With two albums out and following a barnstorming gig at the Borderline in September, 70s R&B giants The Inmates are back on the loose again. Keith Shackleton talked to lead singer Bill Hurley over a couple of pints, and learnt all about the soulful and bluesy world of both Bill and the band…

KS: Tell me about the re-released records! How did you come to make ‘Meet The Beatles’?
BH: One of our first big breaks as a band, even though we were semi-pro …a Czech guy who was into blues came to watch us quite regularly, spoke to a friend of his who had a good rock club in Paris. They asked us to do a gig there. Little did we know that this particular guy had set it up with Radio France to be broadcast, so almost overnight we were big stars! The French newspaper ‘Liberation’ was a big fan of the band and in 87 they had an idea of celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper album, with a rough and ready band just like the early Beatles and Stones.. so they asked us!
We did the concert in the suburbs of Paris, 6000 people present, and Vic Maile did the production on the mobile. It was a tall order since the Beatles had three main singers; of course in The Inmates I’m the only lead singer.. but we did it! The album did well in France and was #1 in Scandinavia and it re-established the
original band; I had left The Inmates in the mid 80s because of illness. From 87 up to today we kept the original line-up. Gil from Riverside Records had been a fan of the band from his days in France, and I got to know him when he came to London. He called and asked who had the rights to the Beatles record; we weren’t sure, Mute/Sonet who released it originally had closed down, and we didn’t even have a tape or album of the gig. In the end I think Gil found an original copy and put it out.
KS: And with great timing, the release ties up with the Warners ‘Best Of’ which is out now…
BH: Another guy at Warners who is a fan! He has license to do special projects and someone in France also had the same idea a couple of years ago. The two of them together with Pete and Tony from The Inmates made the selection of songs.
KS: All the original line up on the records?
BH: Myself singing, Peter Gunn and Tony Oliver on the guitars, Ben Donnelly on bass and Eddie Edwards on drums.
KS: How did it all begin? Have you always known the guys in the band?
BH: My dad was a singer, did all the big bands in the 50s, recorded for HMV, and so I was originally influenced by a lot of the people he liked: Dinah Washington, Jimmy Rushing, Joe Williams. That’s why I wouldn’t run away from doing a ballad. But I took my own influence from rock and roll and rockabilly – Presley, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent – then all the sixties group when they came through – Yardbirds, Pretty Things, Small Faces.
I was working for IPC Magazines and was offered a job with The Count Bishops, but couldn’t leave my job to do that. I kept looking through the Melody Maker and finally saw an advert for a band into Wilson Pickett, Stones, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf… looking for a singer. So that’s when I met Pete and Ben. The three of us
sounded good! Then along came Tony Oliver from The Cannibals and also John Bull, the drummer who played on the ‘Dirty Water’ single. John left a little bit before we got our deal.
We thought we’d just be semi-pro, but we managed to get a gig from John Eichler at the Hope and Anchor on a Monday night. He liked us and gave us four more Mondays: by the fourth Monday, there was a queue round the block! Then we got the Nashville and it started to build. Max Bell reviewed one of our gigs in Melody
Maker, Andrew Lauder from Radar saw it and signed us up.
We’d already recorded the Standells song ‘Dirty Water’, did the rest of the tracks and that became the ‘First Offence’ album and I quit my day job when it was going up the charts! ….