Sweet Smiles Article: 1972

Sweet
Feb 5, 1972
3 min read

Updated: Feb 4

1972's Sweet Pressure & Success

The two-page article in Record Mirror (February 5, 1972) featured drummer Mick Tucker reflecting on the band's rapid rise and mounting pressure. Tucker expressed that he once thought a hit record would mean he had "cracked it," but success only pushes for bigger things. Now, just five months after "Co-Co," he already felt like a has-been and was frightened of not getting another hit.

Article Overview

Publication Details

Magazine: Record Mirror (UK).

Date: February 5, 1972.

Format: Two-page feature article.

"I always thought wouldn't it be great to get a hit record,

I'd have cracked it", says drummer Mick Tucker. "But your move on to bigger things all the time, and now it's only just beginning. Now I'm frightened of not getting a hit record. It's only five months since 'Co-Co'

The comparative failure of their 'Alexander Graham Bell' single has noticeably shaken Sweet, and has been largely responsible for their concentration on European work. But with the release of 'Poppa Joe', another up tempo belter of a single, they will be back working around British ballrooms.

"While we have hits here the reaction is great. There are always girls clamouring in the front row and they dig it all. But in Germany we're the number one pop group, and have a good following in Sweden particularly. We consistently get letters from giris abroad whether we're in the charts at that moment or not."

Sweet's audience consists largely of females, a situation they accept not too unhappily! The four group members have worked with other bands for many years and appreciate the differences that three hit records in the space of only one year can make.

Financially they are more stable impulse buying is easy. They all have their own private cars, as well as the group's Rover, and a comfortable wage to live on each week. The rest of their earnings go into communal bank account, which serves to keep the group running.

During their formation more desperate measures were necessary to keep the group financially buoyant. Mick Tucker a founder member sold with vocalist Brian Connolly his car to provide some cash. After leaving school at fifteen, he had learned to play drums with the help of a friend, knocking out rhythms on an old tyre in the garage where he worked.

Later, auditioning for a job with the Fortune Tellers he had taken a nerve-wracked hour setting up his £65 Edgware drum kit. But the job was his, and with it such financial rewards as £12 for three hours work, to be split between the group!

"We were green as grass", Mick admits. "But when I was with them we worked at the Clay Pigeon (near to his Ruislip home) with Wainwright's Gentlemen. They were a seven piece group with lan Gillan. They were so good. I remember someone saying - 'follow that', and I felt awful."

But with a later audition Mick became their drummer and stayed with them for three years.

Brian Connolly - fostered under the name of McManus, but born to unknown parents in Scotland with the name Connolly - had been working to the same point as Mick Tucker, in a very different way.