Pete Waterman

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a record producer. His is a rags to riches story, if ever there was one. Born into a poor family in Coventry, he received virtually no formal education and still can't do joined up writing. A passion for pop lured him to America and then to London, where in the mid eighties he and his company wrote and produced enough hit records to have one in the top forty every week for four years. Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, and Banana Rama are just a few of the stars he helped propel to success. These days he's estimated to be worth at least sixty million, enough to allow him to indulge in his hobbies of collecting koi carp, fast cars and railway engines. He is Pete Waterman.

Presenter1:12

It is an incredible success story, Pete, but d do you feel these days as if you've always been wealthy? I mean, have you got entirely used to it?

Pete Waterman1:20

It's something that's n I've never really stopped to think about. I've always spent money as if if I had it, you know, i albeit relative terms. But I mean, even when we didn't have any, if I thought it would help make a record, I would find it from somewhere.

Presenter1:34

So you were born to have money, were you?

Pete Waterman1:35

I would yes, I don't think I've ever been shy of spending it out of the way.

Presenter1:40

But you do splash it around a bit. I mean, you know, thousands of pounds on a on a fish here or three point one million on a fast Italian car there. Do you have does it not worry you? I mean, you c you cope very easily with spending, do you?

Pete Waterman1:52

Yes, I think sometimes, in fact, I've done it deliberate to make sure that I that I keep working. I mean, it was very easy to sort of put money in the bank and sit it there and

Pete Waterman2:02

It doesn't give me any pleasure. Money itself has no value to me. It's what it can do. I mean, it gives you a lovely lifestyle. But more important for me, it's enabling me to build a company that has taken on the world's record companies.

Presenter2:15

But do you do you have any kind of conscience about him? For example, you have at least three houses, if not more. Do you ever

Pete Waterman2:15

Yeah.

Presenter2:21

think like an ordinary person might, this is really a terrible extravagance, because I I just don't get to go and sit in these houses at any point, or if I or not often enough.

Pete Waterman2:30

Oh, yes. I mean, yeah, that that goes without uh saying. But I do I mean, ever since I started and

Pete Waterman2:37

since we started making money, I've always had a philosophy I must put back what I take out. So I've always made sure that for every penny I take out for myself personally, I've put back into the company or back into charities or work for other people. That's very important to me.

Presenter2:52

Well, it's a lot of money sloshing about. I mean, you've got ten Ferraris, fifteen Jags, and this Testerossa that was three million.

Pete Waterman2:57

Right.

Presenter2:58

I mean, how often do they get driven?

Pete Waterman3:00

Um all the cars get driven regularly. I mean I loan them to hi you know, historic grand pries, they're always shown. I mean I don't keep them locked away. I mean they were bought to be used and to be seen and for people to enjoy them.

Presenter3:11

So you're at ease with your money, you're comfortable with it. Do you feel you've earned it?

Pete Waterman3:16

Oh yes, I mean nobody could have worked harder than me and taken the chances that I've taken. I don't have any guilt about what what I've earned.

Presenter3:23

Well, now all the money in the world will do you no good whatsoever on a desert island. Tell me about the music that would keep you sane. What's the first one?

Pete Waterman3:30

The first record is a piece of music I discovered purely by mistake in about nineteen fifty eight when I saw this record sleeve in a record shop and thought this title Tannhuizer was very clever and I thought that uh

Pete Waterman3:43

It would be worth buying. It had a lovely sleeve, so I bought it, got it home, and it's a piece of music that changed my life completely. I'd been into to church music since I was the age of six and um for the first time this piece of music showed what music could do to people. I mean it it whenever I hear this piece of music and I probably listen to this once a month, it brings me to tears. I mean it it absolutely reduces me to completely nothing because the emotion in this piece of music is just sensational.

Presenter5:11

The overture to Tannhuyser played by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Hans Knappetzbusch. A particularly slow version, that, Pete, but that's the one he wanted.

