It's The Truth - Making The Only Ones - Simon Wright

IT'S THE TRUTH - MAKING THE ONLY ONES -

SIMON WRIGHT

The Only Ones were a quintessential English rock'n'roll band and whilst vocalist Peter Perrett was so obviously influenced by Bob Dylan, that influence was thoroughly rinsed through deep layers of Englishness. In Simon Wright's book It's The Truth - Making The Only Ones, Perrett is quite open about his Dylan influence but he also mentions the influence of the Velvet Underground and their first album, on which Heroin is the first track on side 2...

Do you know those moments in conversations when there is sometimes a pregnant pause? Those moments when eyes meet and for a second lock on to each other as if the subtext of the conversation has suddenly been revealed and eyes are fleetingly meeting in recognition of this? Peter Perrett mentioning the Velvet Underground's first album with the first track (on side 2) being called 'Heroin' is one such moment. A moment when time suddenly stops and everything hangs suspended in mid-air. It's only ten pages into the book but it's almost as if the book should end right there.

When you think of The Only Ones you can't but help thinking of heroin and Peter Perrett's long love affair with it. The Only Ones were a functioning drug band with their most famous song, Another Girl Another Planet, being one of the most splendid odes to heroin ever recorded. Typically, Perrett denies the song is about heroin but then so did Lou Reed about Perfect Day and Hugh Cornwell about Golden Brown, although Perrett is happy to cite drugs as being the problem that led to The Only Ones breakup. Whatever. 

Heroin isn't cool, heroin isn't clever and taking heroin certainly isn't romantic but there's no denying that drug bands of certain denominations occupy significant places in the pantheon of rock'n'roll, and when it comes to The Only Ones their position is a pretty prominent one. 

Wright's book focuses on the formation and early days of The Only Ones up until the release of their debut album. It's a fan book, essentially, written by a fan for fans. I'm not sure, however, if it's been fully thought out as it comes across as not quite knowing where it's going and what its point is, though it does tend to make some interesting points and raise some interesting details.

Wright admits rather weirdly that the debut album on which the book focuses isn't even his favourite Only Ones LP and in his opinion the second album, Even Serpents Shine, offers a better selection of songs. So why not write a book covering all their output and the whole of their career rather than only up to the debut album? 

But back to the drugs. Prior to The Only Ones, Perrett played in a band called England's Glory whose debut album was made possible primarily due to the funds generated by Perrett's rapidly developing drug dealing business. So even before forming The Only Ones (inspired after witnessing the Sex Pistols at the Chelsea School of Art in December 1975) Perrett was not only a habitual user but an established dealer. 

Like calls to like, as any Zen Buddhist would know, and in their very early days The Only Ones caught the attention of Keith Richards who was particularly taken by their song 'Prisoners'. On hearing that Keith Richards rated them, Johnny Thunders paid them a visit and became friends with Perrett due to them 'sharing the same interests'. Richards was apparently interested in doing some production work with The Only Ones in the studio but in the end nothing came of it. Perrett did, however, go on to work with Thunders on his debut solo album, So Alone, providing guitar and backing vocals on some of the songs including You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory.

Keith Richards, Johnny Thunders, and Peter Perrett. A near-holy trinity of a very particular kind.

Whenever it comes to writing or talking about The Only Ones, the question always arises in regard to why they never achieved far greater commercial success than what they did, particularly with a song like Another Girl Another Planet in their roster? A song, of course, that some consider to be one of the greatest of all time. Simon Wright doesn't come up with any specific answers although in contrast to what Perrett says, he's in agreement with guitarist John Perry's assessment in that it had nothing to do with drugs. In comparison, he cites the Pretenders who have a variety of similarities with The Only Ones including not least the use of heroin within the band. Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott OD'd and bass player Pete Farndon was sacked for drug-related unreliability but this did nothing to deter or impinge upon the massive success the Pretenders achieved.

So why did The Only Ones split? John Perry suggests it was more down to maladministration, which is a bit of a boring reason but probably close to the truth. For all that, however, The Only Ones' legacy is a good one. Near-golden, in fact. Flawed but genius.

John Serpico