This interview with 208 DJ Tony Prince was made in late 1975 and published in January 1976 in the Eurald Tribune, the school paper of the European School in Luxembourg.
E.T.: Tony, what's your first impression of the Eurald Tribune?
Tony: Well, I just had a quick look at it and it seems very professional. It looks very good. I've never seen a school paper quite so professional. It's a good quality. Usually in England the school papers are done much cheaper, the paper is cheaper.
E.T.: When and where did you start your career?
Tony: I started working in dance halls in England brlwrlwrl years ago and from the dance halls I went to television. I had a TV-show, a pop-music show for two years in a place called Bristol. During these years I introduced such people as Tom Jones, the Animals, the Yardbirds including Eric Clapton and many other famous people in the television the very first time. The TV-show was called Discs a Go-Go and it was the very first TV-show in Europe that had an audience actually dancing while the singers perform their songs. After that came to an end, I joined a pirate radio station, Radio Caroline North. There were two Caroline ships in England, one in the south and one in the north. I spent two years on the north ship, it was a very exciting part of my life being a pirate DJ, but the British Empire made it illegal for us to work on a pirate ship. I had to come ashore and find some legal employment. The first good job I was offered was by Radio Luxembourg, and I'm still here. That's eight years later!
E.T.: Is it a difficult job or is it like any other?
Tony: I think it's easy if you've got the metabolism to do it. But if you have to force yourself, if you're a bit afraid, it could be a very difficult job. I find it very easy because I like showing off. I like talking and it's a very good way of fulfilling my ego which I think is everybody likes to have filled. The fact that I know there are millions and millions of listeners tuning in to me every night is good for the ego. But once you get over the ego in respect to the job, once you have finished with it, you start taking the job seriously and then you forget about yourself and you start thinking more about the listeners and how you could make their ego good by tuning in Radio Luxembourg. I think after a few years on radio you begin to think more about the radio station and the listener which is very important.
E.T.: Can you tell us something about the daily life of a disc jockey?
Tony: Well, we go over to Great Britain a lot and make discotheque appearances which is a very large aspect of our financial standing. It's where we get a lot of money from. The money we earn from RTL is okay, but it really isn't an important part of our life. The large part of our life comes from the appearances in discotheques. I would say a discotheque in Great Britain, which can hold about 600 or 700 people, could pay as much in one night as RTL could pay us in a whole month. So, that's why we go across to Great Britain a lot. I think my life is a series of aeroplanes, hangovers, early mornings, too much whisky because when you're working in a discotheque you attend to, when you're finished doing your show, having a drink with the owner of the discotheque and you finish getting drunk. Getting up next morning and you get out of your hotel, you get into a taxi, you go to the railway station or an airport and you move to the next town. It's a very exciting life going around seeing all these different places but really the only things that 208 DJs see are the insides of airports, aeroplanes, taxis and hotels.
E.T.: Do you have time enough for your family?
Tony: Yes, I must say more time for my family than the average man, I think. The ordinary man who rides an ordinary job goes out to work, I don't know what time he leaves home, 7.30 in the morning, and he comes home at 7 o'clock in the evening. Then the children are going to bed at 8.30 in the evening or something. So, really he's only having one and a half hours with his children. I wake up in the morning and I have all day with them. I go to the radio and may be two or three hours in the radio when my children are in bed. So, in this respect, I think I'm more occupied with my children than an ordinary worker
.
E.T.: How many speakers are working in the English service at RTL 208?
Tony: We have got six at the moment and we've had six now for about three years. Their names currently are Bob Stewart, who, apart from me, has been the longest. I was here in April 1968. Bob joined later that year. Now we've got Mark Wesley, who is the next longest server and then we have a few newcomers: We have Stewart Henry, Peter Powell and Chris Cary. Now Chris Cary was also a pirate DJ after the government made it illegal to be a DJ on pirate stations. He was one of the illegal DJs on Radio Caroline but that didn't stop him from being a great DJ, in fact it made him into a very exciting personality. But when he joined Radio Luxembourg a couple of months ago his name was Spangles Muldoon. For some reason Radio Luxembourg London decided he should change his name because they thought it was too stupid and the listeners wouldn't like it. Whether that's true, I don't know. But now, today, he's no longer Spangles Muldoon, he's Chris Cary. He lives in Bridel, he's got a family, a wife and a child, and Mark Wesley has also moved into this house with him. So it's quite a little family unit they got there. An incredible thing about Chris Cary, which I find is interesting to write about for the magazine, is that I've been here 8 years and one thing that I missed most about living here in Luxembourg is not to be able to see English-speaking television. That's my own fault, I should have to learn French or German, then it wouldn't be a problem, but that's another story. However, Chris arrived here four months ago, moved into a house in Bridel, erected an antenna and now he receives the television station from Bitburg, from the American Forces Network. So now his house is the most popular of all the DJs because he gets American television in his home which is incredible. He's a very, very clever technical speaker, you know.