Pete Waterman5:19

Yes, I've got over thirty recordings of th this opera now and this to me is still by far the best. I can imagine if you were a writer, particularly Wagner, that if you'd heard this, this is the way that you would have wanted it to be played. It's almost as if every horn player and every string player is reaching for every note and dragging it out of his soul and that to me is what Wagner does. He pulls it out of your soul. And I still, you know, when I hear it now, I'm instantly back in my mum's front room and most of the records I was playing at the time were either Buddy Holly or black records and this was like sunlight. This was so different. It was just.

Pete Waterman5:57

you know, mind-blowing.

Presenter5:59

Well now let's talk about how you actually made all this money. Uh they called your company the Hit Factory, didn't they? The company you ran with uh stock Aitken and Waterman, but actually it was PWL, wasn't it? Pete and Waterman.

Pete Waterman6:05

Yeah.

Speaker 46:09

Yeah.

Pete Waterman6:10

Yeah.

Speaker 46:10

Uh

Presenter6:11

A record in the top forty every week for four years, as I said. What was the formula you devised? What did you do that others hadn't done before you?

Pete Waterman6:19

It would be about nineteen eighty one when the punk thing, which I really enjoy p punk music. I mean, I I really enjoy the energy and the rawness of it.

Pete Waterman6:27

I just spotted that the record industry had moved away from the public.

Pete Waterman6:31

the general public, and they'd left this huge hole with teenagers. To me music has always been a major part of their life and I could see there was there was nothing for them to hold on to.

Presenter6:44

So you weren't exactly giving them anything new, you were giving them something that was new to them. I mean, your generation, our generation had had Cliff Richard and Helen Shapiro, you were recreating them in Kylie Minergan, Jason Donovan.

Pete Waterman6:53

Carliman

Pete Waterman6:54

Absolutely. I mean, I copied Tamla Motan. I mean, it was the simple philosophy of Tamla Motan. I took what I thought were kids that were identifiable by kids on the street and made records. I mean, somebody called me the best school playground A ⁇ R person there's ever been. And I mean, that's what I did.

Presenter7:11

What's here now?

Pete Waterman7:12

You know, artists and repertoire. I looked at what kids in the playground wanted and sort of satisfied them and

Presenter7:18

And you put up with the accusations of exploitation of the teeny boppers.

Pete Waterman7:22

Yes, I mean that didn't worry me. I mean my artists were having a good time, we were having a good time, but more important the public were loving what we were doing.

Presenter7:28

But what they had to do, those artists, as I understand it, was put themselves entirely in your hands. You managed the total package, didn't you? You told them what you were.

Pete Waterman7:35

Yeah.

Pete Waterman7:38

You know, we became the Marks and Spencers of the record industry. We found them, we groomed them, we managed them, we wrote for them, we produced them. The artist was the most important person. We were always backroom boys. And uh

Pete Waterman7:50

Our sam was so distinctive.

Presenter7:52

But a lot you say the sound was distinctive. A lot of people said it was distinctive because it did all sound the same, that it was manufactured music.

Pete Waterman7:57

Oh, it did all sound the same. That was a trick, wasn't it? Well, that was exactly what we set out to do. But to me, all hit records sound the same, they sound like hits.

Presenter7:59

That was a trick, wasn't it?

Pete Waterman8:05

So it never worried me. I mean all to me all the Beatles records, if you were a Beatles fan, sounded the same. It's when they didn't sound the same, of course, that you they weren't hits.

Presenter8:13

But the really snotty critics therefore said that that you were making music, characterless music, manufactured music, for ordinary people with Woolworth ears.

Pete Waterman8:22

Yes, they did. And and I've got the best wolves here in the business. I mean, that's you know, that's been my, if you like, rule. If it didn't appeal to my ears, I didn't bother. I mean, I'd rather take the cash than take the credit.

Presenter8:34

Tell me about record number two.

Pete Waterman8:35

Number two, I believe very strongly that David Bowie has never had the credit he deserves in pop music. I went to see David Bowie at um the Milton Keynes Bowl and the Sirius Moonlighting Show. I went and stood right at the very back of the bowl.

Pete Waterman8:51

And watch this, and it turned. I mean, it switched all the lights on for me. It said, got it.

