Fact #129212
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Denny Seiwell (drummer) : I left because of financial matters. Henry (McCullough) had just left. Henry left when we were up in Scotland. Here we were getting ready to go to Lagos and cut Band On The Run and we still had no agreement in writing. We had a verbal agreement that didn't hold any water. I'd already made Wildlife and Red Rose Speedway with that agreement in mind, but I never received a dime from that. It became a financial matter at that point and the fact that we weren't getting that document, letter of agreement, that never came. I said, "You know what? This is not good. My interests are not being looked after here."
I should have sat him down and talked to him and said, "Look, I won't do this anymore!" But instead I was infuriated by a couple of things that happened and I just called him up and said, "I'm leaving. I'm done here." So that was the only regret that I have.
Nobody had representation. We didn't have management. We didn't have an office. We had a little office with a telephone and a secretary in it and sometimes our cheques would come two weeks late. We made a little retainer, just a couple of bucks to live off of. I'm telling you, it was really, really minuscule. We were one of the top bands, if not the top band in the '70s and we had nothing to show for it. That end of it was so wrong.
Henry and I, when we left Wings, we added Chrissy Stewart, a bass player from Spooky Tooth and Nick Weaver, an English guy who played in lots of bands. He was our keyboard guy. We had a band called Druth, which means dry mouth and we were living in San Francisco. Elliott Mazer, the producer was in touch with the Janis Joplin estate. They had these beautiful tracks with Janice, with Big Brother And The Holding Company that were 'live' performances. The band was really shaky on a few of the tracks. They sounded like they were drunk. (laughs) It was stuff that was unusable, but Janice was great, and she was probably higher than all of them put together. Elliott asked us, the band, to come in and record over Big Brother And The Holding Company, and we did. It was quite a task actually to do that technologically. We heard Janice in the middle of our headphone mix and had Big Brother And The Holding Company on one side and we had the track we were laying down at the time on the other side of our phone mix and we recorded a bunch of songs with her like that. Her last record is called "The Farewell Song". It's on CBS. It's really cool.
(Source : http://www.classicbands.com/DennySeiwellInterview.html)
Denny Seiwell : That (leaving Wings) was probably the toughest decision I ever made in my life and that’s probably one of the few regrets in my life. I was just there at a bad time – when he was starting up a whole new life with Wings. And at the same time, he had to sue the other Beatles and break up the band because of financial problems that they were having and their management, and it all went into court receivership that lasted over three years, I guess. And all of those funds and Paul’s funds, actually, were tied up in all of that stuff. So I was there at a very, very poor time. We had no management – we had nothing in the very beginning. And what happened was – it really came down to a financial thing, where it wasn’t getting worked out that we had a written agreement as to our shares in the band. And originally, that was the deal that was offered – we would all be shareholders in that band and we would all participate. And we were one of the biggest – if not the biggest-selling band in the ‘70s.
And the money was just always tied up, and the agreements never got clarified and put in writing. And without really confronting the situation, I just made the decision to leave, ‘cause I was there three, four years or something and it was very difficult. We were giving a little bit more than we were getting, and when Henry left the band due to this, I said, ‘Well, maybe I can get things turned around.’ But I never had the talk with Paul that I should have. That’s my regret.
So I was just there at the best and the worst times.
(Source : http://blogs.mcall.com/lehighvalleymusic/2012/03/when-lehighton-native-denny-seiwell-left-the-tiny-carbon-county-town-for-a-burgeoning-career-as-a-drummer-in-the-lodges-of-th.html)
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I should have sat him down and talked to him and said, "Look, I won't do this anymore!" But instead I was infuriated by a couple of things that happened and I just called him up and said, "I'm leaving. I'm done here." So that was the only regret that I have.
Nobody had representation. We didn't have management. We didn't have an office. We had a little office with a telephone and a secretary in it and sometimes our cheques would come two weeks late. We made a little retainer, just a couple of bucks to live off of. I'm telling you, it was really, really minuscule. We were one of the top bands, if not the top band in the '70s and we had nothing to show for it. That end of it was so wrong.
Henry and I, when we left Wings, we added Chrissy Stewart, a bass player from Spooky Tooth and Nick Weaver, an English guy who played in lots of bands. He was our keyboard guy. We had a band called Druth, which means dry mouth and we were living in San Francisco. Elliott Mazer, the producer was in touch with the Janis Joplin estate. They had these beautiful tracks with Janice, with Big Brother And The Holding Company that were 'live' performances. The band was really shaky on a few of the tracks. They sounded like they were drunk. (laughs) It was stuff that was unusable, but Janice was great, and she was probably higher than all of them put together. Elliott asked us, the band, to come in and record over Big Brother And The Holding Company, and we did. It was quite a task actually to do that technologically. We heard Janice in the middle of our headphone mix and had Big Brother And The Holding Company on one side and we had the track we were laying down at the time on the other side of our phone mix and we recorded a bunch of songs with her like that. Her last record is called "The Farewell Song". It's on CBS. It's really cool.
(Source : http://www.classicbands.com/DennySeiwellInterview.html)
Denny Seiwell : That (leaving Wings) was probably the toughest decision I ever made in my life and that’s probably one of the few regrets in my life. I was just there at a bad time – when he was starting up a whole new life with Wings. And at the same time, he had to sue the other Beatles and break up the band because of financial problems that they were having and their management, and it all went into court receivership that lasted over three years, I guess. And all of those funds and Paul’s funds, actually, were tied up in all of that stuff. So I was there at a very, very poor time. We had no management – we had nothing in the very beginning. And what happened was – it really came down to a financial thing, where it wasn’t getting worked out that we had a written agreement as to our shares in the band. And originally, that was the deal that was offered – we would all be shareholders in that band and we would all participate. And we were one of the biggest – if not the biggest-selling band in the ‘70s.
And the money was just always tied up, and the agreements never got clarified and put in writing. And without really confronting the situation, I just made the decision to leave, ‘cause I was there three, four years or something and it was very difficult. We were giving a little bit more than we were getting, and when Henry left the band due to this, I said, ‘Well, maybe I can get things turned around.’ But I never had the talk with Paul that I should have. That’s my regret.
So I was just there at the best and the worst times.
(Source : http://blogs.mcall.com/lehighvalleymusic/2012/03/when-lehighton-native-denny-seiwell-left-the-tiny-carbon-county-town-for-a-burgeoning-career-as-a-drummer-in-the-lodges-of-th.html)