Roger Wootton and Bobbie Watson Reflect on First Utterance and Their Reformation

Transmission 255: Interview with Comus

Comus formed in London in 1969. The group was active during the early 1970s before reforming in 2008. The original members were Roger Wootton (vocals, acoustic guitar), Glenn Goring (acoustic guitar, vocals), Andy Hellaby (bass), Colin Pearson (violin), Bobbie Watson (vocals), and Rob Young (percussion). The band released their first album, First Utterance, in 1971. Its music is characterized by its sinister lyrics and acoustic instrumentation.

Following the album’s release, the band performed at various venues in London and the UK, often on a double bill with other emerging artists. In 1974, a second album, To Keep from Crying, was released. It featured a different lineup and a shift in musical style, incorporating electric instruments and a more conventional folk-rock sound. Comus disbanded later that year but reunited in 2008 to perform at the Mellotronen Festival in Sweden. The reunion led to a series of live shows and the release of an EP, Out of the Coma, in 2012. The EP included new and re-recorded material.

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Comus’ Official Bandcamp

How did you first meet, and what were your first impressions of each other—both musically and personally?

Roger: We met at art college. Glenn, myself and Colin Pearson were all in college and the others were friends. I started off playing with Glenn, then introduced Colin and gradually they assembled the others from friends of theirs.

Bobbie: At the time I had a boyfriend who knew one of the band, and we went to visit them in the house where they lived in Beckenham, Kent. My boyfriend knew Colin Pearson. So that’s how we met. What did I think of them? Well, I thought it was great because it was a shared house. I don’t know, probably like now you’d describe them as kind of hippie types, but they weren’t really. They weren’t really hippie types, but they… Roger and Glenn had been to the art college, and our manager, Chris Yule, had been to the same college, not to do art, but business. I thought it was fantastic because it was a free environment for all the young people together. It was really good. So that’s what I thought.

In what ways did the Bromley and Kent environment of the late ’60s influence your first musical experiences?

Roger: Very much. The folk music, the avant-garde folk music, Incredible String Band, Pentangle, and so forth, people like that influenced us a lot. Plus a bit of Bob Dylan. There was a lot of folk influence at the time.

Bobbie: It wasn’t really the area because before that, I’d been listening to John Peel. He used to have a program on in the evening once a week. He played unusual stuff that I’d never heard before. Also a little bit later, there were pirate radio stations like Radio Carolina and Radio London. They played very unusual stuff, and I would listen to that. Before that, I was really into the Beatles. The Rolling Stones lived quite near where I lived in North Kent. I saw their van one day. The other thing was when I was maybe 14 or 15, I went to a Fleetwood Mac gig with a friend. At the time, Fleetwood Mac were a blues band. I didn’t really think much about the music, but it was a live band, so it was really exciting. My mum would play Frank Sinatra all the time, and Count Basie Orchestra. I used to listen to the arrangements, how it was all put together. I was just really interested in it. So music was part of my life anyway. And then when I moved into the house in Beckenham, that was the next stage.

What kind of music were you listening to in those early days, and how did it shape your writing?

Roger: I don’t know, a sort of classical influence crept in, various different factors, but it was largely a kind of experimental folk, avant-garde, psychedelic folk, which evolved from reading The Lord of the Rings and this sort of thing.

What pushed you to step beyond traditional folk into the darker and more confrontational territory of First Utterance?

Roger: A sense of reading Tolkien and other writers at the time influenced us into horror and things like that. The psychedelia crept in with a sense of horror. I don’t know where it came from; I think my background when I was younger, just a reaction to my parents and so forth. It’s very hard to tell at the time what you’re reacting against, what brings it out in you, but there are various different things like that.

Looking back at those 1969–1971 concerts, what was the atmosphere like in the London and Kent scene you were moving through?

Roger: It varied a bit. Some places we didn’t go down well; some places we did. Some people didn’t appreciate us. Some venues were better than others, and some audiences were better than others.

Bobbie: It was really good. We always went down really well. Chris, our manager, was a really good manager, and he got us lots of college gigs. They were like art centers, and they were the best places for us. Everybody thought it was fantastic. I’m pretty sure part of the reason was that we were quite unusual. We had six members and different instruments—it wasn’t just guitar, drums, and bass. We were an unusual setup, so I suppose we got attention. Also, because we had a girl in the band, that was kind of fashionable because of Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin. And Roger’s performance was very intense. I think the young people really loved that; it resonated with them. So it was really, really good. We always got on-core. There were a couple of little clubs that weren’t the same, but the college gigs were really good.

How did the invitation from David Bowie to play at the Purcell Rooms come about, and what do you remember most from that night?

Roger: We were just forming; we didn’t even have the name Comus at the time. We were living in the same town as Bowie in Beckenham. He started the Beckenham Arts Lab and wanted a band to play a residency there because he was going to do one. We just fell into it; we were in the right place at the right time. He was playing Space Oddity and Jacques Brel songs from his first album. We were just beginning to play our first Comus material then. A residency is a great way for a band to start because you get lineup and name changes before you decide on one. We had the opportunity to experiment in front of an audience, which is great because you find out what works and what doesn’t.

