Kevin Godley - 10cc - The Craft of Genius

The history of pop-rock owes far more to 10cc than just a handful of eccentric hits scattered across the second half of the Seventies; as with every sacred monster worth its salt, for the band founded in Manchester in 1972 by a quartet of songwriting friends the rule holds that the most precious gems lie hidden in the least-trodden grooves of their records, on the B-sides that few but the earliest fans would have bothered to explore. Blending the melodic craft of Beatles and Beach Boys, the dynamism of a glam rock less concerned with glitter, and the compositional flair of the pop-song incarnation of Zappa, 10cc released, at least up to their sixth studio effort in 1979, "Bloody Tourist", proof upon proof of a talent often condensed into three-minute songs, experiments in musical humor as original as they were sharp. On an artistic level, the band's golden age ends with the departure of its two boldest members, singer and drummer Kevin Godley and singer and guitarist Lol Creme, who left the remaining Erik Stewart and Graham Gouldman with the unenviable task of restoring their Beatlesque eclecticism, updating it for the coming decade.

The two defectors didn't sit idle, rebranding themselves as Godley & Creme and releasing in '77 a commercially unviable debut, that triple vinyl "Consequences" which positioned itself as a primer of art-pop present and future, enriching its most intricate passages with the use of one of their own musical inventions, that Gizmo which was even played by Jimmy Page for Led Zeppelin on the opening of "In Through The Out Door".

Kevin, if you go back to the Manchester of your adolescence, what are your earliest musical memories?

I remember an episode from just before my teens. I was 11 and the headmistress of my primary school was demonstrating to me and twenty other yawning kids what good music was and what bad music was. Her "good" choices were various opera arias and Classical compositions that she played on her shoddy turntable, which put me to sleep like you wouldn't believe. Her "bad" choice was Elvis Presley singing "Jailhouse Rock", a track that jolted me awake with a shock of pure excitement. The other kids started staring at me, unsettled, because apparently I was jumping up and down, screaming and hammering on my desk as if it were a drum kit. I was immediately thrown out of the classroom and put in detention. But by then it was too late: in an instant I had absorbed the power, the allure and the rebellious spirit of rock'n'roll, which unwittingly catapulted me into my future life.

Of the four 10cc members, you're the one with the strongest vocal talent: which singers of the past would you put on the podium?

Always and without question Marvin Gaye. I name him because his voice was sufficiently restrained but, only when needed, could explode and hit the highest notes. His way of playing with time, moreover, is unusual to say the least. His performances are always flawless and, I'm told, he'd nail the perfect take within two attempts. I would have loved to boast a talent like that. Instead, through sheer trial and error, I found my own voice.

Do the best ideas come from a sudden flash of intuition or from a chain of reasoning?

Before anything else, intuition arrives. Any shaping and reworking only ever happens after some already evident form has manifested itself.

What are the ingredients of the perfect pop song?

Magic! A magic that can show up in different ways and, at least for me, is hard to pin down. Some claim it's something inherent to the melody, some attribute the origin of it all to the lyrics, others believe it's the result of the sound or the performance. Maybe it's a combination of some of these elements. But magic remains that inscrutable ingredient whose true nature you never really know - and never will - until your song comes out and people react to it.

"I'm Not In Love" may be your biggest commercial hit, but there's more to it. I'm thinking of "The Worst Band In The World", which in three minutes sums up much of your genius.

That track is pretty tough, yes. But I'd also recommend listening to titles like "The Dean & I", "Somewhere In Hollywood", "Hospital Song", "Une Nuit A Paris" and "I'm Mandy Fly Me".

Looking back, why did you and Lol leave 10cc?

Like many young bands, we started out full of passion and innocence, confident that all four of us saw things the same way, and then... we grew up. As you find your own path and broaden your horizons, there's not much you can do about it - tastes change. We spent practically every day together for a good 4 years, but at the same time other outside friendships came along that led us into different creative fields. So, gradually, each of us began nurturing perspectives and goals different from where we'd started. So, as well as growing up, we also, inevitably, grew apart from one another.

