It was certainly one of Capitol Information’ most mysterious releases. The document, cryptically titled 3:47 EST in Canada, however simply bearing the band’s identify for worldwide distribution, carried no details about the group, no images, no songwriting credit. The band have been referred to as Klaatu. However, for a time, hearsay had it that they have been one other, way more well-known, band fully…
Launched in August 1976, the Klaatu album earned a number of enthusiastic opinions. Canada’s File Month referred to as it “a terrific idea album”, whereas Trouser Press stated it was “a formidable sci-fi reply to Bowie”. However the opinions didn’t translate into gross sales, and it appeared like Klaatu was headed straight to the discount bin.
Then, on February 17, 1977, a characteristic headlined ‘Might Klaatu Be Beatles? Thriller Is A Magical Tour’, written by Steve Smith, a younger journalist working for Rhode Island every day newspaper the Windfall Journal, modified the whole lot.
“We used to get a bunch of albums to overview. In the event that they weren’t reviewed they went in a pile, and if you happen to wished something you grabbed it,” Smith tells Traditional Rock. “I noticed the Klaatu album, took it house and listened to it. It had Beatle-sounding stuff, so I began researching. And couldn’t get any solutions.”
The primary query Smith wished a solution to was merely: why did the album sound so very like the Fab 4? “It struck me virtually instantly,” he says. “The observe Sub-Rosa Subway is totally Beatlish.”
In his 1977 overview, Smith wrote that the tune’s vocals are “precisely like Paul McCartney”, the drumming “like Ringo Starr’s” and “the guitar work like George Harrison’s and John Lennon’s”. Physician Marvello, stated Smith, gave the impression of Blue Jay Method-interval George Harrison, “with the remainder of The Beatles backing”. Different songs had “digs from The Beatles’ previous, corresponding to singing by way of fuzz results, ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs’ and unmistakable harmonies”.
The sleeve of Ringo Starr’s 1974 solo album Goodnight Vienna had the drummer standing within the doorway of the spaceship from the 1951 movie The Day The Earth Stood Nonetheless, subsequent to the large robotic and dressed within the outfit that actor Michael Rennie wore as Klaatu, the alien peace emissary within the movie. Smith puzzled if the identify of the band was a clue in itself.
Summing up (and hedging his bets), Smith concluded that this thriller band may very well be: 1. The Beatles. 2. A few The Beatles with different folks. 3. A Beatles-backed band. 4. A very unknown however ingenious and gifted band.
Smith contacted Capitol Information for extra data however acquired nothing. “Capitol advised me they didn’t know something. I didn’t consider them. You don’t simply signal a band blind. They stated they’d signed these guys by way of Frank Davies, who’d launched them on Daffodil Information in Canada.”
“I’d recorded and produced two or three of the Daffodil artists at [Rush producer] Terry Brown’s studio in Toronto,” Davies says right this moment. “He performed me two or three of the Klaatu tracks and I advised him he didn’t have to play me the rest, I wished to signal them. My label was centred in Canada, and what I might do with my artists again then was exit and put collectively a US deal, or offers world wide. I performed the tracks to Rupert Perry who was head of A&R at Capitol Information within the US. He liked them and stated he’d prefer to signal the band.”
However Klaatu weren’t going to go down the tried and examined route. “The fellows wished to strive a brand new strategy,” says Davies. “They wouldn’t do images, or interviews, or have a bio. I used to be cool with that. It was completely different. They weren’t going to play dwell, both.”
“We have been three unknown guys from Toronto and didn’t need the main target to be on us as people,” says Klaatu vocalist/bassist/keyboard participant John Woloschuk. “We actually wished the music to be the focus. Additionally, we knew that the music we wished to document couldn’t presumably be replicated on stage by three folks.”
For his article, Steve Smith requested Frank Davies whether or not Klaatu have been The Beatles. “No,” Davies replied. Smith then went by way of a number of the ‘clues’ he’d, discovered and Davies advised him vaguely that he’s “fairly correct”.