Bobbie: What do I remember most? The thing is, I think the unspoken way of behaving for the band was to not be impressed, to be cool. Space Oddity had just come out, so he was becoming a big name, but Roger and Glenn knew David Bowie. I’m pretty sure Glenn did anyway, because David Bowie had been at the same college a year or two before them. So they already knew him. David Bowie lived in the area where our house was. My first ever gig was at the arts clubs that David Bowie ran. He knew Glenn and Roger, and I’m sure he thought we would be a good support for him at the Purcell Rooms. That’s how it came about.

I remember seeing the American guy who performed with David Bowie. I can’t remember his name, but he played recorder. I remember that because I played recorder with the band as well. It’s the only instrument I could play, really, because I learned it at school. I remember being in the dressing room and thinking, “He’s playing recorder. I play recorder.” To me, the recorder was only associated with school, not with a proper instrument. But I thought, “Well, if he plays it, that must be okay.” It was a great venue, obviously. So yeah, that’s what stuck in my head.

How important was the visual side of Comus, from the album covers to your stage presence?

Roger: The drawing style came from art college. I was doing these illustrations that just came naturally and seemed to fit with the music.

What were some of the obstacles or the challenges you had to work through in those early years?

Roger: Earning money was a big one. It was hard trying to keep the band together and on the road. When Rob Young quit, that was the beginning of things falling apart. We couldn’t make enough of a living and couldn’t keep the band together for long enough. The irony is that we’re much more popular now than we were then. A whole new generation has gotten into our music, and we’re much bigger. It’s global. We’ve toured all over the world, but we didn’t have this following back in the old days. We only had Britain and Europe.

What led you to regroup for the Mellotronen Festival? What did it feel like to perform such intense material live for the first time?

Roger: It was difficult at first. I had gotten so far away from it that it almost felt like we were a cover band performing other people’s material. It took a long time to get back into it and remember everything. It’s amazing. You listen to the records and hear the chord sequences, but can you remember the fingering? It took a long time to relearn the songs. But we got it together, and the new gigs were very good. The band was very good. It took a little time to get used to it, but we got back into it. The audience was fantastic.

Bobbie: I never had a doubt that we could do it. I don’t know why, but when you do things when you’re young, they stick in your head. I had hardly forgotten anything about the lyrics, maybe just one or two, or the arrangements of the songs. The first time we rehearsed, it just came back really, really easily.

It was exciting, because at the time, I never thought anyone had heard of us. I never used to mention it to anybody. When I went to college, I never mentioned it because I thought people would say, “What are you talking about? Never heard of them.” But to know that this history existed, I found a website called Prog Archive and saw all this stuff. I couldn’t believe it. I think because we were so different as a band, that’s why we were so influential. It said on Prog Archive that because we had been so different, and the subject matter was Roger’s influence, that we were influential because of the internet. Back when we were performing, there was nothing. You had music magazines, papers, and the Yellow Pages. But when the internet came along, it was so easy to find out everything, and people could post what they thought. I suppose that built up interest. It felt really, really good, and people liked it so much after so long. We split up in ’71, and then until 2008, the name Comus had hardly been thought of or mentioned. I was completely gobsmacked.

Was there a moment when you realised the audience was reacting in an unexpected way to your songs?

Roger: When we reformed, the first gig was at a festival in Stockholm, and the audience went crazy. They were fantastic and they knew the music, they knew the songs. In the old days, it was very hard to get an audience. Half the audience didn’t like it, and half did. But now, when we reformed, everyone liked it and there was a lot of interest in the band. We tried to write some more material. Out of the Coma was the best song we came up with.

How did you approach bringing both new songs and older unfinished material into Out of the Coma?

Roger: I think it wasn’t a very good album. I wanted to write more songs before we put an album out. The key track is Out of the Coma. I really got the feel of the old band, but I found it very difficult to write more after that. I felt exhausted of that material, but I did manage to get Out of the Coma written. I’m pleased with that.

Which moments from Comus’s live history have stayed with you the longest?

Roger: The touring. Since we reformed, the touring has been fantastic. We’ve been all over Europe and we played in Tokyo. We played places we never expected to before. We have fans all over the world, which surprised us because we hadn’t had that the first time around.

Bobbie: I guess when we reformed for the Mellotronen Festival. I couldn’t believe a lot of young lads had come from America. There were about 10 of them, and many others in the audience knew all the words and were singing along with us while we were performing. I couldn’t believe it. It’s like some big famous band, where everyone knows the words to Beatles or Rolling Stones songs. They were singing along with us. I called it “Sing-along a Comus,” just as a joke. It was quite amazing.

Are you recording new material?

Roger: I’m writing my own solo material now, but it’s different from Comus. I’ve moved on. It isn’t suitable for Comus. I sing differently, and the writing is different.

Photos and images courtesy of Comus

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others