(It must have been a big big mast for being able to receive the TV station from Bitburg in Bridel.)
E.T.: What's your favourite band at the moment?
Tony: I'm one of the lucky people of this world who doesn't have a particular favourite. But if you really wanted to push me to an answer, I think I would have to say the greatest musician of the world today is for me Paul McCartney. I think he's incredible. I think he's the greatest influence in the pop-music has ever had, bigger than John Lennon. In fact Paul has got the world record for the most top 20 hit tunes of all times, he wrote more tunes than any person in the world. So, that really speaks for itself. But generally I like any kind of music. Specifically I like the American harmony bands, America, the Eagles, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, that kind of music. I like to listen to Neil Diamond, Poco, Moody Blues, Yes. Things like that.
E.T.: Do you like classical music?
Tony: I've never had time to listen to it. You must sit down and listen to very carefully. I never had time, I'm too busy in moving and too busy involved in pop-music. It's really I just never had time to listen to it. I get records free from record companies, I must be getting now about sixty 45s a week and about thirty LPs a week. They all have to be listened, you know. I spend my time here, you can't see it now, you can't see me for records. Somewhere in the middle of these records is a record player where the music's coming out. Listening to pop-music, I don't have time for anything else.
E.T.: Do you know how many records you got at home?
Tony: I never counted them, but I must have about 5000 albums, something like that. But that's nothing. A friend of mine, Kid Jensen, when he left here, because he had a very important program at Radio Luxembourg, a progressive music show, so he got more LPs than anyone else. He left here, I mean he gave away 10000 albums and he took 10000 with him to England, so he had 20000 LPs. You would really love to have 5000 LPs. Really, for me it's I have a library and it's very helpful for me. If I ever leave Radio Luxembourg and go to a radio station that doesn't have a lot of LPs, then my LPs are going to be a big help for them. But I don't think that DJs take care of their records. We don't pay for the records, we don't really have any value for them because I never bought a record for years. The only records I buy now are for my record shop, you know I got the record shop and I have to watch myself because sometimes if I go down to the record shop and I start playing records, I start scratching them and nobody's going to buy them. I try not to play the records in the record shop.
E.T.: If you had the possibility to make a band famous, which one would it be and why?
Tony: I really can't say I know any groups at the moment who aren't famous who deserve to be where. That's a question I would have to sit down and think for half an hour because I can't bring anyone to mind who is currently really good but not doing well. I would say one thing: if a group has got true talent they will succeed. I think Alex Harvey is a prime example, he's finally become a superstar but he has been making music for fifteen years, that's a long time. But now he's a millionaire, a dollar millionaire by the end of the year. I don't think that a DJ on his own can make a group or singer famous, I don't think it's possible. I think they got to have the talent, then you can help them. Let me tell you an opposite story to this one. A guy called Brian Pool and the Tremeloes, originally when the Tremeloes started, they had a lead singer called Brian Pool. He had about 3 hit records, then they sacked him. They didn't want him, they didn't believe he was enough for their fame. So the Tremeloes sacked Brian Pool and so the guy who three hit records, he must have made about 3 or 4 million francs for himself in six months, he's a butcher! That's his job now. That's what can happen to you.
E.T.: What do you think about Luxembourg bands like Why and Cool Feet?
Tony: What was the first name?
E.T.: Why!
Tony: Why?
E.T.: Yes, Why!
Tony: I never heard them. I never heard any Luxembourg groups.
E.T.: When you came to Luxembourg the first time, what was your first impression?
