Billy Sloan on Tina Truner, Liza Minnelli...and shortbread

Brian Beacom discovers the secrets to music writing success – and longevity. And he’s compiled a Sloan guide that would-be journalists should strive to emulate.

Meet Billy Sloan over a cosy tea in a Glasgow West End café and you immediately see past the greying hair and the waistline which suggest he was born around the same time as Bill Haley was rockin’ around the clock. Instead, what you are met with is teen-like energy and . . .

PASSION

Billy Sloan’s childhood featured Sinatra, the Beatles, the Monkees, Lulu and Dusty, all calling out to him via his mum and dad’s Arnott and Simpsons-bought radiogram. And as a teenager growing up in Springburn, Sloan harboured dreams of becoming a rock star (who didn’t?) But it was watching his first gig at the age of 15 that proved to be a career epiphany. “It was The Who at Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow in 1971,” he recalls, his eyes almost misty at the memory. “I queued out overnight in freezing conditions in Glasgow to buy my ticket, priced 85p. And seeing Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon on stage was a life-changing moment.”

Sloan now wanted desperately to be a rock journalist. But in the mid-1970s, breaking into the print industry was tougher than Keith Moon’s drum kit. It was all about personal connections, recommendations. And school was no help. When the teenager approached his careers teacher at Albert Secondary School, expecting to be greeted with sage advice and encouragement, his hopes were pressed flat as a LP. “He slapped me down. Told to forget it. I walked out deflated but determined to prove him wrong.” And that’s where . . .

DEDICATI0N

Sloan was committed to landing a job in journalism but meantime, the 16-year-old had to earn money. On leaving school he took a job as a builder’s labourer with Glasgow Corporation’s maintenance department. “It wasn’t a bad job,” he says, smiling. “I liked the guys I worked with, and I had a 28-inch waist at the time. But I also knew the work would one day cripple me.”

Sloan’s dedication to music however never abated. “I once was forced to borrow the 20p bus fare to get to work on payday, to pick up my weekly wages. I was totally broke having spent all my money on up-and-coming gigs. In a bedroom drawer was £40 worth of tickets to see a string of acts including Cockney Rebel, The Kinks, Slade, Wings, Roxy Music, Sparks and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. At a time when the average price of a concert ticket was around £1.50, it was a significant investment.”

Liza Minnelli - Savoy Hotel, London (Image: free)

Meantime, the rock-obsessed young man noted that Green’s Playhouse, Scotland’s greatest ever pop and rock venue, was looking for stewards. “This was my Willy Wonka golden ticket to the biggest stars in rock,” he rewinds, the excitement of the time evident in his voice today. “You didn’t get paid for doing the job, but who needs money when this coveted armband was an access-all-areas pass to every gig staged there?”

Indeed. But the break into journalism proved elusive, until 1976 when Sloan answered an ad for a cub reporter with The Springburn Times. “I had no experience whatsoever but incredibly the boss Nina Young saw something in me and gave me a chance.” He smiles. “To come up with stories I went out to the City Bakeries and listened in on conversations about potholes in the road or whatever.”

Sloan’s wages had dropped from £70 a week as a labourer to £19 as a cub reporter. And the 21-year-old was now married with a daughter. Yet, his commitment paid off. Sloan landed a pop column, with an all-important byline which helped land his next move. But it was aided (a little) by . . . .

LUCK

The success of Radio Clyde, launched in 1973 led to the station’s publication, Clyde Guide and Sloan was asked to join the team. Incredibly, his arrival in 1979 coincided with the nascent Scots pop industry, the arrival of bands such as Simple Minds and The Exile. Luck then played its part again when the Sunday Mail were on the lookout for a new pop voice; the deputy editor happened to be Noel Young, husband of his former boss, Nina.

Sloan was IN, with a remit to cover top bands and the Scottish music scene. But the much-coveted byline “By Billy Sloan” didn’t appear. What did appear was as horrid as a deep scratch on a new LP. Billy was tagged “The Disco Kid”. “Why did I want to smother him at birth,” he says rhetorically. But in soldiering on the young writer showed real . . .

DEFIANCE

“The column was flying but I faced a constant struggle with meddlesome – and middle-aged – members of the paper’s editorial team. Week in, week out they’d lobby me to write about some duff pop act, simply because they were their kids’ favourite group.

Sex Pistols - Ivanhoe's, Huddersfield - Xmas Day, 1977 (Image: free)

“On one occasion, I’d secured an exclusive interview with Peter Gabriel, an artist who rarely talked to the tabloid media. As I made my pitch to the features editor, he just gave me a blank look. In sheer exasperation, I said: ‘This guy is one of the biggest stars in the world. It will make a great piece for the paper, trust me. But you don’t even know who he is.’ He shot back: ‘Of course I do . . . he’s the bloke with the tube in his mouth.’ That comment proved my point. My boss was confusing him with Peter Frampton.” Sloan however continued to display one of his strongest traits. The former building site labour was willing to . . .

GRAFT

The Disco Kid byline was eventually shot dead. Sloan was allowed to be himself and worked hard to secure the best interviews, which didn’t go unnoticed by his former employers Radio Clyde who offered the chance to become a presenter. He had no broadcasting experience but he did have great relationships with bands such as The Skids and The Associates and by now the Minds’ Jim Kerr was a bestie.

