe people remember that!

What about after Waysted when you joined up with Lawrence Archer? What about any of that? Nahh. Nahh, that came to nothing - it's a shame, that could have been good - but one good thing that did come out of that was I got to meet Phil Lynott - that was a gas cos he was a big hero of mine. Lawrence and I used Phil's studio a few times cos it was near where we lived, and Lawrence was in Grand Slam at the time, with Phil. Phil used to come into the studio when we were trying things out. Top man.

How did you find out about the Waysted gig in the first place - how did you get it? Answering an ad, or what? Now this is an interesting story - I did a novelty record with a girl singer from Scotland, Fiona Kennedy - she was quite famous in Scotland, she used to host Record Breakers with Roy Castle. She came from a singing family, like a Scottish version of The Nolans. Her dad was Calum Kennedy who was quite big in the Scottish music business - a 'shortbread-tin' type of singer.
On the B-side of the novelty record I did a track with a band I was working with at the time in London, and it was nothing like the A-side, it was a rock number. And it was the B-side that got me the gig, cos my manager at the time, his big pal was a top old boy called Bob Halfin, who worked for Campbell Connelly Music Publishers - and his son... is... Ross Halfin!
Rob let Ross hear the b-side, and Ross knew Pete was putting a new band together, cos Fastway had just split up, and Ross told Pete about me, and I went round Pete's house, hollered in his front room, and got the gig!

One Finfan wants to know... what is the dialogue on Women In Chains? What are you saying when you're on that telephone?

Ohhh no, that was rude! I'd have to think about it to remember it, and get back to you, but it WAS rude... a bit rude. Ronnie and I would sit up all night with a tape recorder and record mad things.
Pete hated that track, Pete never liked that track. I thought it was something really good, but Pete never liked it. It could have been produced a bit better, it was a bit like Kashmir, the Zeppelin track, and if we'd had a producer who could have guided us in a bit better direction, that could have been a better record, and bigger than it was.

Do you keep in touch with the other fellas from Waysted? Paul, Ronnie, Andy etc? Well I spoke to Ronnie a couple of times since we last met. At the end of the tour with Ozzy, Ronnie and I got a farmhouse together in Philadelphia, and we shared the house - I had the basement, and we had goats and everything running around, and then one day the management phoned up and said Ronnie was sacked, and then we sold up and that's when I went to Denmark.

You don't keep in touch with Paul Raymond? No... to be honest, I didn't really get on with him too well - he was a bit precious. A bit of a 'pop-star'. He tried to get me thrown out of a UFO gig once! Pete's not like that - no, Pete's not like that, neither's Paul (Chapman). Phil can be a bit pop-starry too, a bit, but he's ok really. Did you manage to catch any of Phil's $ign Of 4 gigs? Who? What? Phil's new band, $ign of 4. I've never even heard of them - what's that then? (So I explained) I'm sorry I missed that! Isn't Phil with UFO any more? (I went on to bring him up to speed on UFO) So... Michael's out of it then now... hmmm. What a shame, that really is a shame, I'm sorry to hear that, really sorry. I never got to see Michael playing live, and that was one of my big disappointments. He's one of my favourite guitarists. Pete and Phil might not have helped matters - it was them that drove him mad in the first place, hahahahha. Yeh, but this mad stuff - isn't that what UFO's all about? Yeh!!!

OK, well, the next question, on a brighter note.... that spiderweb vest you used to wear.... does it have matching underpants? No, hahaha, but I made it myself - it's unique, it is the only one in existence! And does it still exist? Oh yes! I still wear it! Not so often now, cos twenty years has passed and I'm gettin a wee bit errrr.... well, you know, hahahaha we'll not talk about that.

We love that vest! We were gonna have a competition once in SITN where the prize was gonna be a chance for someone to run their hands over/inside/through/under that spiderweb vest (with you still in it, of course). That would have been nice!

Yeh, but it never happened, cos you were dead, as far as we knew! Hahahhaha, well, run the competition again, and as long as it's a female winner, that's ok by me!

Well, maybe. If we do, I'll rig it so I win it myself, hahahaha. But you've spoiled it for me now by telling me there's no matching underpants. No, there isn't..... not yet anyway, and in any case, they wouldn't hold anything in - and there's plenty down there that needs holding in, of course.

