Tony Mantor's : Almost Live..... Nashville - Jeff Wayne's Journey Into the Timeless Legacy of "The War of the Worlds

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Have you ever wondered how a rock opera becomes a timeless classic? Join me, Tony Mantor, as I sit down with the legendary Jeff Wayne, the genius composer behind the 1978 rock opera adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds." In this episode, Jeff opens up about his fascinating transition from an aspiring journalist to a renowned musician, revealing how his childhood piano lessons ignited a passion that would shape his future. We explore his early music industry experiences, including a stint with The Sandpipers, and how his father's entertainment career provided a blueprint for success. Jeff also shares unexpected tales from the tennis court, showcasing the diverse talents that paved his way to stardom. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jeff’s groundbreaking creation, we reflect on how "The War of the Worlds" transformed from a modest release into a cultural phenomenon. Discover the magic behind its evolution, the innovative stage technology that brought it to life, and the cherished memories from global tours and iconic events like the HMV signing in London. Through our conversation, you'll witness the powerful emotional connection this masterpiece has fostered across generations, and the humbling experience of witnessing its enduring legacy. Tune in to experience the journey of a production that continues to captivate hearts and minds worldwide. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars, or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes,

and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Our guest today is renowned American-born, British musician, composer, and record producer Jeff Wayne, who produced the 1978 rock opera based on H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds.

With an initial goal of charting for just one week, his album defied expectations, remaining on the charts for an impressive 330 consecutive weeks. I'm honored to have him join us today, so thanks for coming on. Well, thank you for inviting me. Oh, it's my pleasure. So I understand you started getting into music at an early age. It would have been around the age of 1920. I had actually made my way through a junior college, which was at the time highly regarded in journalism. And that was my major.

I wanted to be an investigative journalist and use music as sort of an additional part of my life. Journalism was where I was going. And I got this AA degree, an associate of arts, a two-year degree, and then realized music was my greater passion. I had been taking piano lessons since the age of about five and I had a couple of bands and was beginning my songwriting and arranging career, but I switched majors and from that point on, it's music has been my life.

Now, once you realize that music was going to be it, you got out of journalism. I understand that you was part of the group, the Sandpipers, for a while. I was. It was a group that was put together by a writer who was writing the script for what became a movie featuring Richard Burton, coincidentally, and Elizabeth Taylor called The Sandpiper. And the movie company wanted a band to promote the movie. The starting point was to write this song called The Sandpiper. And I joined this group called The Sandpipers, which was at the time, a guy and a girl who did the main singing, they played acoustic guitars.

I did the arranging, played percussion instruments, and we recorded the song. it didn't get used, and the guy married the girl. They went off on a catamaran, but somehow I stayed with for a while a reform group, which became the Sandpipers and had the big hit, Guantalamara, of which I had nothing to do with it, because by that time I had left. So I'll gladly accept in the broadest sense that I was in a group called the Sandpipers. Well, that's definitely an interesting story. Always take credit for what you can take. Now, is it before that or was it after that that your father was in England doing his music? It was after. We had come back from England. I moved there with my dad and my mom when I was about nine. He had been quite a successful entertainer, singer. He had three number ones in a row in the United States, did Broadway and all sorts of other things, and was also.

offered the role of Sky Masterson, the romantic gambler in the classic Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. And that's why we moved to England for the first time. So I was about nine. And it's only when we came back first to New York and then moved to California, where my dad was getting a lot of film work, recording again, touring, etc. that we moved to California, and that's where my college degree in journalism and then majoring and turning to music as a career happened. Was it right before your music started kicking in and you realized that music was going to be the career that you wanted to do? Because before that, if my memory serves me right, I believe that you was fairly well known

for what you was doing in tennis. Is that correct? Well, tennis has been my main sport throughout my life, Tony. And I did play number one in high school and college and was probably around national standard, but it was still in the amateur era. Unless you were really on the circuit and getting support from the USDA, you didn't really make a living from it. I did make a living teaching it. And it's only years later when we moved back to England that I started competing again

and wound up winning national titles as a VEFER. which is age 35 and over. And I'm not quite sure how a Yank wound up playing for Great Britain twice, but I did. And I live in a county called Hertfordshire, which is where I'm speaking to you from. I'm in my studio, but it's part of a bigger house where I've lived for many years. Hartfordshire is a home county just outside of London. Yeah, I've captained their men's team for 35 years and played in all the age groups and even partnered on one of the two occasions, somebody who's.

now a good friend of mine named Roger Taylor, who was a three-time semi-finalist at Wimbledon, won some grand slams and doubles and was top ten in the world. When we played the over 45 European Championships for Great Britain, he and I partnered in doubles, and we each played singles. Wow, that's pretty impressive. So you had quite a collection of things that you did throughout your early years before you actually grabbed a hold of music to make it your full-time thing. Yeah, I did, and I had odd jobs when we lived in New York, including delivering meat in the height of winter on a bicycle for a local butcher, sold my mother's American cigarettes when we moved to England on the corner of the apartment or flat, as it was known, when we moved here when my dad was doing guys and dolls. A lot of odd jobs. Yeah, nothing wrong with that at all. You really made a name for yourself on the music that you did with War the Worlds. You had something before that that created the path for you to do what you wound up getting well known for.