“I used to be undoubtedly taking part in coy!” Davies says right this moment. “By this time the album had been out six months. We did have some nice press on it, nevertheless it had solely offered seven or eight thousand copies within the US. We’d reached some extent the place we thought the primary album was over, and the band had already began engaged on the second, which was shaping up superbly. Then Steve’s story was revealed and all hell broke unfastened sales-wise.”
Klaatu shaped when John Woloschuk started working at English producer/engineer Terry Brown’s Toronto Sound Studio in September 1974. Brown heard and preferred the demos Woloschuk had made with guitarist Dee Lengthy and signed them to his manufacturing firm.
Drummer Terry Draper joined in February 1975 and the trio started recording what grew to become the Klaatu album in studio downtime. “Terry Brown was our engineer and co-producer,” says Draper. “The fourth member of the band. He made us sound fabulous. The album was recorded over three years. All of us had common jobs so we used to document within the evenings and late at evening.”
With the total album recorded and able to go, Frank Davies signed Klaatu to Capitol. “They didn’t know who we have been,” Woloschuk confirms, including: “They signed us on the energy of listening to the primary album. It was Frank that swung that deal on these situations. They will need to have believed within the music sufficient to take an opportunity.”
“Capitol by no means acquired to fulfill the band,” says Davies. “Rupert [Perry, A&R] went together with the situations as a result of he wished the band. He stated that he at the very least needed to meet them and watch them signal the document settlement. I advised him he didn’t need to as a result of I’d warrant that they have been signed to me, my label and my manufacturing firm. ‘The attorneys will probably be concerned – my attorneys, their attorneys. They’re signing to you, by way of me and that’s that.’
“It took a short while, notably once we acquired to Capitol’s Enterprise Affairs. It was a kind of issues the place you wanted to have the boldness with the music. Which I did. Island had beforehand put out a one-off single and I had different labels . I stated: ‘In case you don’t need them below these situations, don’t signal them.’”
Capitol took the possibility and began sending out Steve Smith’s overview all around the world. The gamble of signing the band paid off, and the rumours generated by Smith’s article quickly started to tackle a lifetime of their very own.
“We have been in England, recording,” remembers Terry Draper. “Someone advised us about The Beatles hearsay, and all of us had a very good chortle and went again to work. After we returned to Canada, it went ridiculous. Cashbox, Billboard, all of the magazines, everyone was speaking about it. It went world wide through the United Press company. We didn’t know what to do. Frank began having to area the calls.
“Everyone who was being profitable – together with us – was fairly delighted that we have been promoting data and folks have been speaking about us. So, did we need to come out of the closet, squash the hearsay and cease document gross sales? The entire anonymity factor was to have non-public lives, be a traditional particular person, nonetheless make music and thousands and thousands of {dollars}. That was the objective.”
Because the story gathered momentum, extra Fab 4-related clues started to emerge. “Everyone investigating the story came upon I used to work for EMI Information in London, who The Beatles have been signed to,” remembers Davies. “They then came upon that Terry Brown had been an engineer at Olympic Studios in London, and so they beginning placing all these little items collectively, with Capitol ending up with the document.”
In the meantime, AM and FM radio in Windfall started to play tracks from the album and so they interviewed Smith on air. Different stations caught on to the story, and inside weeks Klaatu have been being performed all throughout the US. The band themselves have been preserving out of the hearsay mill and beavering away on their second album, Hope.
“At that time we didn’t know the way a lot influence it was going to have on our profession,” says Woloschuk. “It was a worldwide factor. I’m undecided what number of urgent vegetation Capitol had assigned to the [first] album however they’d to enter emergency mode. They didn’t have sufficient copies to go spherical and missed plenty of gross sales. It become a monster that was past our energy and management.”
