Piledriver

Product Information

AL: I wrote ‘A Year’ with Bernie Frost, a guy that John had introduced us to. He had this one line, he played it for me once at my house, “da-da-daa-da-da-du-da da-da-la,” he says, “that’s all I’ve got”. I took it from there. It’s got a certain vibe, we thought about playing it live, but it’s quite a down sort of song. When you’re young the things you think about are sex or death, and I guess sexual death is what that song is about! Losing someone you love. ‘A Year’ was one of those one-offs, I was just trying to make a nice dramatic song.

The album was released in December the same year, and reached the highest position of #5 in the UK charts, spending 37 weeks there. [13] The opening song, "Don't Waste My Time" was written by Francis Rossi and Bob Young in the soon-to-be trademark shuffle style the group would become famous for. The lyrics complain about a girl not being serious about a relationship and messing around. The song became a live favourite, and frequently got audiences bouncing around at gigs. [3]JC: I think we knew what we wanted. We didn’t want to be told by a producer how it should be. We didn’t want to spend all our time trying to explain how we want to go in one direction and have him trying to pull us in another way. He would want it to be really commercial and we wanted it to be more heavy. JC: I’ve always played a lot of stuff with what they call four-on-the-floor, four beats to the bar on the bass drum. Played hard and loud, that’s what makes the people leap up and down and do that Quo dance, shuffle. A lot of drummers don’t play four-on-the-floor, they do two to the bar, it doesn’t work, you have to play four to the bar, for the shuffle, which I’m pleased to say I’m good at. All songs published by Valley Music Ltd. except "Junior's Wailing" published by Artist-Musical Productions/Franklyn Boyd Music Ltd.; "Roadhouse Blues" published by Doors Music Company (erroneously printed "Door Music Company"); "Bye Bye Johnny" published by Arc Music Corporation

The acoustic album comprises mainly songs from the seventies catalogue. There are enough good songs here to consider this quite an acceptable release even if somewhat pointless. I really don't recommend anything but you could listen to Cross That Bridge and Burning Bridges for a bit of a laugh.

FR: We used to sit in a circle at the IBC Studios in Portland Place, London. We’d be making the album, there’s the smell of kebabs and we’d be smoking joints.