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My name is Dave Munden. I am the drummer with The Tremeloes. I was born in Dagenham, Essex, UK on 2nd November 1943.
I first became introduced to The Tremeloes in 1958 through my association with Alan Blakley who lived about 2 minutes walk away from my house. Alan knew that I was interested in music because I had met both him and his friend Brian Poole at parties, and had sometimes joined them in singing various songs that were popular at the time. Alan realised that we had a common interest in the music which we enjoyed. I.e. The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, The Kalin Twins, Dion And The Belmonts. Basically, we liked good, popular harmony singing.
Alan and Brian had a group together with some other school friends, Alan Howard, Graham Scott and one other friend who's name I did not know, he was actually their drummer who I replaced. This happened when Alan came round my house one evening and asked if I could play the drums, to which I answered, "No". However, because I was interested in music I decided to accept Alan's to join him and the other boys for a rehearsal that evening in the living room of Alan's Mum and Dad's house which was situated above a greengrocer's shop.
First of all Alan showed me how to keep tempo using his very small "Gigster" drum kit. After a couple of hours I managed to master that, and also at the same time singing along with both him and Brian Poole.
After some rehearsals at Alan's house we decided we would like to perform in front of an audience. So with the help of both Alan's Mother and the lead guitarist Graham Scott's Father we managed to perform at some very small gigs, youth centres and small clubs.
We also played at a lot of American Air Bases in UK at the weekends which we enjoyed very much. We had to play for a total of 4 hours which was quite a long time. We had to repeat quite a few songs which the American airmen did not seem to mind. One of the numbers which was very popular was an instrumental called "Rumble" by an American band called Link Wray And The Wray Men. Although Alan Blakley was the rhythm guitarist he used to play this very simple instrumental using a lot of vibrato on his amplifier and this probably was part of the reason why we called ourselves The Tremilos which was the wrong spelling of the word "Tremolo" which was another word for "Vibrato". The instrumental was so popular that Alan had to play it about 3 times.
We also prided ourselves on the way we performed songs by Buddy Holly And The Crickets and we were really thrilled one evening when one of the American airmen said that he had seen Buddy Holly And The Crickets play live and that we sounded just like them, it made our day to hear that. After we were told that, our singer Brian Poole decided to start wearing spectacles in order to look more like Buddy Holly.
About this time we managed to get an audition for BBC Radio which we passed, so then we started doing sessions for BBC Radio which were live broadcasts of the band.
We then went for an audition for an organisation for holiday camps in UK called Butlins. These were very well known holiday camps so we were very pleased when we heard that we were successful in passing the audition because in order to do this engagement we had to give up our day jobs and become professional musicians which was very exciting for all of us at that young age. We had to play at a holiday camp in Scotland which was 400 miles (640km) away. Mr. Scott who was Graham Scott's Father drove us up to Scotland.
It was a very exciting and memorable experience for all of us and we learnt quite a lot about many different things. All five members of the band were living together in one small room for 3 weeks. We learnt quite a lot about each other during that time. One ritual which we used to do every evening was to play a tape recording of Buddy Holly's music. This was owned by the bass player, Alan Howard. An unforgettable experience.
When we came back from Butlins a friend of ours, John Cremin Snr. secured an audition by way of a customer of his, Mike Smith. Mike was a record producer with Decca Records. Naturally, we were very excited at getting a chance to get a recording contract. At the same time that we had our audition with Decca another group called The Beatles also had an audition. Fortunately for us, we were successful and The Beatles were not.
Our recording career had begun in 1961. During this period our lead guitarist became unhappy with playing with The Tremeloes. We had seen another lead guitarist in a local band who we thought was really good, his name was Rick Westwood. Alan Blakley decided that we wanted Rick to play in our band, so in his own inimitable way Alan persuaded Rick to join and Graham Scott joined the band that Rick had left. We definitely got the best part of the deal, Rick is a great guitarist. Soon after that our bass guitarist Alan Howard decided to leave the band and start his own business. We replaced Alan with a friend of Rick's who had played with him in another local band. His name was Mick Clarke. Mick stayed with us for about a year but then decided to leave and go back to his old band. We replaced Mick with Len Hawkes.
When we started our career with Decca we were called The Tremeloes but we changed the name to Brian Poole and The Tremeloes. We had recorded about 4 records with Decca without any success but then in 1963 we had our first real success with a cover version of the Isley Brothers song "Twist and Shout" which reached No.2 in the UK charts. The Beatles also released a version of the song which was a hit for them. Our next record was another cover version of The Contours "Do You Love me" which reached No. 1.
Fantastic!!! We were on top of the charts and having a wonderful time. I bought my first car, and MGB sports car. I brought the car home and took my Mum straight out for a drive with the roof down. After playing at a gig we drove up to London to get copies of the Sunday papers just to see the name Brian Poole and The Tremeloes at No.1 in the pop charts. What a feeling.
We had about 6-7 big hit records in England and throughout the world. However, by that time Brian Poole and The Tremeloes were not really getting on very well. Brian had been in the studio and recording some tracks with an orchestra, but they were not successful. We decided to record some songs on our own and we had a hit with a song written by Cat Stevens, a song called "Here Comes My Baby". The Tremeloes had their first hit without Brian Poole, we had left him just as we had a hit on our own.
Our second record was The Tremeloes first No.1, "Silence Is Golden". Wonderful!
We visited countries all over the world playing our hits. We visited North America, South America (we were the first British band to conquer South America, it was NOT "Sting and The Police" as was reported many years later). We also visited Scandinavia, Australia, South Africa, Iceland, Germany, Israel, The far East, The Eastern Bloc, to name but a few.
We have had some fantastic times together and we still do, especially in Germany, which is one of the best places for us to play even now.
Throughout my career I have always enjoyed driving and I have had some great cars. M.G's, Aston Martin, Jaguar E -Type, BMW's. I currently own a BMW 325 convertible and a BMW 730IASE. Germany makes some very good cars.
I also like listening to music, I find that the majority of artists I listen to are probably not very current. My musical tastes include the following: The Everley Brothers, Buddy Holly, early Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, 10cc, Stevie Wonder, Steve Winwood, The Neville Brothers, Ray Charles, The Eagles, Don Henley is probably the person who I admire most, I think he is the best singing drummer of all time, not forgetting Phil Collins of course. But I think the best group of all times has to be "The Beatles".
I'm sure there are lots of things I have forgotten to say but maybe one day I will put it all down in a book about my life.
I'd just like to say thanks to all you Tremeloes fans, keep coming to support us and I will keep singing and playing.
Cheers,
Dave
February 1998
Created by: jimmy@oldiemusic.de, last changed on 2000-01-30