Trust you to direct the conversation this way - have you no shame? No, no shame, and I'm never shy about that.

Hmmm well, moving the conversation swiftly on.... how about Jerry Shirley, are you still in contact with him? He's been playing in Debbie Bonham's band recently, did you see him? No, I didn't know that! I need to know about this, you must tell me about all these people! Jerry Shirley is a lovely bloke. Yes, he is, really nice fella. Through Jerry, I got to meet another one of my heroes - cos after he did The Good The Bad and The Waysted with us, he teamed up with his old mate from the Humble Pie days, Steve Marriott. Their band was called Packet Of Three, and I went to see two or three shows with Steve - he was a little fat git then, but he was still fabulous, he could rock the pants off anyone - he was a great guitarist and he never got the credit he deserved.

Waysted had a very similar vibe to bands like that, The Small Faces etc. Not similar tunes, but a similar feel, the same energy and all that. Yeh! It was just a kind of madness we all had. The best period of Waysted was when Paul played and Andy played, and we toured with Iron Maiden. We were rockin.

Were they your favourite times? Yeh - Parker, Chapman, Pete and me, on that tour, and Steve Harris used to stand at the side of the stage and watch us, and we were rockin. The last album, a friend of mine just got the Waysted album that's got the mini album and The Good, The Bad and The Waysted. He ordered it off the website, and he burned me a copy, cos I hadn't heard it for a wee while, and I sat and listened to it, and I thought yeh, that was a good album!

Hahahahahah. Did you get Won't Get Out Alive, the one that came out again recently? No, I've not got that. I wasn't nuts on that, we could have been better.

OK, what about after you left, when Danny Vaughn came in? I saw him once, he was like a fan-dancer. He did a lot of dancing about, he thought he was Dave Lee Roth, but he didn't have one ounce of his panache. What about their version of Heaven Tonight? It was ok but for me, it didn't work. They tried to 'Americanize' it. It's still a good song though!

Why did you leave Waysted? We were due to play a festival in Israel, and I wanted to have a full week's rehearsal cos we hadn't played for a long time. But our manager at the time said we could only have a day to rehearse. I said we needed more than that if we were going to do a full hour-long set after not playing for ages, but he said no - so I said I wasn't going to do it. Paul knew Danny, and asked him to do the gig instead, which is how Danny came to take over from me.

Did Chrysalis look after you? Did you ever make any money out of that? No - no... but we did do a great video, and I had a great time after the video, hahahaha! The video we did for Love Loaded, that was a fantastic day, that was! We had Hot Gossip, they were a group of female dancers from The Kenny Everett Show, and we also had about 20 women dressed as secretaries - every man's fantasy come true - secretaries, mmmmm. Ronnie and I wrote the script for it! Dave Mallett, the guy who did the Bowie and Queen videos, top man, while we were recording that day, I'll never forget this, everything stopped for The Tube, cos ZZ Top were on, and they'd never been on The Tube before, only Old Grey Whistle Test, and this was something else, and we stopped filming to watch The Tube. They were covered in flour, with boiler suits on, and we stopped everything we were doing, all the production stopped to watch it. What a perfect day! You should have seen the script Ronnie and I wrote for the Women In Chains video, but sadly the video never got made, hahaha.

(Then we talked about other interviews I'd done, and I mentioned Danny Peyronel, whereupon Fin starts doing his Danny Peyronel voice)
Hahahahha, I've never met Danny Peyronel, and I'd never met Andy Parker either till I worked with him, but I felt I knew them both cos Pete is so great at doing impressions. Pete did a wonderful Andy Parker, it was just like him! Pete would be a great raconteur if you could get him just at that level... hahahaha.

Hey, I have a trunk - full of all my memorabilia, all my press cuttings, everything through the years. Oh wow, can I have a ferret through it one day? You can - there's everything in it, all the Kerrrrrrannnnnngggggggg stuff, everything including the vest!

Hey, it's so good to talk to you - did you hear the rumours going around about you? That you'd died of an overdose in a squat in Glasgow, and stuff like that? HAHAHAHAHAH, really? How exotic! The last contact I had with any of the UFO boys was with Paul, when he wanted to put a band together, with his son and his wife's mother's cousin's .... errr no, his son's girlfiend's brother, oh I don't know, something like that anyway, but he sent me the stuff, and he thought he could transform it into something like Nickelback, but the lyrics were tosh, I told him it wasn't for me!

So, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question..... if they wanted to reform Waysted, are you up for that? Oh yehhh!!! Yehhh! no question! I'd do it!
Well darlin, you've still got the voice. It's like this Office thing - at first, no-one knew it was you, but we knew it wasn't Rod Stewart, and it wasn't The Stereophonics either. And then we heard it was you, and wow, yeh, this is Fin!!! Did you get any benefit out of doing it? Well, I got a fee for doing it! But that was it. Mike d'Abo, the guy who wrote it, I heard he managed to buy a new house out of it! Yeh, the money is in writing - you had better crack on and write somethin. But you've enjoyed your times, yeh? Oh yeh! I've still got great memories, such as the time with John Conteh (the boxer) when we played in Manchester and Liverpool and places like that, John was staying at the same hotel, and he ended up coming on the tour with us, he loved us. He started wearing a Waysted t-shirt and coming along with us. We had to make sure no-one ever rang a bell, or he'd come out of the corner, fighting, hahahahah. We were driving to the gigs with him, and everyone had a kazoo, and we were all playing kazoos - I've still got some of that stuff saved on dictaphone, from back then. Great times.

Oh here's another question from one of our chatgroup fellas... why didn't Phil Taylor from Motorhead stay with Waysted?
Cos he wasn't good enough, hahaha. Marvellous bloke, lovely bloke - but he was too fast. Everything was at Lemmy speed. He thought he was still in Motorhead. Him and I got on great, we had a great laugh. We'd get arrested if we were to do that stuff now, hahahha, we were running about Wales, ok, and I don't know if you've ever seen that Comic Strip episode, Bonehead and Foyle? Like 70s cops, yeh? Well, we were doing that stuff around Pwllheli in Wales, where we're jumping onto the bonnets of cars, and pretending to shoot toy guns. He's got a recognisable face and everyone was looking at us, all the kids were following us, and we were running in and out of pubs with toy guns, and we were crazy, like trying to do somersaults as we jumped in and out of cars and all that - we'd get arrested for it nowadays, hahahaha.

OK, here's another comment from a Finfan - he says you sound like John Cougar Mellencamp. Whoaaaaa, that's a compliment! He's my favourite! A while back I had a band here in Milton Keynes, a house band, called Fin and Co. We had Big George on bass, there was Paul - another mad Scotsman - on drums, and Little Dan on guitar. We did covers of Thin Lizzy, Mellencamp etc. We were a big hit in Milton Keynes! I was running the bar too, I was Mr. Bar Manager, and on a Friday and Saturday night we were the resident band, and I'd play guitar and sing, and we did a lot of Mellencamp stuff - he's a big favourite of mine.

Another question... when it's 'all over' what would you like people to remember you for - what would you like people to say about you? Wooooo, that's a question, hmmm, when it's all over, eh? You mean like an epitaph? Hmmm.... I dunno... 'Been there, done that, wore the only-one-of-its-kind spiderweb t-shirt' hahahahahahaha.

