batteries not included
In January, the band played some clubs in the UK, beginning with Nottingham's Rock City on the 5th, and ending at Derby's Lonsdale College on Feb 6th. On the 7th, ATF flew out to join ELO as support on their European tour, beginning in Rotterdam in front of 8,000 people on 10th Feb, and continuing for a month, ending in Munich on 5th March. After a day off, they continued with a short club tour of their own, beginning at Regensburg on the 7th, and ending in Hanover on the 18th. They took a large truck, nick-named 'Gladys' for the equipment, whilst the band travelled in a minibus. But as with all such tours, the distances between cities across Europe can be vast, and socalled days off prove to be actually travelling days. For instance, on 20th Feb, they drove 450 miles from Zurich to Dortmund, enjoyed a genuine respite as they had two days in one venue, plus there was a vocal British presence in the audience which cheered them up, then on the 22nd they were faced with a 600 mile drive to Gotenburg in Sweden, where the venue was a huge 10,000 seat ice-skating rink. Problems with Gladys the next next necessitated hiring a new truck and transfering the equipment across before proceding to Bremen. In Bremen, the crew met with panic as ELO's drummer, Bev Bevan, had been taken ill the previous night, and had to flown back to England for hospital treatment. For a moment, it looked as though the whole tour was in danger. Jeff Lynn and his his band immediately turned to Pete King and formally asked him if he would fill in for Bevan. King had less than a day to learn an entire set, so after some tuition from ELO, he retired to his hotel room with some tapes and started practising the rhythms with modified coathangers.
When the ATF crew had arrived the next day, they had to promptly extract his drum kit from the truck so he could start rehearsing with ELO right away. He also seated himself at Bevan's kit as soon as it was available, and the rest of the day was spent rehearsing the new songs. For the actual show in the evening, ATF were on first, and King had to keep from mixing up ATF and ELO songs, and managed it, and gig was a good one. Then King had to go out on stage again and do another set opening with Just On The Border Of Your Walking Mind.
In fact, King went on to do the ELO set for the next six nights, before Bevan was well enough to return to his duties for the show in Munich.
King with ELO
While the band are touring in mainland Europe, in the UK their new single Rich Boys comes out as promised on 5th Feb. Although it charted briefly, it quickly disappeared again.
In March, and back in the UK, they went to BBC Television Centre to appear on Noel Edmunds' Multi-Colour Swap Shop, and performed the new single, Rich Boys on the Saturday morning children's show.
On 19th March, the day the band arrived back in the UK, and a year after it was recorded, Batteries Not Included was finally released on the CBS label. On the continent copies appeared on the Epic label, with a completely different sleeve design - a ladder graphic by an artist that the band once saw exhibiting at the Royal College of Art.
Strangely, the album got a better reception from the secular media than from the Christian press. Phil Thompson, reviewing the album for Buzz, wrote:
"This is a more mellow, sophisticated ATF than I expected. I was hoping for some progression - more of a cutting edge came from previous albums. It is not so much a question of losing direction, as not knowing which direction to take. There is a difference."
"Their message used to be so much more incisive, but they seem to have very little to say these days - which means that while they drive along on a few tracks and experiment on one or two others, in the end it is mostly technique without much presence."
CBS 85566
Sounds' Hugh Fielder, giving it *** ½ out of *****, was impressed:
"The neat, catchy pop of After The Fire is never going to win them any prizes for innovation but they are a safe bet for a flourishing rock and roll career. Their energy, enthusiasm and a succession of well crafted songs will secure them a large following among those for whom street credibility comes a long was behind enjoyment."
"And just to dispel any notions that they've already laid all their options for the inspection of their first couple of albums, they grasp another handful of possibilities on their third thanks to the Munich Musicland Studio which has imparted a sprinkling modern(e) dance sound on several tracks. And before you start yelling 'plagiarists', you'd better check the ground you're standing on very carefully indeed."
Epic EPC 85135
After describing the album in more detail, he concluded:
"quite why the executive echelons of CBS are playing pass-the-parcel with this band (except to justify their salaries) is something of a mystery."
The pressure of creating new material was weighing heavily on Banks, and Piercy. The need to produce a hit single to justify their retainers was ever present. One solution, therefore, was to consider doing a cover song. Even as BNI was hitting the shops, the band had been busy since January working on new material with a new producer, John Eden, at London's Maison Rouge studios. As well as making a new recording of Starflight (including Sternenflugger a German language version of the song using the same backing track, and designed to appeal their considerable German audience), they also worked on two new songs. The first was a cover of the soul classic Stand By Me, and the process of deciding on a suitable arrangement for the song was not a smooth one, exposing as it did some divisions within the band. Banks favoured a more up-tempo, synth based version, whereas, Piercy was inclined to a more soulful approach. Demoes were tried exploring both ideas, but at the suggestion of Eden, the final version was a combination of the two, beginning slowly, then suddenly taking off towards the end. The track was certainly considered for a single release, but shelved in favour of the second song - a cover of Falco's Der Kommissar. Banks had first heard the song in Germany where it had already been a hit for Falco. With new English lyrics from Piercy, the band set about recording the track. It sounded quite different in it's original form, with Piercy punctuating the opening with the words "Check It Out, Joe". Banks and Eden took the basic recording and mixed it into an 'extended' version, lengthening the opening of the track, and adding extra bars in the middle. This became the 12" version, but was really the proper form of the track. From this version, Banks and Eden edited down a 7" version for the single. Two reels dating from April included Der Kommissar, Starflight in both German and English, Stand By Me, and a new demo from Banks Hello Goodbye (aka Don't Say Goodbye).
With BNI at last in the shops, the task of recording a fourth album for CBS loomed, and the band retired to ICC studios to work in earnest on new material. New compositions demoed for the new album were Young Love, Step By Step, Don't Say Goodbye, Genz, Jungle Rhythms, Who Do You Think You, Dark Side, 1984-F, Over & Over, Night Is Still Falling, It's Over, and I'm Bored. As with BNI, some of the mixing had already completed by Banks at his home studio in Walthhamstow.
Perhaps the stand-out song was Don't Say Goodbye - with a Beatle-esque chorus sung in harmony, puctuated by Russell's guitar. Two song's were more or less completed at ICC: Night Is Still Falling, and It's Over - an apocalyptic vision complete with Banks drawling "1984" and a 'radio news' voice over from Piercy. In the heavy Dark Side, Piercy expressed his tiredness at having to play the part of the 'Joyful Christian' at all times, even when things were low, whereas I'm Bored was an experiment in vocal harmony that did not really work. With the instrumental 1984-F, Banks had deliberately tried to repeat the formula that had proved so successful with 1980-F, and indeed they sound very similar in both style and tempo. Taken together with Stand By Me and Der Kommissar, these were the pool of songs that would have gone to make up the now lost final studio album.
Their hard work on tour with ELO paid off when on Friday, 30th April, a call came through to the Avon House office asking them if they could join Queen's European tour, after their own support, Bow Wow Wow had let them down. They were being asked to join the tour in Paris on the following Monday, and so they found themsleves back on the continent for another three weeks beginning in Paris on 3rd May, then on to Germany and Austria, ending in Munich's Olympiahalle on the 21st. On 27th & 28th May, they appeared on the German TV show, Pop Stop, then returned to the UK to take part in the Surrey Free Arts Festival at Guildford's Surrey University the next day.
