One month after THE EXPLOSIVE
SOUND longplayer appeared (April), The
Atlantics and CBS issued a follow-up to War
Of The Worlds and surprisingly, the new disc - Rumble
And Run b/w The Wild Ones -
saw a return to The Atlantics'
sound.
"When The Beatles hit we tried to change to more vocals. It was just a case
of being influenced by what was happening around you. Yet we still tried to inject some
originality into whatever we did. We stuck with the sound we had developed, changing it
slightly, but always keeping to the same basic framework.
Rumble And Run and The Wild Ones
were fine examples of The Atlantics being The Atlantics and as Peter Hood admitted, both were more or
less inspired by the 1953 Marlon Brando motion picture The Wild One.
"We were influenced by what I called Marlon Brando Music. Rumble And Run was our musical interpretation of the film The
Wild One. You have a 'rumble' and then you jump on your bikes and "run". The
sound effects tell it all. It was basically a thematic tune."
Although using similar ideas, The Wild Ones was not
recorded at the same session:
"I think you'll notice that the melody is much
sweeter and more melodic. I think Rumble And
Run is a much more violent-type sounding melody; like the
battle in War Of The Worlds. It was
supposed to represent a fight. On the other hand The
Wild Ones (at least to me) projects the image of riding along
the highway. Theo wrote The Wild Ones and we would often associate him with
Marlon Brando because he used to wear the big leather jacket. I
think he wrote the song as an offshoot of us sometimes calling him
Marlon!"
Whereas Rumble And Run and The Wild
Ones were both group originals, The Atlantics'
sixth instrumental single for CBS saw a complete about face. Issued in October 1964, it
teamed two revivals of earlier Chet Atkins' hits - Boo Boo Stick
Beat (from 1959) and Teensville (from 1960) - as
another attempt to project a more diversified image; in particular a shedding of their
'SURF' image in an era when "mods" and "rockers" ruled.
"The surfing image (we had) was starting to become a bit of a problem even though
we had already been playing other forms of music before we became known for our 'SURF'
tunes. In fact we continued to perform these all through the 'SURF' era, but because our
big hits were 'SURF' tunes, I guess many people thought that was all we did."
The reason for recording Boo Boo Stick Beat and Teensville (according to Peter Hood) was to try and revive some old
tunes by injecting some new ideas into them. By adding their usual offbeat sound effects,
what the group set out to achieve was attained.
"They were mainly recorded as something to entertain rather than for any other
reason. We performed them on stage and Boo Boo Stick Beat in
particular always went over well. The guys would come out with bottles and tin cans and
all types of shakers. It was a good audience song, one that probably sounded better live
than when we recorded it."
In January 1965, the group counteracted claims that they were no longer capable of
producing acceptable originals by releasing the under-rated Giant
b/w Mirage. Written by the entire group, Giant saw a return to their former musical glory, Likewise Mirage also exuded some interesting originality, possibly
reflecting the eastern origins of some of the group members.
"Giant was one of those amazing songs that you
actually write in a matter of minutes. We were all sitting around at our rehearsal hall
one day playing around with this melody when all of a sudden the song seemed to write
itself. Within ten minutes we had a working model and the rest of the day was spent honing
it up. We never had to work on that song ever again."
© David McLean 1991, Canetoad Publications
ABOUT THE BAND 