Do you feel it was creatively worthwhile getting back together for the "…Meanwhile" album? Is there something missing from that reunion?

Yeah. There's some good stuff on there, but something really is missing and I can't quite put my finger on what. I enjoyed singing the songs I was brought in for, and honestly, I didn't feel any tension in the recording studio. Bear in mind I had no idea how the other tracks I wasn't involved in were structured. I just focused on giving a good performance, and I enjoyed reconnecting with Graham and Eric. I guess the main difference for them was working with a record producer and bringing in session musicians. I'm not sure that was such a good move, since among the defining ingredients of 10cc were precisely the imperfections that came from our own eccentric talents.

Thinking about the 10cc albums made after you left, what was lost and what was gained?

To be honest, I haven't listened to all of them. I've heard bits here and there and taken note of the new atmosphere they built without us. There are some good compositions. Plenty of love songs. Some with a traditional structure, others more sprawling, like "Feel The Benefit". Let's put it this way: on the whole, the duo seemed more comfortable crafting good songs than throwing caution to the wind and really putting themselves on the line. But they did have some big hits, no doubt about that.

Can you explain, in terms a layperson can understand, what the Gizmo actually was?

The Gizmo came about because we wanted to add strings to some Hotlegs songs, the first incarnation of 10cc. Unfortunately, back then hiring an orchestra in Manchester was expensive and also a bit impractical. Classical musicians had never really been encouraged to make themselves available as session players in recording sessions, and we sensed very little appetite for changing that. The only decent string section around was the Hallé Orchestra, but their enthusiasm and willingness to work with us was pretty much nil. Result: the Gizmo!

Let's get into the details of how it was actually built.

After bolting a Fender Stratocaster to the wall, we attached an eraser to the end of a rotating drill bit and applied it to the guitar strings. The theory was: "A guitar is a stringed instrument, and just because the strings sit flat above the fretboard doesn't mean they can't be bowed, just like a violin or a cello." We were partly right, but it took a couple of years and help from the Manchester College of Science & Technology to figure out the best way to make our idea work. Electric motors, gears and 6 tiny circular rubber plectrums that could be lowered onto the strings with your fingers. And in the end it worked…

On which track does the Gizmo really shine to its full potential?

I won't give you just one track – I'll point to the whole of Godley & Creme's triple vinyl album "Consequences".

What did you expect to achieve by releasing such a complex masterpiece as "Consequences"?

For a year and 4 months we were locked in the studio 24 hours a day, chasing something that didn't exist… until we created it ourselves, so as you can imagine, we had no time to listen to anything else besides the musical ideas swirling around in our heads. Time was the enemy. In our own way, we suffered the same fate as 10cc did in their second incarnation: the musical landscape was changing, but we simply didn't care, or maybe we just didn't notice. Unfortunately, the size and price of a triple album drew criticism. On top of that, people kept comparing it to what we'd done before with 10cc, and that held us back for a while too.

What did you learn from that whole experience?

To always pay attention to every single detail, no matter what.

What do you admire most about Lol?

Imagination, courage and tenacity. And his mastery at playing every kind of guitar and keyboard. He's someone extremely determined to perfect a musical idea once it shows promise, but he also has the intelligence to abandon it if it isn't delivering the hoped-for results.

Let's stay on your duo: listening back to a little gem like "Foreign Accents" from the album "L", I wonder how much Zappa is in your DNA.

Zappa for sure. But also musique concrète, be bop, Motown stuff, and people like George Gershwin, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, The Band, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Lou Reed and David Bowie.

Despite the great creativity and the accompaniment of wildly original videos, the Godley & Creme project never achieved the same success as 10cc. How do you explain that?

Look... it remains a mystery to me too. If I wanted to answer, I'd paraphrase Milos Forman's 1984 film "Amadeus": "Too many notes!"