Pete Waterman8:56

Got it. I understand now. Here it is. Everybody's here and I love David Bowie. He's singing pop songs. He's dressed it up. It's very clever. But at the end of the day, they're still pop songs. And I watched I was watching the crowd. I wasn't watching David Bowie. And every time he sang a real pop song, the audience went up five decibels. And then when he got a little bit clever, they quietened down again. And then he'd chuck in another pop song and up the the crowd would go again. So I followed that tour and I went probably seventeen times to watch how other audiences all over the world reacted. And it was exactly the same. So I instantly realized there was no difference between the American public, the German public and the British public.

Pete Waterman9:36

And this one record, Let's Dance to Me, is the first record I'd ever heard that married R and B with pop music with a passion and kept it both absolutely perfect.

Speaker 410:08

Put on your red shoes and dance the glue.

Presenter10:12

Baby Bowie and Let's Dance. So you, Pete Waterman, were the senior partner of this company of the three of you, the three partners. You set it up in the first place by mortgaging your own home to do it because, as I understand it, an astrologer told you to.

Pete Waterman10:20

Yes.

Pete Waterman10:27

That's right. I'd been very successful before Stock Akin and Waterman. I'd done Musical Youth, I'd done Tracy Ullman, I'd done The Bell Stars and we'd had lots of hits. And um it was at the time when people still paid ATP in the pound income tax. And my partner and I decided to go and work in Los Angeles for a while and um

Pete Waterman10:47

I sud suddenly realized that wasn't for me. You know, the endless parties and the sunshine was great for about ten minutes, but then I was anchoring to get back.

Pete Waterman10:56

I was pretty low in my life. It was one of those points where you you you didn't know anybody and, you know, uh somebody uh you know once said to me, Well, there's this woman called Shelly von Strugel and

Pete Waterman11:07

It was $150, but she does your stars, and I own the area right. But I went.

Pete Waterman11:13

And within ten minutes of me, she was absolutely fantastic. I mean, she told me things about myself that

Pete Waterman11:19

You don't want to admit, but you know are absolutely true. And she just told me, I had to let go of all the protection in my life, and I had to do what I believed in and not.

Pete Waterman11:28

Constantly give my ideas to other people, which was pretty frightening to me at that time, you know.

Presenter11:32

But you but you believed she was right.

Pete Waterman11:34

Yes, I think that it was one of those points where I had to do something with my life. Steven Spielberg had offered to put up a quarter of a million for me to form my own company, and I figured that he was a bit of a shrewd guy, that if he was going to put this much money up, there might be something, and I thought he wants twenty percent of my company. I think I'll have a go at this. And that's

Presenter11:51

So you took his money?

Pete Waterman11:52

No, I didn't. I decided, as I say, I decided to stand on my own two feet. I came back.

Pete Waterman11:57

mortgaged my house. I had a flat in London at the time and gave up the flat because I couldn't afford it and slept in a vocal booth.

Pete Waterman12:04

And I physically moved me, my dog and my bed into a vocal booth in the studio, and that's how we did it.

Presenter12:09

And do you still believe in astronomy?

Pete Waterman12:10

I believe more and more in the stars. I mean, not having an education has been a very weird thing.

Pete Waterman12:15

Because I only learnt to read and write round about ten years ago and um

Pete Waterman12:23

Things that you've picked up in life, you don't know why you've picked them up. I remember saying something in a studio one day, and Mike Stock said to me, What did you just say? And I just said, Well, that's this, and he said, That's Shakespeare.

Pete Waterman12:33

And I said, no, no, no, no, this is obvious. And he said, no, that's Shakespeare. That's what Shakespeare said. So suddenly I discovered Shakespeare. And then.

Pete Waterman12:41

I saw a program on B B C T V about the pyramids and that totally freaked me out. And I I became obsessed with reading about the stars and I suddenly started to realize that there probably is more in it than meets the eye. I don't know what it is, but I mean I'm totally fascinated by astrology.

Presenter12:58

So do you have your own personal astrologer?

Pete Waterman13:00

Yes, I do. And she's never been wrong. Never. I mean, that's a silly thing to say. She even predicted the two children I would have, and that was seven years ago.

Pete Waterman13:08

I mean it's quite incredible.

Presenter13:11

Record number three.