Tony: I didn't like it. I came here I was a typical Englishman. I liked chips, a cup of tea, I was really a retarded gastronic, I just didn't like food at all. I never drunk wine, I didn't like wine at all. But now, after eight years i can say I would be very unhappy to leave Luxembourg. I love it, I like the food here, I love the atmosphere, I love the peace, The tranquillity of Luxembourg, I love the wines. I think they are the best Rieslings of the world. So I'm very happy. We got a nice house, I show it to you afterwards what we gonna do with it. Downstairs we got a very big room which originally was going to be a swimming-pool, but then the builder ran out of money and decided, he wouldn't make it. Also it would take a lot of money to keep it clean and keep it perfect all the time. So we decided against the swimming-pool. Now we make it downstairs into a big games room, recreation room, television room and party room. We gonna take the pool table down, I have a football game and table tennis and it's gonna be one of those rooms. We got six bedrooms, we always have a lot of guests staying here, so we got six bedrooms which are good for that. We're gonna have a lot of fun in this house, that's while we came to live here. In summer we're gonna have a lot of parties. We have people like Alvin Stardust and Gary Glitter coming to stay with us. They stay here from time to time when they come to be interviewed on Radio Luxembourg. We think it's nicer for them to come and stay here with us than to stay at the Holiday Inn or somewhere. We're looking out for 1976.
E.T. What do you think about the youth in Luxembourg when you compare it with the English?
Tony: I think very similar. Musically I found since I opened my record shop that the taste of the students in Luxembourg is just as high as it is anywhere else in the world. Pink Floyd, I find, are my biggest selling albums which says a lot of their tasty music. I think the most progressive musically intellectual combo in the world is gotta be Pink Floyd. The only problem we have in our record shop is when people come in for singles, you know, you've worked there. They come in for German records: Lady Bump by Penny McLean, some silly bitch. A really bad record, a really awful bad german record and it's supposed to be singing in English.
E.T.: How is the melody?
Tony: This is the melody: Lady, lady, lady Bump, lady, lady, lady Bump, lady, lady, lady Bump! That's all! For three minutes that's all you get! It's TERRIBLE! And they come in and ask for French records. There are so many nationalities here, so many radio stations playing different music. It's a great problem for a record shop to stock everything they require. We are specializing in English and American music and we try to stray outside of that apart from one or two really clever German or Dutch groups, we will stock them everything it's worth while. But really I'm getting more publicity for my record store, that's why I keep mentioning it. The question was: what do I think of the youth in Luxembourg? I think, very good. I think it's amazing. While I came out of school at the age of 15 I didn't have any command over any other language but English. You come out of school in Luxembourg and you can speak three, four languages maybe. That I find absolutely amazing. How you can about Columbus sailing round the world or about king Henry VIII. How you can take all these informations you've got to learn, history, geography, geometry, algebra and learn to swim, do things in the gym and play football? I don't know how you can do all that and still learn three or four languages. You amaze me, you kids today in Luxembourg! I'm very jealous of you and I'm very happy if I stay longer for my son to have the same upbringing. I thinks it's incredible. Maybe I know there is a lot of kids complaining that they don't speak any one language very perfectly. But at least you can go anywhere in the world and you can communicate. I think, in the world we've got to live in that's the most important thing we're gonna need, communication.
E.T.: If you could decide once more, which job would you take then?
Tony: My first love was to sing. The only unfortunate aspect to that wish was, I didn't have a voice. I started off with a group singing and playing guitar and that was my first love. My only love is to entertain people whether it be singing, being a comedian or being a DJ. I just don't mind as long as I can be involved in entertaining people. I also like to make money, I think everybody likes to make money. Especially when you get a family you like to find some security. I'm very happy being a DJ. Somebody said a long time ago, I can't remember who it was, it was a musician, a singer, and he said that all DJs are only forsaken musicians. I think that's very true. Because most of the DJs I know either began their life as musicians and found they couldn't make a living or found they could make a better living being a DJ or they are people who would love to stand in front of an audience and do a Mick Jagger. I find that every DJ I know is really a forsaken musician. That's a true statement. Now I don't think I'm forsaken but I prefer singing, being more creative. I would like to be a singer if I came back again.
E.T.: Thank you, Tony, for this interview.