I did. I had, by that point, when you're talking now about the World War of the World War of the World's, I started working on it with my dad, who we partnered on the project, around 1975. But in the many years previous from, say, around 1969, I started, I guess in a proud way, I say I was a backroom boy and received many commissions for all. or meteor work, radio, TV, a lot of advertising, some film work, and I started producing artists and had some good success, particularly with one artist named David Essex, who, in fact, we were talking about Nashville earlier. The reason I was in Nashville is a record that I had done with David, hit the top of the U.S. charts, and I was sent to meet some artists in Nashville with the possibility of producing them. But now I was producing David, and I was touring with him,

as his MD. I did arranging for the bands and even put the bands together. It was that period that the War of the Worlds came along in my life. It was a book handed to me by my dad, because he knew I was looking for a story that I might feel passionate about as a composer to try to interpret it in a musical form from a blank page. And it took about a year or so to find a book that I felt that way about. And it just happened to be the night before going out on another tour was David that my dad came over wishing me luck for the tour and said, oh, by the way, here's another book. And it was H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which I read while we were on tour and I fell in love with it. It turned out, and I didn't know this, it was a very dark Victorian tale

set in 1898, and H. G. Wells wrote it with a view to using his Martians as invaders, not just a story of science fiction fantasy but taking a pop even at the british empire which was probably at its peak of expansionism during that period and he felt invasion by any nation into another was just wrong so that's the heart of his story although what i also fell in it with was the secondary themes which weren't so secondary in truth but it dealt with one's faith no matter what faith you were about hope and things that were worth living for. Put those all together, and it was a book that just moved me, and it was the beginning of my relationship with the story

and what became my musical version. Once you decided that this was going to be a project you was going to work on, you was going to have to map it out, put it all together, and ultimately make it into what it became, what went through your mind to approach it, so it could be what you wanted it to be, but still be commercial enough so the people would want to come see it, hear it, and immerse themselves into your project, your baby. Well, the starting point was the composing of what became a double album.

I wasn't really thinking so far ahead to believe what it's now become, which has been in so many different versions and iterations. but when I saw that it was going to come out as a double album, my goal was to see it literally in the UK album charts for one week. So I could sort of feel I didn't let all these amazing guest artists that were on my double album, the band that I put together who were top flight musicians, the artist that created paintings, and the record company, which was CVS Records in those days.

It's now part of Sony. When it did come out, it had a big launch at the London Planetarium, with a full house of media people interested enough to come to have a listen. And we had set a sight and sound show at the Planetarium to my double album. I remember afterward when meeting various journalists and media people being asked, what was my aspirations for this double album? And I said, you know, I think if I could see it in the UK album charts for one week, I would feel I hadn't let anybody down that had worked with me or backed me

and not realizing that it would stay in the UK album charts for 330 consecutive weeks. And it still, to this day, pops up now and then in either the pop charts, the vinyl charts, the club charts with over 300 remixes now that have been successful or well played. It's just had an amazing life. Yeah, it certainly has. That's awesome. So when you start out with your humble beginnings on anything, You put your heart and soul into it.

You have the hopes, like you just said, if I could get it in the charts for just a single week, that it would show the people that was involved with it, that their efforts they put into it was not in vain. So what went through your mind? It just took off. I mean, you're getting people from the outside world just coming to see you.

They're picking at you, pulling at you, tugging at you. They're doing everything. just to get a moment of your time, because everything else is getting so much more involved, your time becomes so precious. So how did you manage that? Because it's tough for anybody. So how did you manage it and what went through your mind while you was managing or trying to? That's a great question, actually, Tony.

And I think for me, where it really hit home wasn't so much that it jumped into the charts and we were having two big international hit singles from it. It was when I started being asked by CBS to go around to quite a number of countries to promote it where it was taking off in the same way it was happening here in the UK. I think that's when I realized it was having an impact. Here in the UK, it happened so fast and I was just going from one opportunity to another to talk about it, whether it was radio, TV, press, which was pretty much the medium of the day. nothing digital in that era. So I was just kept so busy,

so appreciative of the acceptance by the public and the media that I just went with it. I didn't really have much time to think about it beyond that. To put it in perspective, I guess, the release happened at the height of the punk revolution here in the UK

and disco was king of the dance floor. And here I am a yank living in England interpreting a dark Victorian tale. continuous play over two albums, no cuts, so I didn't have the ease of sort of being able to, or anybody for them out of picking up and finding a tune that you might want to play. You had to find it, and it just found a slot.