Pete Waterman13:12

Because I'm on on this desert island, I thought I would want to be reminded of Britain, that I would want to be transported back.

Pete Waterman13:19

What piece of music would instantly transport me back? And to me one of the greatest things we do every year is Remembrance Sunday.

Pete Waterman13:26

And to me Remembrance Sunday is Nimrod.

Presenter14:24

Nimrod, one of Elgar's Enigma variations, played by the B B C Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Pete Waterman14:30

I mean that's just that's just Britain isn't it? I mean that

Presenter14:32

Yeah.

Pete Waterman14:33

Remembrance Sunday, we do that sort of thing so well.

Presenter14:36

It's another very emotional piece as well, isn't it? You obviously you obviously like having the goose pimples.

Pete Waterman14:37

Not a very

Pete Waterman14:39

Do you want to sleep?

Pete Waterman14:42

Well, yes, I just I mean, I suppose being a sort of musician when

Pete Waterman14:47

somebody like Algar can actually stir this much emotion. You have great respect for somebody with that much talent. It just makes you know you haven't got that much talent.

Pete Waterman14:58

But, you know, you're in there with those guys. I mean, it's a it's an honor and a privilege to be in the same business as people like Wagner and uh Elgar, you know. And you feel you are, do you? Yes. People say to me, Your music won't last forever. I say, You're wrong. If you go to the top forty pop stations throughout the world, you'll hear my music every day of the week.

Pete Waterman15:17

And I always said, you know, the day I die, I want them to put one thing on my tombstone. You know, this boy had a go.

Presenter15:24

This boy nearly didn't have a go, as I understand it, because you nearly died at birth.

Pete Waterman15:28

That's right. Um when I was born I was uh breached and strangled by the the cord and uh

Pete Waterman15:34

The midwife had already pronounced me dead and uh

Pete Waterman15:38

We're talking about nineteen forty-seven. There was always an old lady in the neighbourhood that laid, you know, hatchpatched and despatched uh babies and she s put some uh brandy on a spoon, put it down my nap, and well up and boom and off I went.

Presenter15:51

What do you remember about your childhood?'Cause it sounds to me it was a council house in Coventry, wasn't it? And family pretty hard up, pretty poor.

Pete Waterman15:55

Family

Pete Waterman15:57

Yeah.

Presenter15:58

And you sound to me as if you're quite a lonely little boy.

Pete Waterman16:01

Very lonely, yes. Um

Pete Waterman16:04

My mother was an incredible inspiration to me, and if you'd have met my mother, you wouldn't have thought how.

Pete Waterman16:10

Hard life was. I mean, she put out this incredible personality of everything that was wonderful, but once you opened the curtains, there was nothing inside the house. And

Pete Waterman16:20

My father absolutely adored his job and uh I don't think he ever ever realised he never brought enough money home to make ends meet. And by Tuesday night we were cooking his meals on the coal fire because my mum had a bob left for the meter but she daredn't put it in till she heard my dad's footsteps up the garden path so th that he never knew we'd run out of money by Tuesday.

Pete Waterman16:41

Very strict upbringing. I mean the church was so, so s strong for me. But a loving, a very loving upbringing. But um I felt very much that I had to be on my own and do things. I mean yeah I look back now and I've got one friend. You know, he's been my friend, we lived opposite each other, he's still my friend today.

Pete Waterman17:01

I have acquaintances, but I don't have that many great friends because

Presenter17:04

How does that one follow from the other?

Pete Waterman17:07

I just think that, you know, if it's that hard, you tend to live in a fairy story world, you make up your own comforts, you know, you get on with it. What you lack in one area, you make up in the other area.

Presenter17:18

And is it too pat to think that therefore

Presenter17:21

you would decide whatever else happens, I'm gonna make it in this life, I'm gonna have a go, as you said just now.

Pete Waterman17:27

I remember, you know, thinking that the day my mother died, she had a wedding ring, that was it.

