Neil Innes
Neil Innes
Neil James Innesis an English writer, comedian and musician, best known for his collaborative work with Monty Python, and for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth9 December 1944
ignore looked presence stage walked
Viv had this kind of stage presence where you couldn't ignore it. He walked onstage, he looked dangerous. You just didn't know what he was going to do.
became best cabaret clubs england gags north shortened six success took version
We then took a shortened version of what we'd been doing in the pubs, with the best gags and things like that, out to cabaret clubs and things in the north of England for six weeks. And we became a big success.
songs wrote
But mostly, I wrote songs and Viv wrote songs.
bass needed solid somebody
But Dennis was a really solid musician, and we really needed somebody who could play bass like him.
larry tony wrote
Larry only ever wrote one song, and he wrote that with Tony Kaye, I think it was, from Yes.
In many ways, Viv and I were the only ones who were really songwriters.
I used to help Viv with the chords and melodies sometimes.
good guys peer stuff
It was just us lampooning our own peer group, saying, well hey, where did this stuff come from? And where does British guys get to be so good at it suddenly?
means
We weren't by any means like the Grateful Dead or something, who could just roll on and on and on.
We weren't going to play the show-biz game, and be obsequious.
goes
I mean Gorilla was really our first sort of goes at songwriting.
ladies music suffered
Ladies and gentleman, I've suffered for my music, now it's your turn.
funny
So we used to look for funny songs, and learn them and play them. And we used to play them in pubs.
track records track-record
I wasn't aware that Track Records were interested in the Bonzos.