Peter Noone: Keith Richards warned me off taking drugs

Not half. At the tender age of 15, he became the lead singer of the pop group Herman’s Hermits. He was 16 when the aforementioned single went to No 1 in 1964 and all of 17-and-a-half (as he proudly told the host) when the group were guest stars on The Danny Kaye Show. Along with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five and The Kinks, Herman’s Hermits formed the British invasion of America. 

Hit followed hit: There’s A Kind of Hush, No Milk Today, Mrs Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter. They played sell-out concerts before thousands of screaming fans and performed on all the top TV shows. They were a talented bunch but with his thick mop of hair, cute toothy smile and a voice not unlike George Formby’s, Noone the frontman was the only one anyone was interested in. By the time he left the group in 1971, they had notched up record sales of 51 million (they even outsold The Beatles in 1965) and appeared in several films. And he was not even 25. 

Now 68, he has changed remarkably little since those heady days. He still has the hair and despite living in America for nearly 40 years his Mancunian accent is still as thick as the cobbles in Coronation Street, in which he appeared as a child actor, playing Len Fairclough’s son. The accent has always been his trademark in America, he explains. “It went with the stage image of cheeky lad, which is what I was. I didn’t get into any serious trouble but I did get up to mischief. I put Tommy Steele in the Queen Mother’s car once. I got drunk a few times but I was never stoned. I kept away from drugs.” 

In fact he was warned off them by a world authority on the subject.

“Keith Richards and the Stones’ manager Andrew Oldham invited me to their hotel in New York and told me in no uncertain terms that if they found me doing drugs, they would beat me up. They knew the sort of people I was hanging out with in New York were not good for me.” What sort of people were they? Groupies? “No – worse! At least groupies had some intent. These were just rich kids who wanted to be seen with you and ended up dying earlier than they should. In those days, you were mates with other bands. I knew the Stones, The Who, The Kinks. John Lennon bought me my first drink, a Bacardi and coke. We were all touring and we’d run into each other at some transport caff in the middle of the night. We weren’t competitive with each other. We would tell each other about new clubs opening or go and see new groups. You didn’t have to like someone’s music to be their friend. I never wanted to make records that appealed to other musicians. I wanted to appeal to people who buy records. The older guys, and they were only in their early 20s, protected me. I’m touring with Dave Berry this year but back then he had the job of keeping me out of trouble.” 

Noone’s first taste of showbiz came as a child actor when he was still at Manchester School of Music. Aged 11, he was cast as Len Fairclough’s son Stanley in Coronation Street but gravitated to music, performing with a popular local dance hall band Peter Novak and the Heartbeats. The name Herman came courtesy of a pub landlord in Levenshulme. “I thought I looked like Buddy Holly but the guy said ‘Who are you kidding? You look like Herman from The Bullwinkle Show [a 1960s TV cartoon series]!’ Only the character he meant was called Sherman, so he didn’t even get the insult right. And then he pointed at the other guys in the band and said, ‘And that lot look like hermits!’”

The producer Mickie Most signed them up and their first single, I’m Into Something Good, went to No 1. Most also decided their image should be clean-cut; they were to be the “safe” face of pop. Herman’s Hermits were on their way. His parents could not have been more encouraging, Noone says, but surely they were worried sick about their 15-year-old boy out on the road, mixing with all sorts of reprobates? “They got used to it slowly and they trusted me to stay out of trouble,” says Noone, whose own daughter, Natalie, 29, is also a musician in Nashville. 

In America, Noone, still a teenager, had to learn to parry questions about sensitive issues. “There was a lot of dodging around politics,” he recalls. “America was full of racism then and we were touring with black acts. We had a shoot-out on our tour bus once. Two guys fell over one of the Ikettes [Ike and Tina Turner’s backing singers] and they pulled guns out. Next day, Herman’s Hermits decided to rent their own station wagon.” Noone was also assigned his own bodyguard. “But I spent all my time losing him so I could go hang out with Keith Moon.” 

He has been married to his Mireille, who is French, for 48 years. When they first met at a Jimi Hendrix gig at the Bag’o’Nails, a London club, she spoke no English and Noone spoke only schoolboy French. He was smitten but did not see her for months until he ran into her sister. “She told me they were about to go on holiday to Spain so I rented the apartment next to theirs. That sealed it. Her mother thought I was a gentleman. I was well-dressed and I know how to romance a girl! We just hit it off.” 

They were married on November 5, 1968, Noone’s 21st birthday. After years on the road, was Noone looking for stability after the transience of one-night stands? “I certainly didn’t go for every girl who threw herself on to the pitch. I wasn’t interested in rubbish. Getting married was not a difficult decision for me to make. Mireille was the best person I had ever met and when I saw her I just thought. ‘She’s got to be mine’. “Our marriage works because we love each other. Both our families stayed married so it is in our DNA. As a kid, I never knew anyone who was divorced. Later on I saw people whose families fell apart and I made a decision not to fail at this.” 

Natalie, their only child, was born after 18 years. “We had a good life and didn’t really pay attention to children until Mireille decided she wanted a child after all.” However, he was in danger of losing himself to drink. His father took him to Alcoholics Anonymous back in 1964. “But it didn’t stick” he says. Years later, a friend dragged him to a meeting. He hasn’t touched alcohol for 20 years now and still goes to AA occasionally. 

After Herman’s Hermits, Noone’s ambition was to perform in a musical on Broadway. “It took me 10 years. I didn’t realise you had to have talent!” he jokes. “I went back to school, went to dance and acting class, learned improv and I got good.” He finally made it on to Broadway – and won many plaudits – in The Pirates Of Penzance. He has had a steady acting career in America and also plays 100 concerts a year. “I’ve stayed just under the radar,” he says. “I saw Mick Jagger last week and that level of fame makes your life so tedious.” In April he joins other stars of the 1960s touring the UK, to the delight of his devoted fans, who call themselves Noonatics. 

At 68, he is still fizzing with energy. “I’m still ambitious for success. I’ve got another 10 years of this in me. I’m not a fitness freak but I’ve got good health.” And how does Mireille feel about losing her husband to the Noonatics for a third of the year? “She’s up for it. We want each other to be happy. That’s the deal, isn’t it?”

Solid Silver 60s Show, featuring Peter Noone, Brian Hyland, Dave Berry and The Merseybeats starts on April 10. 

Tickets available at www.flyingmusic.com/box-office