Pete Waterman17:32

And I thought this is not going to be for me, you know. She never understood my my affair with the music industry. She sort of got to understand it and she knew that I was happy. And for the last six months of her life, wherever I went, my mother was in the car, you know, I took my my mum everywhere because she'd never seen outside Coventry. She'd never been outside, so I took her to she wanted to go to Bolton and she had this fixation about Bolton. And I remember taking her to Bolton one day, and she thought it was the greatest city she'd ever been to.

Presenter18:00

More music.

Pete Waterman18:01

Well to me the next is probably

Pete Waterman18:04

The greatest pop record of all time. People say to me, You're Mr. Pop, give us your idea of what pop music is, and there's never any question to me. This is the one record that I say, if you want to hear what a pop record does, what a great pop record should achieve, this is it.

Speaker 418:21

See how

Speaker 418:33

You'll think you've lost your love When I saw her yesterday It's you she's thinking of

Speaker 418:42

And she told me what to say She said she loves you And you know that can't be bad

Presenter18:51

Beatles and she loves them. You met them very early on, didn't you? Did you did you recognize them even then as something different?

Pete Waterman18:57

I never forget it was a Friday night.

Pete Waterman19:00

These guys turned up in a Thames van, a fifteen hundred weight Thames with

Pete Waterman19:04

Writing all over it.

Pete Waterman19:06

And they were so different.

Pete Waterman19:08

But the one thing I also remember that absolutely blew me around, and it sounds ridiculous, they had Levi jeans on.

Pete Waterman19:14

It sort of made them American because Levi Jeans to me were American and, you know, when George Harrison took his Gretsch guitar out, I mean, I was sold. I mean and that was even before they performed, but of course when they performed, it was so different.

Pete Waterman19:30

But they didn't dance, even when the shadows used to do that little dance. Of course the Beatles were the first people I ever saw just stand there and sing.

Speaker 419:32

Uh

Pete Waterman19:36

And of course the big thing for me is, I mean, at the time they didn't sing the national anthem, which was of course you had to do in those days. There was a policeman in the ballroom and he made you play everybody stood up and the Beatles played Twist and Shout and walked off. I mean this was anarchy to me. I just thought, wow, this is incredible.

Presenter19:53

and they introduced you to Jimmy Saville.

Pete Waterman19:55

There was nothing happening in the Midlands. The Midlands was this wonderful area, but I mean, it really was what's happening, we're waiting for something to happen, when's it going to happen? When you've gone to bed. And the Beatles sort of told me of this DJ called Jimmy Saville. They sort of told me to go and search him out because he really was.

Pete Waterman20:12

somebody that they thought I should meet and and and uh

Presenter20:15

If you wanted to make it as a DJ.

Pete Waterman20:16

Yes. They said, you know, he knows all all the angles. And I went up to Manchester and uh I went and spoke to him and

Pete Waterman20:24

He changed my life. He had tartan hair the first time I met him, and I was not sure that my mother would appreciate me having tartan hair, so that was definitely out. But um he sort of gave me some spots and and I started learning.

Presenter20:38

What sort of mecha ballroom machine

Pete Waterman20:40

Yes, C Jane.

Presenter20:40

Yes, metal ball.

Pete Waterman20:42

Yes, I kept my day, John.

Presenter20:43

What sort of you had various day jobs, didn't you? Up into your teens and into your early twenties.

Pete Waterman20:46

This is the

Pete Waterman20:48

Yes, I mean I started on the railway when I was fifteen and then uh followed my dad into the aircraft industry for a very, very short time and then ended up working for the GE C. in Coventry. And that was good because I soon learnt that the GEC had to satisfy what needed to be done, then go down to the record shop and spend the re rest of the day listening to records.

Presenter21:07

Record number five.

Pete Waterman21:10

Well, I've had a a lifelong love relationship with uh Tamla Motan. I've emulated them down to the nth degree with the duets and all the titles of the song I write are based round Berry Gordy's uh philosophy. I would want to take one Motan record because to me they were a black company that

Pete Waterman21:32

Just got on with it.

Pete Waterman21:33

They didn't let bigotry stand in their way. And the one, to me, record that stands out head and shoulders above everything else is Marvin Gays, I heard it through the grapevine, because this to me is what black records do that white records can't do. They have an emotion that no white pop records can ever achieve. You know, black people have this gospel in them.