Sloan also gave himself an edge over pop writer rivals by breaking the rules at Clyde, by playing cassettes submitted by bands. “I got demos from two brothers, Craig and Charlie Reid, from Auchtermuchty in Fife – with a hand-drawn caricature of the bespectacled twins on the cassette sleeve – and heard The Proclaimers for the first time. And a tape arrived from a local act called Woza, featured an aspiring songwriter, Ricky Ross, who’d quit his job as a schoolteacher to pursue a career in music.”

Sloan did his homework each time he interviewed the acts, regardless of their status. Years later he had the chance to interview Al Pacino on the Glasgow/London stage and “sat for 10 weeks, every night until 3am watching all his movies, even the art house films – and at the end of that I could have gone on Mastermind and done well.” Back then, he knew the graft was all-important.

By the 80s, Billy Sloan was seen as a champion of most arriving acts such as Altered Images, the Cocteau Twins, Wet Wet Wet and the Blue Nile. He was at the vanguard of the Scottish pop explosion.

Tina Turner - Bercy, Paris (Image: free)

Yet, working with musicians could be demanding. Sloan fronted a Clyde show The Music Week, on which guests would comment on new records. Except Nico wouldn’t talk about other people’s music. And Boy George and Haysi Fantayzee didn’t get along and continually trashed the other’s opinion.

Yet, early pop radio life offered up some lovely moments, such as Billy Mackenzie’s comments. “I played Fantastic Day by Haircut 100 and asked Billy if he rated the song. His answer was priceless. He said: ‘D’you remember when you were a wee laddie and your mother took you to the fairground, and as you were waiting to go on the Ghost Train you heard a record being played on The Waltzer? Well, that’s what that record reminds me of.’”

Mackenzie’s take on Eye of The Tiger by Survivor – theme of the movie Rocky III – was equally as off-the-wall: ‘You know that feeling you have when you eat six Cadbury’s cream eggs in a row – then you eat a seventh one? That’s how I feel having heard that song.”

Facing the “wonderful” Kate Bush across a microphone was a career highlight. “But there were a few occasions when guests got me into real hot water. In 1983, Malcolm McLaren joined me to promote his debut album, Duck Rock. But he never shut up. Not once. I struggled to get a single word in. And he swore. And there was no delay.” Radio Clyde management read Sloan the riot act.

Meantime, in 1983, the writer moved to The Daily Record. And again, defiance had to kick in. “My appointment was viewed by suspicion by hard-nosed veteran reporters. I knew I had ability to prove my worth. And one of his abilities included . . .

SCHMOOZERY

Sloan quickly came to appreciate that the door to the pop stars was very often guarded by slightly-built bouncers with huge egos and Home Counties accents with names such as Pandora or Patience. And you had to flatter their egos. But it worked. He landed a stream of big-name interviews with the likes of David Bowie and Paul McCartney. The major artistes didn’t mind at all when the Scot always asked for pics to be taken with them, or that he’d brought along album covers to be autographed. When he interviewed Liza Minnelli, he took along some shortbread. “Few of the London hacks would dream of doing such a thing. They were too cool for school and always thought they were much bigger stars than the stars they were interviewing.”

Rolling Stones - Keith Richards - Glasgow Apollo, 1973 (Image: free)

Not Billy Sloan. “I later shared an office with the TV editor who, when we had one of our frequent arguments, would say: ‘Your f****** problem is that you’re nothing but a fan with a typewriter.’ It was meant as a venomous put-down. But I took it as the ultimate compliment.”

Did he never worry about getting too close to the performers, that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to write copy that may have been critical? “I just called it as I saw it. And I hope that what comes across is I’m a fan, first and foremost. So, I’d go into a room with Bowie or Jagger remembering they were just people.” Unless he was . . .

BEWITCHED

Sometimes the artistes were awkward and dismissive, the likes of Mick Hucknall, Edwyn Collins, and Mariah Carey. “I asked Sid Vicious for his autograph, but he told me to ‘f***off’.”

Other performers out of tune with the interviewer’s expectations were Chuck Berry, Damon Albarn of Blur, Mick Hucknall, MC Hammer and the Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson. An interview with Mariah Carey had to be carried out 20ft away from the star, more than two decades before Covid. “But for every one of them I’ve worked with great interview subjects such as Rod and Elton and Paul McCartney.”

At times, Sloan has found himself captivated by the person at the other side of the tape recorder. He certainly had a fancy for Elaine Paige and Lulu. “I found myself with Tina Turner at midnight, in France, when she asked me to go on to a party,” he says, grinning. “And there was an American pop beauty who was at the beginning of her career. We met in Glasgow, and she was like a Miss World contestant. I was in love from the moment I set eyes on her. But I couldn’t get her in the paper, not a line, because as usual, these middle-aged bosses knew better than me. Her name was Shania Twain.”

Billy Sloan has made a massive mark on pop journalism and its performers. Rod Stewart sings his praises; Jim Kerr professes his love and Bono won’t forget him. But it’s deserved. He works hard and is obsessed with the work, a life of nights in sweaty halls, having his ear drums battered as if played by Moon.

“Sure, but I’ve been paid to do what I love,” he says. “I get to go to gigs, to interview rock stars, and I’ve travelled the world. And I’ve met some fantastic people who have become my friends. He breaks into a laugh; “If you’re not enthusiastic about that sort of job well, have a sleep on the couch or go see a film at the GFT.”

One Love, One Life by Billy Sloan is out now, priced £20, from Black and White Publishing