Published: Thursday, Aug. 18, 2005
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As far as Ian Mitchell is concerned, the U.S. hasn’t been rocked by a good, solid mania in years – not when Duran Duran was at its peak or the New Kids on the Block were “Hangin’ Tough” or the Backstreet Boys made teenage girls swoon.
“Not one of those groups caused a real mania,” he said in a recent interview in Newton, Mass., at the home of Peter Hackel of PH Productions production company.
Mitchell should know. As a member of the 1970s pop-rockers the Bay City Rollers, he saw his share of teenage girls whipped into a frenzy by the mere presence of the Scottish band. The mystique, Mitchell said, came from their clean-cut image and total unattainability. And it drove the girls wild.
“I saw girls in the front row whose eyes were red. They were blue in the face and their noses were bleeding,” Mitchell recalled. “Rollermania was different. It was a different kettle of fish.”
Anyone who wishes to rekindle that long-lost mania would be wise to head to The Yard Seafood and Steakhouse in Manchester this weekend, when Mitchell and the latest incarnation of the Rollers rock the dance floor.
It is only fitting that the band will take the stage on “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night,” the night of the week made infamous in its hit single.
Mitchell was just 17 years old when he got caught up in what would become the whirlwind of Rollermania.
In 1974, Mitchell was playing with his own band, Bang, in clubs around Ireland when he hooked up with the Bay City Rollers’ promoter. Mitchell’s band opened for the Rollers at Ulster Hall in Belfast, Ireland.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but they were screening me to be a part of the band,” he said. “I only found out about it years later.”
The lead singer of the Rollers, Les McKeown, had been involved in a fatal car crash that killed an elderly woman, and everyone thought he was going to jail, Mitchell said.
“Unfortunately, the bastard got off,” Mitchell said, laughing. Mitchell would get his chance, though, in 1976, when Tom Paton, the Rollers’ manager, called and asked him to fly to Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Rollers asked him, “You want to come to the studio with us?”
“I went, ‘Hell, yeah,’ ” Mitchell laughed.
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Back at Paton’s house, the manager told him he was now in the Rollers, if he wanted to be a member.
“I didn’t even know I was auditioning!” Mitchell exclaimed.
The transformation was immediate.
“At 17, you’d have been petrified. It’s a bit like ‘American Idol,’ ” he said. “The next day – poof!” His life changed in seemingly an instant, but at least, he noted, he knew all the Rollers’ songs.
“I’d been playing them all the whole time!” he recalled. “But I hadn’t bargained on joining the Bay City Rollers. I was more into glam rock. I wasn’t really into teeny bop.”
The band’s record company and management, recognizing the Rollers were filling what could be a short-lived niche, began booking the band and saturating the market with images of the Rollers.
“The record company wanted to get what they could while they could,” Mitchell said. The reaction from fans was incredible. But he and his bandmates were exhausted from the constant tours and appearances. The running around took its toll.
“I turned 18 and I was very confused about the direction we were heading. There was no unity, just total internal conflicts and constant fighting,” Mitchell said. “No one was getting along.”
When the band began to argue over the cover of its next album, Mitchell had enough.
At the end of the tour, Mitchell took a break and went to Barbados.
“I was 18 and I must have looked about 30. I had bags under my eyes. My eyes were red,” he said. He returned home, called his manager and announced he would not be coming back to the Rollers.
With his newfound knowledge of the music scene, Mitchell hooked up with some of his former bandmates to form Rosetta Stone. When that band had a hit six months later, Mitchell told promoters that the touring and concert schedule had to be kept reasonable. He wasn’t willing to burn out again.
“Everything should be a little more relaxed. There’s no need to rush everything,” he said. “That’s why I drink beer.”
He kept busy with his bands, Rosetta Stone and the Ian Mitchell Band, and began doing some work for TV and movies. But a nostalgia for the days of Rollermania followed him around. He began booking gigs with the Rollers again in mid-1980s. In its current incarnation, Mitchell says the Rollers play music more in line with what he had envisioned himself playing.
“Now it is rocked up, and it’s great,” he said. “I sent my ex-manager a copy of our live CD, and he said, ‘That’s how it should sound.’ ”
The fans still clamor for the signature “Saturday Night,” Mitchell said, often calling for it after the first song of the night.
“I say, ‘Hold on. We’ll get to it,’ ” Mitchell promises.
Rollermania may be over, but Mitchell doesn’t miss it. He has lived his life on his own terms and is happy with his success.
“Nice guys stay in place,” he said. “Bad guys lose it. Remember to be nice to the people on your way up, or on your way down, they won’t remember you – or won’t want to remember you.”
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