Speaker 422:01

I bet you want how I bet.

Speaker 422:06

I'll chose the

Speaker 422:10

What's up with the gun?

Speaker 422:12

Knew before between the two of us

Presenter22:18

Marvin Gaye, and I heard it through the grapevine. We didn't have Marvin Gaye, didn't create him, but who who did you cre who's your biggest star?

Pete Waterman22:24

Well, Rick Astley was my Marvin Gay. When we did his vocal test, we actually had him singing a Marvin Gay song to see how strong his voice was. What we'd learnt both

Pete Waterman22:35

Mike and I about the Marvin Gay Records world they made Marvin sing at the top end of his register so he wasn't comfortable. So you got a a sort of vibrato in his voice which made him go for the song more than naturally he would have done. And that's what we did with Rick. We wrote the songs Never Gonna Give You Up. We pushed it up in key so that he really had to go for it and was right at the top of his range which meant it was more emotive.

Presenter23:01

But Kylie Minogue was your biggest female hit, wasn't she?

Pete Waterman23:05

She's the biggest selling British female artist, and I mean in record terms not as a national citizen.

Presenter23:10

But but the irony is that i in the beginning you weren't a producer of records, you were a promoter and a publisher and so on. You couldn't se you couldn't get her record published, could you?

Pete Waterman23:19

We we we uh didn't have a record company and um

Pete Waterman23:23

We had been talked into making this record by this Australian girl who I personally had no idea who she was.

Pete Waterman23:29

We have this call saying there's this little girl in the reception. Is she supposed to be recording with you guys? Now we were so busy at the time and uh she had like thirty minutes to get to the airport to get back to Sydney.

Pete Waterman23:41

And I spoke to Mike and said, Look, we'll have to send her away. And he said, Man, she's sitting here. She said, We've got to record her. I said, Look, she should be so lucky. He said, Fine, go away and write the lyrics. That's a great title.

Pete Waterman23:50

You didn't

Presenter23:50

You didn't write it that quick.

Pete Waterman23:51

But yes, oh yes, we did. We wrote it on the hoof. The back and track was ready in ten minutes and Mike had recorded the vocals in less than twenty minutes and she was on her way to the airport.

Presenter24:01

How did she learn it that quickly?

Pete Waterman24:03

She was superb. I mean, she is a an actress, so she had no problem with learning that very quickly.

Presenter24:09

But then no record company we

Pete Waterman24:10

We topped the record round. Every single record company turned it down. They just said.

Pete Waterman24:15

Tui song, Tui artist, television programme now it won't work.

Pete Waterman24:20

And

Pete Waterman24:20

We had a distributor at the time, Steve Mason, at Pinnacle, who said, This record is an absolute smash, you've got to put it out yourself.

Pete Waterman24:28

And the staff ganged up on me and we said, Look, we should form PWL Records and put it out ourselves. So, half-heartedly, I agreed. I mean, I was too busy, you know, making the Rick Asley album and the Banana Armour album to really worry about this Kylie Minogue thing. And uh I'd forgotten about it and at our Christmas party that year we were at the Natural History Museum and the DJ played this record and I was working on Radio City as a DJ and I was always looking for little songs to play on the show. And I went over the DJ I said, Christ, what is this? He said, You're winding me up man, it's I should be so lucky And I went, Wow, it sounds fantastic And I that was on a Friday night and on the Saturday I played it on Radio City and of course the switchboard lit up.

Pete Waterman25:07

Now, I had no idea who this girl was, so I'd announced this was Kylie Minoke. And of course, all the kids were ringing and saying, Is that Charlene off Neighbours? You know, and I sat down thinking, What is this Neighbours? Let's have the next one. What is it? Because I tended during the whole of the 80s to spend most of my life on aeroplanes, jetting between sessions in Sydney, Tokyo, and London, or New York, I spent a lot of time listening to music on planes. And I always instantly tuned into Richard Baker's Choice, Baker's Dozen. I always used to tune into that.

Pete Waterman25:41

I was on a flight and it was uh Halloween and the piece he played that blew me away was Saint-Sanson's Dancer Macabre.

