With (or without) the Bee Gees

It started as a normal British chat show. It was 1997 and host Clive Anderson was fielding a few questions to the Bee Gees live on prime-time television. The band of brothers had walked in to generous applause from the studio audience, smiles aplenty as Anderson said “Good to see you” and ushered them to their seats.

The first sign of trouble already arrived in the first minute when Anderson made a comment about their high voices.

Anderson: “Were you working with Mickey Mouse at the time?”

Barry Gibb: “No, he got his voice from me.”

Anderson: “Was it just the tight jeans?”

Lead singer Barry Gibb broke into a lengthy and somewhat awkward explanation of where the high-pitched singing had originated from: the falsettos had actually been suggested by their producer, said Gibb, and it wasn’t “screaming” as Anderson called it, but something more artful.

Returning to his confrontational, nit-picking tone, Anderson asked one of the up-to-now-silent brothers whether he minded Barry “doing that” (singing in a high voice).

“Not really,” said Robin, his bald sunglasses-at-night look making him an earlier version of Bono. There was the faintest glimmer of laughter from an increasingly uneasy audience.

Into the third minute the conversation shifted to the Seventies, how it was the decade that “fashion forgot”, and how the Bee Gees sometimes get the blame for it, what “with those tight trousers and all”.

Barry Gibb disagreed, saying that the current decade (the Nineties) was the one in need of fashion tips and was borrowing from the Seventies.

Maybe it was because Anderson kept returning to those tight trousers, but it was obvious that an antagonistic mood had set in between lead singer and chat-show host. Barry Gibb might be adept at hitting high notes, growing a beard and doing duets with Barbra Streisand, but he was coming off second best in the humorist stakes. Anderson was clearly a well-practised craftsman of stand-up comedy in which witticisms are uttered by the second and rudeness is pushed in unexpected and reckless directions.

A seasoned pro in this menacing style of verbalism, Anderson artfully shifted the mood and made it sound like he actually admired the Bee Gees. There are songs of them everywhere, he said; just how did they do it, churning out hit after hit?

“You’re hit writers, aren’t you? I think that’s the word …”

“It’s a nice word,” said an unsuspecting Robin Gibb, falling into the trap.

Because Anderson suddenly threw the admiration around, announcing that the word “hit” was “one letter short”. The audience howled with laughter and even broke into spontaneous applause.

“I’m glad you’re finding it amusing,” said an agitated Barry Gibb. He was nearing the end of his patience.

Anderson was dominating the interview by now, throwing in comments like “sometimes you’re fashionable, usually you’re not” and picking up on odd words used by Barry such as “headspace” (“What sort of word is that? You’ve been in America too long.”)

Comments like “I didn’t realise you were real brothers — I always thought you were sisters, actually,” irritated Barry, whose feet were starting to itch, even further.

In the fifth minute came the topic that took the interview into a place from which it couldn’t return.

We heard that they had first called themselves The Rattlesnakes but that “didn’t work too well”. Anderson: “More like slow worms.”

The brothers had changed their name to “Wee Johnny Hayes and the Blue Cats”, we heard from Barry Gibb. Just before they became the Bee Gees they called themselves “Les Tosseurs”, he said.

“You’ll always be les tossers to me,” said Anderson, drawing the biggest howl of the night.

Gibb looked like he was ready to enter a boxing ring. He became openly hostile, fidgeting, moody, a venomous look in his eyes. Anderson had become an adversary.

His mood wasn’t helped just before the seven-minute mark when Anderson tackled the sensitive topic of egos in bands and quipped that the older brothers always “tend to want to be in charge”.

Anderson then, as he had done before, quickly shifted into semi-admiration talk. He liked their earlier numbers like Massachusetts, he said.

“Oh, I thought we were tossers,” snapped Barry.

“You developed, you developed into that,” countered Anderson, saying it had slipped off in the Saturday Night Fever phase. (Gibb: “Yes, it would.”)

Anderson’s dog, we heard, liked their high-pitch singing, though.

This must have been the last straw for Barry. The tension was volcanic, with Anderson trying to soothe things over.

Some more history, mainly recounted by brothers Maurice and Robin. Barry was sitting in a broody and moody sulk, waiting for his chance to lash out. There had been a brief split when they had been in their early 20s, we heard. Robin had a successful solo single in that time. Talk mercifully didn’t venture to Barry Gibb’s embarrassing mid-Eighties solo album Now Voyager, which would have been awkward, but surely grimly rewarding territory for Anderson to explore.

Barry Gibb broke his silence to add that the Bee Gees track Don’t Forget to Remember had actually come out in that time too.

Anderson: “Oh, forgot about that one.”

Gibb: “I thought you might.”

Barry Gibb mumbled some inaudible words and then announced: “In fact, I might just leave.” He got up, joined by his brother Robin, and walked off the stage, but not before saying to Anderson: “You’re the tosser, pal.”

He waved to the speechless audience and said “Goodnight, everybody” (silence).

Brother Maurice remained sitting briefly, then said: “Oh well, I suppose I better join them.”

He declined the invitation to stay, saying he’d “love to”, but he doesn’t “do impressions”.

There’s was then an uncomfortable moment as Maurice Gibb tried to undo his lapel mic (“I can’t get this off”), the audience breaking into quiet laughter, until he gave up and walked off with the device still attached.

“Ladies and gentleman, the Bee Gees,” said Anderson, to needed applause.