Soundgenerator caught up with the man behind thirty years of 'Tubular Bells', one Mike Oldfield. We found a man who had struggled with the industry despite perhaps being repsonsible for part of it, but a man very much in control of his life, happy with what he had done and a man who still made time for his hobbies - including building and flying jet propelled aerobatic model helicopters!

Thanks for taking time to talk to us today Mike.

What kind of upbringing or education did you have in relation to music? What were your memories or influences as a child?

Well I didn’t have any musical education but my dad used to play the guitar every Christmas eve actually. There was always a guitar hanging on the wall.. I bet everyone says that.. but one day I took it down and he taught me my first three chords.

And that was it…

And then a bit later on my sister started to get into music and one day she came home with a boyfriend who was a pretty good acoustic guitarist. When I heard him play I thought ’oh this is great I’ve got to learn how to do that’ So I borrowed some of my sisters records and I got some of my own and I used to practice like mad every week-end and every evening.

So it was self education and then being really influenced by your sister and people around you

Yes

Tubular Bells reportedly took a week to record? If that is true is that all the time that Richard Branson gave you or is that how long it physically took

The first half. What happened was that he gave me a week to see what. He kind of liked the demos so he gave me a week to see what I came up with. It was quite clear from the start that if they didn’t like what I did in that week then I was out. I worked like an animal that week and did all of the first part of Tubular Bells apart form one little section, one little guitar part at the end.

Did that become the version or was it purely a demo?

No that was the real thing

Is there anything else that you remember about that week? It must have been quite exciting to have this opportunity. How much preparation had there been done prior to that?

A lot of preparation in my little notebook in my own special language of music. So it was all in my head really and I had made some demos but it had been rejected by all the record companies and it was only Virgin who gave me a go, gave me a chance

Did you get put off by the rejection or was it just determination, did you really believe that you had something quite special or you felt that you should be heard?

I thought it was special and I thought it would be successful and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t agree with me.

They are probably kicking themselves now

Mike Laughs It was a long time ago they probably got fired!

But it’s nice to hear that some of the rejections turn out to be some of the biggest selling records.

written by on 12/06/2003 00:00:00