THE ENGINE ROOM

The unsung heroes who helped forge modern music

- Interview: Nick Dalton

The Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays was a first, even if some felt it should maybe also be the last: a pop hit based on an American junior school shooting. And yet the 1979 No 1 record that has become a timeless classic wasn't exactly the first.

Producer Phil Wainman, the man behind a wealth of hits by Sweet and Bay City Rollers, chuckles and says: “There were two other versions: Mutt Lange did one, and Gus Dudgeon did one.”

So how did that come about? Says Wainman: “I'd been offered the Rats twice before, when they sounded like the Stones, and I'd thought, well, there's already a Rolling Stones. Nigel Grainge who ran their record company, Ensign, and I had history from his Phonogram days because I produced Alex Harvey's album, Next. He said, 'Go on, have a go, everyone else is.' He said, 'Do you want to hear the other versions?' and to this day I haven't.

"I said, 'Are you sure about this?' because of the subject matter. He said, 'We really want you to meet [Bob] Geldof [pictured top of page],' and they'd just come off Rat Trap, a No 1 record. Oh, my word, I thought, not only is it a risky song, I'm following a No 1!"

Wainman met Geldof in a pub, but all he asked about was the Bay City Rollers. “They were really hot at the time... he kept asking who was managing them, who did what, how did it work and why did it work? I asked: 'How do you see it, do you want to risk your career?' 'Even worse,' I said, 'It could cost me mine!'”