Pete Waterman25:49

Instantly I heard it, I had something that instantly said, I know this piece, or I know this music style, and of course I found out he was a student of Wagner, and he'd written this piece with Wagner in mind, and I went

Pete Waterman26:00

Now there are other pieces of Sasson that I love as much as this, but this was my first venture into Sasson, and it would probably be the one I took because it it's still as good today.

Speaker 426:42

Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da d

Presenter27:12

The opening of Saint Sans Dans Macabre, played by the Paris Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barrenboy. So tell me about these coy carp, Pete. Apparently you, the Duke of Westminster, Elton John, Jim Davidson, and who knows how many other rich people keep them. What what's the fascination?

Pete Waterman27:28

Oh they're beautiful. These fish are absolutely stunning. They're man-made really. I mean they are bred for their patterns.

Presenter27:35

How big are they?

Pete Waterman27:36

Well, they can go up to a metre and ten centimetres, so they're huge things.

Presenter27:40

But you buy them as little tiddlers, eh?

Pete Waterman27:42

Well you do, yes, you buy them and you you try and raise them and and they compete with each other and of course your importance in Japanese society, in major societies of who rises who who can afford the best fish. I mean it's all part of the the system. So

Presenter27:56

So some of your fish are more famous in Japan than Kailimino,

Pete Waterman27:59

They are, yes, yes. I was the first Westerner ever to win a prize called they call it the Kakugio Prize, which is the fish that all the judges tip will become the grand champion in years to come. And of course the minute they tip it, its value becomes enormous, because then everybody who's above you in the scale wants to buy it to keep their place in the scale.

Presenter28:19

You farm them, don't you? Yes.

Pete Waterman28:20

Yes, we do.

Presenter28:21

In Cheshire.

Pete Waterman28:22

Yes. And in Japan.

Presenter28:24

And then there's the trains. You've bought more major than Koi.

Pete Waterman28:26

Ah, my major power.

Pete Waterman28:29

Boy.

Presenter28:29

You bought two hundred coaches and six locomotives from British Rail and and you want to, I quote, rekindle the magic of fifties rail travel. What what does that mean, outings to the Blackpool illumination?

Pete Waterman28:40

Uh

Presenter28:40

Yeah.

Pete Waterman28:40

Yes, very simply, yes. We

Pete Waterman28:43

Through my company with Sir William MacAlpine, we run most of the steam trains still in Britain on British Railways, and we saw under the new Railway Act there was a great danger that.

Pete Waterman28:52

the steam heritage for Britain would disappear. We thought that would be unacceptable. The only way we could protect it was to buy the company that did it for British Rail. So we're trying desperately to get back to those fifties cheap and cheerful railway trips.

Presenter29:07

And what's more, you're fulfilling your dreams because you you were were a train spotter, you are a train spotter.

Pete Waterman29:12

Yeah.

Presenter29:13

Nice.

Pete Waterman29:14

Yes, oh yeah. I don't mind standing on the end of the platform with the notebook. I don't do it as much as I I'm a posh trace button, I've got a gold nanorag award.

Presenter29:22

Record number seven.

Pete Waterman29:24

Well, I mean, I'd have to take this because this is probably my all-time favourite record. The first time I heard this, I thought to myself.

Pete Waterman29:31

Why can a record that's plastic

Pete Waterman29:34

That's less than three minutes long. Get me this excited. Sex is supposed to do this. Why is a record doing this? I rushed out and bought the record and

Pete Waterman29:44

It still gives me goosebumps. It's one of those great records. It's Little Eva's The Locomotion. I still say it's Carol King singing the lead vocal, but uh she will never confirm it. But it's just a wonderful, wonderful pop record.

Speaker 429:56

Now that we can do it, let's make a change now Come on, baby, do the local motion A chug, a chug, a motion like a real train now

Speaker 430:08

I'm on the baby to the local morning

Speaker 430:11

And I didn't eat it, no, I don't lose control. A little bit of rhythm and a lot of gold.

Speaker 430:18

Come on, come on, into the love of merging with me.

Presenter30:24

Little Ether and the locomotion. What will you do on your desert island, Pete? Could you be happy? Do you know?