I was a young guy at the time, and I remember thinking I had the same sort of angst in a way as the guys and ladies who were into performing and writing punk music. They were just doing it in three-minute bursts. I had to do it in a hundred minutes to get all the angst out of me. But some of my grooves, in particularly the main theme, they're straight out of the disco world or the club world. And I think that's why somehow it connected on so many different levels.

They're now looking back some 46 years to life that has had in every form is not something that I could have remotely predicted. Or I'd be sitting with you. You're in Nashville. I'm here in Hartfordshire, England, talking to you about the same work that's, been around in my life now for 46 years. That truly is pretty amazing. If you look at a lot of singers that have made their mark in the world of music, they've had that one single that has kind of defined them, and usually that just doesn't go away. Then they continue to work on their body of work to create more. With you, this seemed to just blow up in a certain way, that it

became its own body of work, and over the years, it just keeps reinventing itself. You're right, and I could never have predicted that. It's now been an arena tour since we started in 2006. It's all the big arenas around the UK and Ireland. We played many countries in Europe and as far as Australia and New Zealand. It's been in the West End. I've conducted every show. I've never missed a show, in fact. Next year we're touring again, the UK and Ireland and some dates in Europe. It's a production that's just grown in emotion and scale. Technology has changed so much so that if you were to compare the first tour we did and the one we're going to going out with next year, it's almost unrecognizable in the spectacular elements of it. We use not just the

stage, but we're out in the audience, over the audience. And I have the joy of conducting on stage a band that's largely been with me all these same years and a symphonic string orchestra. And as a conductor, other than a 20-minute interval, it's a continuous work of about two and a half hours now. And I always feel my feet never touch the ground. I'm sort of like a hovercraft until the show's over and I land back on Earth. Wow.

This next question, I think your answer is going to be quite interesting. because the original concept, I believe, it was 1978 that it was released. Now we're looking at 1978 and here we are in 2024, going into 2025. How do you see the reaction from the people that first saw it in its first conception with the reaction of a new audience that's seeing it now? because we have used this term earlier in our conversation, that word is evolved. So it's evolved in something really spectacular

over the last 40, almost 50 years. So how are you seeing the reaction from the earlier years to the reaction of new people seeing it now? I think I really started becoming aware of these changes when we started touring, because I guess unless you tour your work, no matter what type of artist you are, solo artists, a band, a show,

you don't know who's buying your records with small exception. Now, we know, and from the time we started touring, we're up to three generations. So when the War of the Worlds came out, it was a young audience that was buying it, whether it was the albums, the singles, young as in mid-teens to probably mid-to-late 20s.

Now it's three generations, and that original audience, they've become grandfathers, and they've brought their children who have now started bringing their children. And it's quite remarkable. And just to put that same point into perspective, last Saturday, the biggest record shop in Great Britain is part of the HMV group,

and their flagship shop is in Oxford Street, in London. It's a big, big street with tons of shops and restaurants, etc. I did a signing there of our new double club album called Ula Dibula, repressed in vinyl is the original double album. And I was promoted as appearing for signings from 2 to 3.30 in the afternoon. And all pre-sales to get into the shop for me to sign for those who were attending were sold out, which was thrilling. And that was around 250 to 300 people.

So I was expected to end at about 3.30 in the afternoon. What we didn't anticipate was the amount of people that were just going to show up and buy the records in the shop and then queue up for me. To me, I was on the second store of this huge store and they were queuing out on the street. I suddenly was puffing my chest out sort of or subconsciously thinking, my goodness, this is like being a real artist here. And hit that point home, there was a national radio station that happened to be driving by. and they saw all these people out on the streets queuing to get in and they rang HMV and said, who's there? What's going on?

Whoever they spoke to at HMV told him. They said, oh, wow. They asked if I could do a little interview and talk about the event, which I did, but it was booked for 5.30 thinking, okay, I didn't finish at 3.30. I must be done by 5 o'clock. And the people just kept coming and coming. and I had to excuse myself and apologize when I went to another room to do this radio interview. And I came back and everybody was still there piling in.

