EXCLUSIVEALISON BOSHOFF: Exactly forty years after the Christmas hit was released... A sea of cocaine, the biggest stars in pop at each other's throats - what really went on the day they recorded the Band Aid single
The day of the Band Aid recording – Sunday, November 25, 1984 – was long and lively.
Everyone who was anyone in British music had showed up and, predictably, there was sniping, feuding and bad behaviour, fuelled by the twin engines of ego and cocaine.
The location for this eclectic gathering was Sarm Studios in London's Notting Hill, with Bob Geldof (then lead singer of The Boomtown Rats) and Ultravox's Midge Ure at the helm. Sting, Duran Duran, George Michael and Bono were among those who had joined them to record the iconic hit Do They Know It's Christmas?
After it was released just a week later – on December 3, exactly 40 years ago today – the single sold 12 million copies and, eight months after the recording, was followed by Live Aid, the spectacular double concert held on both sides of the Atlantic, which raised £40 million on the day alone for charity – equivalent to more than £100 million today.
But now it's all too clear how this gathering of do-good divas laid the foundation for decades-long fallouts, jibes and festering disputes. And it seems the 'Band Aid curse' lives on.
Last month, pop star Ed Sheeran, 33, who sang on the 30th anniversary recording of the Christmas hit, said his vocals had been used without his permission on the remixed, 40th anniversary edition released last week. He would have 'respectfully' declined the request if asked, he added.
Bob Geldof (second left) and the cream of rock and pop recording the 1984 single
The Jam's Paul Weller on the day of the Band Aid recording in November 1984
Sheeran's point is that many in today's more politically correct world see the song's lyrics as offensively patronising towards Africans.
Whether anyone will want to record a 50th anniversary single is anyone's guess.
But back to 1984. On the day of the recording, the Grinch was undoubtedly The Jam's Paul Weller. All involved (even Weller) attest to his sour presence.
He said recently: 'Everyone was getting off doing blow [cocaine] in the toilets. It probably would have been all right for me in the 1990s, but I wasn't into all that then. I was totally out of my comfort zone.'
The late George Michael recalled: 'Paul Weller decided to have a go at me in front of everybody. I said: 'Don't be a w****r all your life – have a day off.' '
Weller, it turned out, detested all the 'new' acts, such as Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran – and had even less time for the earnest Sting and Bono.
More than 20 years later, Weller ostentatiously spat at a picture of Sting at a Teenage Cancer Trust gig and later also said of him: 'F*****g horrible man. Not my cup of tea at all. F*****g rubbish. No edge, no attitude, no nothing.'
Weller was equally withering about Geldof's lifetime achievement award at the Brits in 2017, sniping: 'What'd he win it for? Can't be for his music, man. I mean, if it's for his charity work in Africa then you can't knock it, but Boomtown Rats – f*** off.'
The only person who Weller seems to have liked from the recording was Culture Club's Jon Moss. They discussed how much they both hated the then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
But Moss, of course, had his own issues. A secret love affair with the group's frontman Boy George, which included alleged physical and verbal abuse on both sides, ended only after a 40-year war when Moss finally sued George and the rest of Culture Club for 'expelling' him. They settled out of court last year for a reported £1.75 million.
Bob Geldof (then lead singer of The Boomtown Rats), left, and Ultravox's Midge Ure
Bob's then-wife Paula Yates played a significant role in getting the stars together for the single, as she knew many of the acts from her presenting role on TV music show The Tube
Indeed, Band Aid has turned out to be something of an emotional crucible, for better or worse, for many of those involved.
Some of the lesser-known acts, like one-hit wonder Marilyn, simply faded into obscurity. He developed a heroin addiction and lost everything a few years after his 1983 Top Ten hit, Calling Your Name.
'I was living off income support, 50 quid or whatever a week, and doing as many drugs as I could get my hands on,' recalled the former star, whose real name is Peter Robinson. Others, like Bob Geldof, would remain in the spotlight – and, in his case, for the most tragic reasons.
Bob's then-wife Paula Yates played a significant role in getting the stars together, as she knew many of the acts from her presenting role on TV music show The Tube. She was particularly close to the 'boys' in Spandau Ballet.
But within 12 years of Band Aid, Geldof and Yates divorced. Paula had left Bob for INXS star Michael Hutchence, with whom she had a daughter.
Hutchence was found hanged in a hotel room in 1997 after a row over family travel arrangements with Bob. Three years later, Paula, too, was dead of a drugs overdose. Bob and Paula's daughter, Peaches, also tragically died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 25.
The outsiders in the 1984 Band Aid recording session were rock band Status Quo. But in his 2019 memoir, lead singer Francis Rossi said he and guitarist Rick Parfitt found everyone 'as nice as pie' that day. 'And I hadn't expected how much many of us had in common when it came to cocaine. Soon our corner of the studio became the go-to hangout for quite a few others.
'The only one I took a dislike to was Boy George's friend Marilyn. He'd had exactly one hit single – his first and his last. The way he carried on, you'd think he was the real Marilyn Monroe.
The iconic hit Do They Know It's Christmas? was released on December 3, exactly 40 years ago today - the single sold 12 million copies and, eight months after the recording
'He was making such a big thing about being gay and being unsure which toilet to use. I told him to use the gents but put the seat down. That way he could have the best of both worlds. Oh, the look he gave me.'
Late arrival Boy George told reporters as he finally turned up at the studios: 'Every band who slagged each other off is here today!'
The day was awkward for George Michael because it meant spending time with Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon.
They had been taking public potshots at each other in a fairly good-natured way for years, and entered arm-in-arm to give the Press a picture and something to write about. But their amiable chemistry soon turned.
George Michael was particularly outraged when, in 1986 at Wham's tremendous The Final concert at Wembley, he was told that Le Bon wanted to gatecrash the party and come on stage.
Years later, he recalled that when security told him of the plan he responded: 'Tell him to f**k off!' When the Duran Duran star joined him anyway for the final number, I'm Your Man – despite not knowing the lyrics – George tried his hardest to avoid singing with him.
Newspapers at the time insisted Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet were at daggers drawn, but their rivalry was only as thick as Nick Rhodes' foundation – more childish one-upmanship than enmity.
On the eve of the recording, both bands were in Germany.
Spandau's Martin Kemp recalled: 'Drinking with them that evening, we found out they'd hired a private Learjet to fly them back to Heathrow the next morning. So what did we do? We hired a Learjet, too. We weren't going to let those bouffant pretty-boys upstage us. We would race them back! And that's what we did – our pilots radioing one another from jet to jet to see who was winning.'
Kemp recalled how the band decided to arrive at the studio in a huge Bentley to 'steal every last bit of limelight from those Brummie chancers'.
But this turned out to be a PR disaster. 'If you've seen the Band Aid video, you'll maybe remember how some of the other artists turned up that day,' Kemp said. 'Paul Weller took the Tube.
Sting walked in with a folded newspaper tucked in his coat. Now here come Spandau Ballet, arriving to help the starving children of Ethiopia in a luxury car, having just raced Learjets across the Channel.'
It got worse. When one of the band – not named by Martin – asked by reporters at the studio whether he had a 'message for the people of Ethiopia', he responded: 'Yeah, I'd like to say hi, and sorry we haven't been able to get down there on tour this year, but we're hoping to fit it in soon.'
As Martin said: 'It wasn't our finest hour.' So if Ed Sheeran thinks Band Aid 2024 is un-PC, perhaps he should be grateful he wasn't in that recording studio 40 years ago.