“All kinds of press did interviews with Rupert Perry,” Davies continues. “They didn’t consider that Capitol didn’t know who the group was, which added to the state of affairs. ‘This document label is sinking cash into this band, in order that they will need to have met them. So there have to be one thing behind this…’”
By now the ‘Klaatu – are they/aren’t they?’ rumours had reached The Beatles and their interior circle. Tony Bramwell was certainly one of The Beatles’ childhood buddies and had labored carefully with them and supervisor Brian Epstein in the course of the 60s.
“Individuals began saying that Klaatu sounded Beatley, and Capitol would neither affirm nor deny it,” says Bramwell. “Capitol in America weren’t that brilliant on the time. They have been being coy about it and hoping folks can be taken in. I believed: ‘What the bollocks is all this about?’ I used to be working for Polydor Information in 1977 however nonetheless additionally doing promotions for the person Beatles, so I knew what they have been doing – and knew that Klaatu wasn’t them.”
Frank Davies was initially from the UK and had labored for Parlophone within the Nineteen Sixties. After the Klaatu story hit, he obtained a postcard from his former EMI colleague Paul McCartney, on which the ex-Beatle stated he was “having fun watching all of the rumours swirling”. Capitol continued to stoke the flames by putting an advert within the music commerce magazines with an image of the solar from the Klaatu album cowl and the slogan ‘Klaatu is Klaatu’.
“It was a weak method of denying the hearsay,” says Woloschuk. “There was by no means any intention of milking the hearsay on our half. We have been attempting to carry on to our anonymity, although. We have been younger and idealistic and thought we may climate the storm. Which turned out to be incorrect.”
On the top of the media storm, Klaatu and Terry Brown have been within the UK engaged on Hope, a cosmic-themed idea album that had its orchestral elements recorded over three afternoons at Olympic Studios with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Due to the continued gross sales of the Klaatu album, Capitol put again the discharge of Hope by a number of months. “We have been delighted,” says Draper. “It gave us extra time to complete it.”
A number of months after the Klaatu story had damaged worldwide, over on the Windfall Journal Steve Smith had seen the sunshine. He’d executed some digging and had positioned an former girlfriend of one of many band. “She stated: ‘In case you’d contacted me a few months in the past I’d have advised you the reality! However now I believe it’s humorous.’”
Dwight Douglas, the Programme Director of WWDC-FM radio station in Washington DC, took a extra tutorial strategy to unmasking Klaatu. He visited the Library Of Congress and found that the songs from the album have been copyrighted to not Lennon, McCartney, Harrison or Starkey, however to Draper, Lengthy, Woloschuk and his then songwriting associate Dino Tome.
“When folks came upon we weren’t The Beatles, they thought we’d perpetrated the hearsay and duped them,” remembers Terry Draper. “And that got here again to hang-out us.”
“The entire world resigned themselves that we weren’t The Beatles,” says Woloschuk. “Rolling Stone journal gave us their ‘Hype Of The 12 months’ award!”
Launched in September 1977, Hope was Klaatu’s most formidable and mature work and went on to promote a decent 400,000 copies. However regardless of this, the writing was clearly on the wall for the band.
“We acquired some nice opinions on the Hope album,” says Frank Davies. “However for each nice overview, we’d get a newspaper article saying: ‘Hoax!’ or ‘Rip-off!’ and plenty of detrimental press. We’d launch an album and it could go just about unnoticed. We couldn’t get arrested, it doesn’t matter what we did.”
Klaatu’s third album, Sir Military Go well with, had cowl drawings by artist Hugh Syme of a bunch of folks that included the three Klaatu members, together with Frank Davies, Terry Brown and his spouse and the Queen. “We buried ourselves amongst different folks,” says Draper.
“Capitol have been now asking us to do interviews, so our names grew to become identified to them,” provides Woloschuk. “With each successive album they wished to open the door a bit bit wider.”
Capitol picked up the choice for a fourth album, on the situation that it was recorded in Los Angeles with a producer of the label’s alternative. Chris Bond, who had produced Wealthy Woman for Corridor & Oates and in addition had success with The Knack, was introduced in and used his personal most well-liked musicians on most of the tracks somewhat than Klaatu themselves.