My last signing was at 821 and I looked at my phone. So instead of finishing at about 3.30, it was closer to 8.30. And it was just a reaction of people that were coming from all over Great Britain. It was actually rather humbling, Tony, because I had people from Glasgow in Scotland all around the north and the south of England. I just thought it was going to be people that were from London and gave me their following and I'd signing whatever they came to buy from the War of the Worlds. But it just amazed everybody. And coming back to the three generations, there were three generations of families there, not everybody,

but there were enough to realize that there was the dad that was a young boy or a mum, who was a young girl, who bought my original double album in 1978 and thereabouts. and now not only did they bring their children, their children have brought their young children who are back in the age group that the original fans were. So it was a true eye-opener. Yeah, that's truly outstanding. Not only that, but it is taking it full circle for sure.

You're right, I think it is. When you have something like that happen that's way beyond your wildest dreams and expectations, you said it was humbling, which I totally understand. it has to give you such an inner warmth. Your music has not only touched just a group of people when you started, but it's been passed down to, like you said,

parents, to the kids, to ultimately the grandkids. That has to feel like such an accomplishment on your end. And then sit back and just take it all in. You've got to be really proud, not only of what you've created, but it has that lasting power. Well, thanks for saying that. That's much appreciated. And yeah, I am, when you talk of pride, I'm very proud of having created something that's lasted so many years now.

And the fact that, in a way, Wayne's Folly, as my mates in the band used to call it, is maybe not such a folly after all. Yeah. So what's next on the agenda? You say that you've got tours for 2025. So with everything that you've got going, the success you're having, what's next? Well, it's been over a year since we started planning the next arena tour, and that's what's happening next year. Next March and April, we go around the UK, Ireland, some dates in Europe.

Once that's done, then I've got a couple of things that I'm going to be doing before planning, believe it or not, which we're doing already with our promoters, a 50th anniversary since the release of my original double album. Fighting looks like it's going to go on for a while, not that I'm complaining. Nice. Yeah, nice. So with everything that you've accomplished, you've done your sports, you've done your productions, you've done the show, it's been almost 50 years now. What's on the bucket list? What are some of the things that you think you'd like to do, that you'd like to do, that you haven't done yet? Well, when it comes to the war of the worlds, and this is one of the things that when I was saying, I've got planned after this next tour, it's to return to probably the dream

project, which is to turn my musical version into either a feature film or maybe a streaming service series, because it not only lends itself, I mean, when you consider it's science fiction, It's music-based. It's got vision, and it also goes back into another world of Victorian England. I think it's got all the ingredients. Our tours now pretty much run in perfect sync with the live performance, a feature film. So I think I've got all the ingredients to make that happen. I'm going to put a lot of energy in.

And I've been approached over the years from independent film companies to a couple of big ones who saw the same vision, but didn't quite have enough time to develop it or agree the concept. And I won't let go of the vision that H.G. Wells sort of handed to me when his son, Frank, allowed me to, with my dad, buy all these rights up and turn it into a musical work that was a true reflection of the H.G. Wells' novels. There's an old saying that says things happen when the time is appropriate or you're ready for it. You're right. I think everything has this natural progression. And of course, the old saying is if you push too hard, you can push it away, but you can't just sit there and be nonchalant about it. So there's a fine line there to make it all work.

That's really a good thought. And I'm not nonchalant about the war of the worlds, but I think you're right. When it's time, it happens. Is there anything else that you would like to put out there that we might not have touched upon? Well, I think you've been really good in the way you steer me through it all. I guess the only thing we haven't mentioned is that it's over five years now that we opened in the city of London an immersive experience. It takes over a whole building. It's 24 rooms. And when you enter it, you're greeted by a Martian fighting machine that's firing its heat ray at you in a large restaurant and bar, all looking like the world of steampunk from Victorian-torn. times, including the people who serve, the restaurant, and the bar, and the whole building is set in the way our musical version of the War of the World takes place. But what we didn't anticipate, maybe in a way it's not that different from the way the unexpected results of my original double album happened, is that it was budgeted to run for somewhere between three and six months, and it opened, and it just took off. It's one just about

every award in the interactive world. And we've just passed our fifth year, and it's going to be running at least till the end of the seventh year. There is a comedy team in the UK here for many years called Little and Large. And I compare my immersive experience with Little, whereas my arena tours are the Large.

And so I've got the Little and Large of Entertainment World with my musical version of The War of the Worlds. Yeah, that's a great analogy. I think it's just so good, it's going to be comforting, I guess. You put something out there and you have your ideas of what you think it should do. Then it's always nice when it exceeds that. Then you can take comfort that people are coming out and enjoying all the hard work that you've put into it.

You're right. That's expressed beautifully. And thank you for saying that again. You're right. There's nothing I can add to that. I have to say, I really appreciate you coming on. This has been fantastic. Thank you very much, Tony. And I hope we might be it at some point. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. I'd certainly enjoy that.

Indeed. Thank you again, Tony. Real good fun talking to you. It's been my pleasure. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media, at plateau music.com.