This is the eleventh set of answers from Dave Bartram from questions you have sent in. They were answered by Dave on 14th March 2003 and added to the site on 6th April 2003

The first set of questions are from myself:

Were Choise on the verge of being a big success?
‘Choise’ had interest from a couple of record companies and did some tracks produced by Labi Siffre in 1972.  Who knows if they would have been successful?

Was it hard a hard decision to give up Choise for Showaddywaddy after all the hard work you, Trevor, Romeo and Jeff put into the band?
It was a little disappointing to have to join up with another band in order to be a success.  However, the size of Showaddywaddy made it more unique and especially visual.

Did SWW have album budgets to stick to like artists do today?
Every band has budgets to stick to when recording; we were no different but rarely came close to exceeding them!

"Sympathy" is a great track - it has the "old" SWW sound. Was it recorded in 1990 or earlier?
Has Trev not tempted been to sing on any other songs that he wrote?
“Sympathy” was an old ‘demo’ from the mid ‘80’s’.  Trev uses to sing ‘Route 66’ on stage, but is not a confident vocalist and doesn’t really enjoy taking the lead.

Someone told me that Ray Martinez played on some SWW tracks while the original lineup was still intact - is this right?
Ray Martinez did play guitar on a couple of the tracks that featured on ‘Living Legends’.  These were not intended for album use, but Russ Field was losing interest and going through a bad period at that time.

A lot of your recorded songs contained string arrangements - were these pieces of music written by yourself, and if so were they harder to write than other music (ie guitar)?
String arrangements were initially done by two arrangers i.e. John Cameron and Colin Frechter on the early albums.  Later tracks were arranged by myself.  I enjoyed doing it very much!

In some circles, Showaddywaddy have reputation of being a covers band. Have the tables been turned and any of your own songs covered by other artists?
There are only a couple of covers that I’m aware of.  ‘Win Your Heart’ (which you sent me a copy of!) ‘I’m Yours’ (an old b-side) and ‘Hey Rock & Roll’ are the only ones I know of.

Which song took longest to record, because you were never quite happy with the final result?
The biggest problem – certainly in the early 80’s was getting certain individuals to the studio, which meant that a lot of time was wasted! “Lost” was a big production and the kind of track that couldn’t be rushed.

You mentioned recently that you had not rehearsed some of your new songs much. When you rehearse songs you have not played for a few years, for example, Multiplication, does it all come back you to quickly?
We have been rehearsing diligently for the last 2 months.  Some of the songs we used to perform come together very quickly if we stick to the old arrangements.  The brand new songs take much longer and need much more thought.

What songs does Dave feel are his best recorded performances with SWW (My vote goes to 'Good Times', 'Shake', 'You Are Love', 'One of these Days' & 'That's Rock & Roll' along with several others)
I enjoyed doing “Lost & Swansong” which were vocally challenging.  I was pretty pleased with “You Got What It Takes” too!

Like many fans, do the band have extensive videos at home of their various TV appearances over the years (i.e. TOTP, ShowaddywaddyShow BBC TV Special etc.). If so, looking back, what do they think of them now?
Some of them are a little embarrassing other were amusing.  Oddly enough I don’t really have much of a collection of the bands old TV appearances and video’s.

Do any of the band members have the Cherry Red CD re-issues - if so what do they think of them?
The re-issues are very pleasing, they really should have been made available on CD well before now!

Does Dave have an approximate figure of Showaddywaddy's total record sales to date (singles & albums) to the nearest million?
I was informed some time ago that sales exceed the 30 million mark.  Exactly how accurate this figure is I’m really not certain.

Why weren't the original albums ("Steps 1-8") which were re-issued in 1988 by Tiger Records available at the time on CD? It looked like the perfect opportunity!
For some peculiar reason Steps 1-8 were only available on vinyl and cassette.

Who played the majority of the drums, bass and guitars on SWW recordings - was it Romeo, Rod, and Trevor - or did Malc and Russ contribute equally?
Romeo played drums on 90% of all recordings.  Rod played bass on about 60% and Al 40% of songs.  Trevor and Russ played guitar on 50% of tracks.

On the upcoming tour, you are once again on with the Rubettes. Are the two bands good friends, as you often appear together?
We’ve known the Rubettes (and indeed Andy from Sweet) for many years and yes we are mates! The tour should be great fun.

When the group was formed by the merger of 2 groups was it a conscious decision that Dave would become known as the "lead singer" or was the plan originally to share the load?
I was originally the lead singer.  The intention was that quite a few of the guys would do vocals.  An odd fact is that Buddy Gask was not a member of the band when it was initially formed, and did not attend rehearsals until the band was actually on the road