“We resisted it,” says Davies. “He was attempting to make a pop album. It didn’t work.”
The outcome, 1980’s Endangered Species, credited to Lengthy, Draper and Woloschuk for the primary time, was launched within the US however then withdrawn. After the success of the primary Klaatu album, it could have been logical for the label to recommend the band ramp up their interior Lennon and McCartney and make one other Beatle-esque document. However they didn’t.
“They by no means requested us that,” Woloschuk says. “If something, they wished us to sound extra American. They advised us they wished us to write down songs that may very well be performed dwell. They wished us to go on a radio tour, which we did in Canada, and the album did reasonably properly right here. Within the States they buried the album.”
“There was somebody in Capitol’s advertising and marketing division who didn’t just like the band in any respect,” says Draper, “and when the album was about to ship he stated: ‘If I’ve to advertise this album, I stop!’ So Capitol didn’t market the album, and let it die so this fella would keep.”
Surprisingly, the Klaatu/Capitol relationship didn’t finish there. “Rupert Perry is a really good man, and he felt unhealthy as a result of he’d coerced us into coming to LA, working with a producer, hiring some unusual musicians after which not selling the document so it died a loss of life,” says Draper. “So he allowed us to do a fifth and remaining album with Capitol, for Canada solely and never recoupable.”
Klaatu’s remaining album, Magentalane, launched in 1981, was made on a shoestring funds on the situation that they performed dwell to assist it. Bringing in three musicians from the newly defunct fellow Canadian band Max Webster, Klaatu went out and performed exhibits first as assist to Prism after which headlining smaller venues.
“We toured for 9 months and had some enjoyable, however couldn’t make the leap from the bars to the seated venues,” says Draper. “We stuffed our gigs each evening as a result of folks got here to see the novelty act that was as soon as considered The Beatles.”
The tune Knee Deep In Love from the Endangered Species album was a Prime 40 hit in Canada, however the romance between Klaatu and the US was properly and really over, and the band break up in 1982.
As of late, the previous members of Klaatu are very open about their Beatles influences. “I’m in all probability one of many largest Beatles followers in the entire world,” says John Woloschuk, “however we did attempt to department out into different influences, like 10cc, for instance.”
“In case you’re going to steal – or be taught – you steal from the most effective,” says Terry Draper. “No person’s going to steal from a foul band.”
True to the philosophy that made – after which broke – them, the previous members of Klaatu are nonetheless concerned in music. Terry Draper and Dee Lengthy launch solo albums, Draper oversees Klaatu’s catalogue and remastering. John Woloschuk sometimes performs in a band with buddies, and administers Magentalane Music to take care of Klaatu’s enterprise affairs.
“From the nineties till now, there’s been a giant resurgence in curiosity in Klaatu,” says Frank Davies. “They held a conference in 2005 right here in Toronto for Klaatu followers. Individuals got here from all around the world. The band performed unplugged and the gang liked it.”
“Our followers are usually extraordinarily loyal,” says Woloschuk. “They persist with us although there hasn’t been any new Klaatu product out for many years. There are some youthful followers who weren’t born when Klaatu was round.”
Steve Smith has blended emotions about the entire Klaatu expertise. “I really feel type of unhealthy about what ultimately occurred once they acquired poo-pooed,” he says. “After it got here out that they weren’t The Beatles, no one wished to listen to it any extra. I believed they have been a very gifted band. To today I nonetheless like them. Hope is a improbable album.”
“To engineer the press furore that occurred was method past our stage of intelligence,” concludes John Woloschuk. “No person may have deliberate that. We have been the victims to the hearsay.
“I see the gold data on my wall and I do know what we achieved. We acquired superb at what we have been doing. It’s a disgrace that we weren’t allowed to have a spot within the music business workforce. We have been compelled out of it.”
Terry Draper handed away on Might 15, 2025. This characteristic initially appeared in Traditional Rock 245, revealed in January 2018.