A pioneer of the music video should be asked: how has this art form changed over the decades? Now that artificial intelligence lets us do pretty much anything, music videos seem far more banal than they did 30 years ago.

Thanks for saying that. To put it in one phrase: this is emerging technology. Now the most basic tools for capturing and editing images are available to anyone, and new talents can experiment and grow even on a shoestring budget. The problem is that, inevitably, alongside the good stuff, a mountain of garbage also surfaces and stays floating in plain sight.

What will become of the creative process?

Our creative processes will be gradually eroded. Artificial intelligence offers us considerable potential, but by default we'll once again find ourselves typing away in front of the same old computer screen. There'll be no need to scout sets in some far-flung location. No need for sound stages anymore either. No need for directors of photography. No need for set designers or costume designers. All convenient and cheap, perhaps... but at what price for art and for our working experience?

From "Girls On Film" by Duran Duran to "The Power Of Love" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, you're responsible for some of the most important music videos in history. Which ones satisfy you most on a technical level?

"Even Better Than The Real Thing" by U2, for which we shot 360-degree footage of the band performing in front of the camera. Also for U2 we produced both "Numb" and "Sweetest Thing", for both of which we filmed a series of synchronized live events and edited the various footage together to give the impression that everything was happening in real time. And then go back and watch Lou Reed's video for "No Money Down": we really went for broke on that one!

Not to mention the delightful "Cry" by Godley & Creme.

For that video we rediscovered a "vintage" video editing technique that let us bring a kind of morphing effect to the middle of the screen, several years before actual morphing was invented.

The trickiest video of all?

Not to dodge the question, but one way or another, every video presents problems that are impossible to foresee until the process is properly underway. And there's nothing you can do about it: you just have to deal with the messes as they arise. Sometimes it's human error, but more often it's down to faulty technology. For example, my favorite tool has always been Motion Control, a programmable, computer-controlled moving camera that can reach places inaccessible to cranes and dollies and endlessly replicate even the most complex movements of a traditional camera... I love those capabilities, but...

…but?

Motion Control doesn't return my love! It's responsible for stretching an untold number of working days by countless hours, and it's ruined practically every session I've ever used it on.

What ultimately brought the Godley & Creme adventure to a close?

Same reasons as what happened with 10cc. The situation evolved in exactly the same way, only more gradually — so instead of lasting 4 years, this time we lasted 27.

Are there any bands out there today who could pick up 10cc's weighty baton?

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that radio programming these days gives more space to solo artists than to bands. Still, if I had to pick, I'd say The 1975, or whatever new outfit David Byrne happens to be fronting. But generally speaking, the pop-rock played on the radio depresses me quite a bit.

What's your relationship with Eric and Graham like these days? A few years back I saw you on stage as a guest at some 10cc shows.

Graham and I are still friends. Actually, if you noticed, when you saw me as a guest vocalist on stage at a 10cc show, Eric wasn't there. As for Lol, I have to admit I haven't spoken to him in years.

What led you to move to Ireland?

There was a period when I kept going back and forth between England and Ireland to shoot videos for U2. And at a certain point my wife Sue and I fell in love with the place — with its indescribable atmosphere, the rhythms that shape the lives of the people who live there, and its thriving artistic community.

I read that you dream of directing a film about the time Orson Welles spent in Ireland: what did good old Orson get up to over there?

He traveled around western Ireland on a donkey-drawn cart, painting landscapes, getting drunk and getting up to all sorts of mischief with the local girls. But above all, in 1931 he made his professional acting debut at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.

What do you think your legacy will be?

I simply hope that what I've done is seen as meaningful. And I've never stopped working at it: right now, for instance, I'm starting up a project called One World One Voice.

What cracks you up?

The whole world! Its absurdities, its cruelty, its ignorance, and the current President of the United States.

What's the most extraordinary aspect of being an artist?

Well, you get the chance to live your existence creating things that, hopefully, inspire, entertain, or make people think. And, if you're lucky, some of your work might even keep doing that after you're gone.

(December 14, 2025)

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