Pete Waterman30:29

Well, yes. I mean, the first thing I'd do i I'd start fish farming, of course. It would be totally intriguing to see how I could cross some of the island species, to see what sort of fish we would get. I think for the first week I'd uh love playing Robinson Crusoe, but after that

Pete Waterman30:45

I would uh need to get back and and get working again.

Presenter30:48

And you'd miss your family, I'm sure. You've been married three times.

Pete Waterman30:50

That's right.

Presenter30:51

And how many children?

Pete Waterman30:52

I've got four children, two boys that are twenty-three and thirteen, and uh a five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter. I've always in my life

Pete Waterman31:02

I've been lucky that I've been able to keep fabulous relationships with everybody. They've all known what I've wanted out of life and they know there comes a time when I have to move on.

Presenter31:11

And what do you want out of life now? You're forty eight. You've achieved a tremendous amount, as we've said. Have you still got the energy? Do you still feel creative? Do you still feel you want to go somewhere? Or have you been there, done that?

Pete Waterman31:21

No, I want to do it all again now. I want to do it different. I want to I want to do what Motan did that I never did. We were very successful and probably sold more records in the sh in the period than than Motan did, but we didn't do it in the way that Barry Gordy did. He did it with four different record labels. I I only did it with one. So now I have to do it all again with four different record labels to

Presenter31:40

But w will it work if you haven't got, you know, that that very fundamental hunger drug.

Pete Waterman31:40

But

Pete Waterman31:46

Oh, I've still got that hunger. Oh, no, I've still got that hunger. Yeah, this is all I know. This is my life. This is what I have to do. You know, I'm not good at anything else. This is what I'm good at.

Presenter31:55

But if you don't get up tomorrow it doesn't matter, does it?

Pete Waterman31:57

It does to me. Yeah, it does to me. Uh, because there are young people at the studio waiting for me to turn up who all want to be stars and all who all want to do what I did.

Pete Waterman32:06

So the the excitement of going in and seeing their faces and and driving them, that

Pete Waterman32:12

is more important to me than than anything else.

Presenter32:15

Lost record.

Pete Waterman32:16

Lohengrin is probably one of my favourite operas as an opera. But the piece I really love and I always loved it as a kid and I never knew it was Wagner of course until later in my life was The Wedding March. I just absolutely adored it.

Pete Waterman32:28

So I thought

Pete Waterman32:30

Let's go out with a bang and if you're going to go out with a bang to me this piece of music is definitely Wagner at his loudest and his best.

Presenter33:37

The Prelude to Act Three of Wagner's Lohengrin, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karrion. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one is it?

Pete Waterman33:46

Oh, no question, Tennhuizer. It's just the greatest piece of music. I mean, it's uh somebody who will say, What would you have played at funeral? I suppose.

Pete Waterman33:53

Tannoiser, there's no question. I want you to all cry to let you know I've gone. I mean, if you can remember me, do it in style. You know, don't go out with a whimper, go out with a bang. And if this doesn't upset you, then nothing will, you know. What about your book?

Pete Waterman34:04

Great Western Locomotives from eighteen forty seven to nineteen forty seven.

Pete Waterman34:08

the complete works. Every engine I could read, you know, that would take me probably five years to remember every slide valve and every pressure, but it it would be absolute heaven for me though.

Presenter34:18

And what about a luxury?

Pete Waterman34:19

How well I thought

Pete Waterman34:21

Twist this one. I've heard some very clever ones on this, so I want to take a woman's prerogative.

Presenter34:26

Which is

Pete Waterman34:27

Well, I can change my mind when I get there.

Presenter34:31

Now we can't supply that, I'm afraid. I'm very sorry.

Pete Waterman34:33

But I'll take fifty Cuban cigars, Havana cigars.

Presenter34:37

And a box of matches.

Pete Waterman34:38

And a box of matches.

Presenter34:39

In a policy bag.

Pete Waterman34:40

Yes, absolutely.

Presenter34:41

I think so. Pete Bortaman, thank you very much indeed for letting us see what your desert island is.

Pete Waterman34:45

Thank you.

Speaker 234:54

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.