Do you feel Waysted was ever living in the shadow of UFO? Did people try to compare you to UFO with having a lot of the same personnel? No, not really - what I think is, and Iron Maiden's manager gave me a hard time about this, is that maybe Pete and myself should have been little bit more disciplined, just maybe a wee bit more. I should have disciplined him, but instead, I got on that bandwagon with him - and up until a while ago I was still on it! He taught me everything I know about drinking, hahaha, It's all his fault, hahahaha. He taught me all about Special Brews. Hahaha, like Tennents Super! Did you know there used to be a helpline number on the can! There was, really! Imagine all these drunks, sittin on the concrete floors of phone-boxes, covered in puke, and trying to dial the helpline number and talk into the receiver as it's dangling from the phone, hahahaha. Have you heard of a band called the Alabama Three? Ok, well it's a band of either two Welshmen and a Scotsman, or two Scotsman and a Welshman, they do a number called The Old Purple Tin, all about Tennents Super - it's so funny, you must listen to it when you get the chance! They make themselves sound as though they come from the Deep South of America, but they're Welsh and Scottish, hahahaha.
(Fin starts singing The Old Purple Tin to me - crazy fella!)
I'd better let you go, darlin, cos you'll be gaggin for pint now we've talked about beer, won't ya? Well, no, I've got to go out first, and then I might have a beer..... I'm working tonight too, with the old Okeycokey. It's a great karaoke - it's not Crappyokey - I've got lights, and smoke machines, and I have wigs, and I stick on a blond wig and do Rod Stewart - and I have red and yellow cards too, so if anyone's a bit crap, I show them the card and they have to get off, hahaha. It's a full show, I can sing all night, and I do all the old soul numbers. I love it!
And you don't need to do anything special to keep your voice? Just gargle with the Old Purple Tin? Hahahha yeh, the old purple tin, hahahahaha. Lots of liquid. Never fails! Black Kestrel's a good one. Is that 11%? No, that's 9 and a bit. Crest is 11, I think? Crest? Oh that's horrible, that tastes like, well, it doesn't taste too good. But Pete will be kickin himself if he reads this, cos you can't get all that stuff over there, only crap stuff, really shite beer. Yeh... Yeh........ But I'm a reformed character now. I had a few wake-up calls, and now I'm a Stella man. I like the taste of Stella lager, and that's plenty strong enough for me.

Oh, that was something I forgot to ask you, what band and singers do you admire today (apart from the Alabama Three, hahaha)? Well, John Cougar Mellencamp is one of my favourites, although he's not done much lately, not for a couple of years cos he had a heart attack. I also love Tom Waits' music. Who do I like lately? There's a band called The Beautiful People, who had an album called 'When 60s Were 90s' - it's a Jimi Hendrix kind of thing but it's dance-music with sampling etc. I really like that album. I also love Macey Grey. But I'm also still playing alot of Bon-era AC/DC, and the Rolling Stones, hahahaha.

Are you gonna be one of these people who pays £150 a ticket to see them? Hmmm maybe! I've got a beautiful jacket that is very rare - a Voodoo Lounge leather jacket, with the little lips on the zips, it's irreplaceable. It's superb. I got given it by a pal of mine, it's really superb. Someone wanted to buy it off me, but I don't think I want to part with it.

This has been great. I must let you go, but we have gotta have another chat another time, it's been real fun Fin, Hey, it's been Funfin! Yes, I've enjoyed it immensely!

So... to sum up, what's the future for you? OK, well.... yes, I would do the Waysted thing again, but I'm happy doing a few music projects, and I really enjoy running my Karaoke show. I know a lot of people might say ''What the $%^£* is he doing karaoke for???' But it's great! I'm The Karaoke King! I'm Mr. Showman, and I love it - I'm entertaining people, and that's what I love doing, and I do it with style, I'm not like a crappy old DJ doing it. I get a lot of chances to sing, cos people are always requesting me to do Rod Stewart numbers, which I love doing, and old soul numbers, like Sam and Dave, Sam Cooke and all those. I love all those old tunes. Also, I have a lovely lady called Soo - we've been married five years now, and she is my soulmate. We're the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of Milton Keynes - we've been together on and off for sixteen years, but we keep coming back to each other.

Well Fin, thank you, I've really enjoyed this!
As Dave Lee Roth once said to me, when I met him at Donington... I said to him 'It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Roth' and he said to me..... 'the pleasure's all mine...' (here Fin goes into an American Dave Lee Roth accent) ....'the pleasure's all mahhnnn .... the pleasure's all mahhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn', the pleasure's all mahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Mr. Fin'.
So... 'the pleasure's all maaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Batttttty'.

OK, well, now I will go and be the perfect secretary, with my hair pinned tightly into a bun, and my stocking seams perfectly straight, and I'll take my notebook, put on my intelligent-looking horned-rimmed no-nonsense specs and go and type up this interview. Love ya!

© 22nd March 2003

It's great to have him back, isn't it!

Please sign Fin's Guestmap with your comments!

As always, my thanks go to the fellas in SITN for their help with putting the interview together, especially Dicksy!

All photos on this page are copyright of the various places I've nicked them from...
including the excellent Paul Chapman and Angus Mair websites - thanks!

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