The frontman of celebrated R’n’B band Nine Below Zero talks about his music, upbringing – and love of south London
BY BEN WEST
The Dennis Greaves onstage is very different from the one who steps off it. That’s the first thing you realise after a bit of a chat with the frontman of leading British rhythm and blues band Nine Below Zero.
As a musician, Dennis must be very proud. With NBZ (that stands for ‘Nine below Zero’ by the way, for those readers already struggling to keep up) he’s had the lot: record deal with a major label, playing to 35,000 at the Reading Festival (twice), 12 nights at the Royal Festival Hall sharing the stage with the likes of Eric Clapton, Glastonbury, plenty of spots on tv including The South Bank Show and The Young Ones and countless international tours.
Not to mention the host of critically acclaimed albums – and even a hit single in America reaching number 7 on the rock charts and 65 on the Billboard Hot 100 with another band he formed, The Truth.
When he’s performing he comes across as tough as nails, pulling no punches, etcetera etcetera. A bit The Krays, a bit The Jam… In reality, though, he’s rather more thoughtful and sensitive, a bit of a worrier, even. Never been into drink and drugs, he’s dab hand in the kitchen, too.
NBZ first came to prominence in the late 1970s with their punked-up version of R’n’B. They stood out because everyone else at the time was playing with the new musical toy that had come along and just gone mainstream, the synthesiser. Their first album, Live at the Marquee, instantly forged their high-energy live reputation while their second, Don’t Point the Finger, demonstrated that they could write their own good songs too.
Does he ever ponder how his first break sent him in a fantastic direction? Was it a huge influence on the course of his life?
“Big time,” he says, sipping a capuccino in The White Swan in Charlton, near his home and where he and the band played a fantastic set in the summer, as a warm-up for Glastonbury.
“If you imagine, just before we signed we were playing in the Thomas A Becket pub in the Old Kent Road. A few months later we were playing the Hammersmith Odeon. We all played in pubs those days, it was our apprenticeship. You could see Elvis Costello, The Police, Dire Straits, all doing the circuit, with the record companies sniffing around.
“We got signed out of a Thomas A Becket gig. The A&R guy who saw us went straight to Derek Green, the head of A&M Records, and advised him to sign us. They could sign acts like that then, it was much less complicated. Now acts are signed by committee, with long discussions with accountants, that sort of thing.
“When they signed us, A&M realised we hadn’t written an album yet, so we bided our time. We copied what the Yardbirds had done, a live album at the Marquee. They put us on tour with The Kinks, that was another apprenticeship. I was 22, it was an amazing time. It went so fast.
“When we arrived for the first day playing with The Kinks their people said we can’t talk to Ray or Dave Davies, don’t do this, don’t go there… But we got talking to them all the same, we reminded them of how they were when they started. Some bands can be a pain but we’ve got a lot in common with The Kinks, who were not just R&B but working class kids. So we felt really comfortable with them.
“We were introduced to Glyn Johns, who had recorded The Beatles, The Stones, The Eagles. He was going to be the house producer at A&M. Then through Glyn we met Kenny Jones, who’d just joined The Who. With the help of him and Harvey Goldsmith we got to play with The Who.
“These events were life changing for me because I was able to watch people like Pete Townsend and Ray Davis backstage and observe their craft, how they controlled the show, how they ran through a set list.
“I learned how to make a one-and-a-half hour set flow, with highs and lows, making the audience feel really good, teasing them, general showmanship really. Ray was really good at teasing the audience.”
Dennis’s uncles were a big influence. They had been to key gigs in the 1960s, such as when Peter Green stepped in for Eric Clapton when John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers played the Marquee Club in Wardour Street.
“Stuff like that I was in awe of,” says Dennis. “It made me want to play blues then. But what made me form a band was seeing Dr Feelgood on the Old Grey Whistle Test. I immediately went to Crampton Clothing in Old Kent Road, the area we hung around, around The Dun Cow, The Green Man, the Thomas A Becket, near my school.
“You could get a suit for £2, a tie for 20p and dead man’s shoes. They were house clearances, old boys’ clothes. We went to the Salvation Army, and the shop where they shot the cover of lan Dury’s New Boots and Panties. We’d go to all those shops to get our kit.
“The first time we played Reading we went on stage wearing those clothes, and we were canned and coined. With 2p coins, with the edges sharpened. Really frightening. Pity they weren’t 50p’s, it’d been more lucrative. So quickly we decided to play Led Zeppelin’s
Can’t Quit You Baby, and won them over, and were then asked back the next year.
“We’d signed for £5000 and then bought a van and PA, and became very self-sufficient. We also got £5000 for the publishing rights, which we paid to go on tour with The Kinks and The Who. We’d signed for very little money, which meant we weren’t under much pressure.
“We probably recouped the first album. The second one cost more, recorded at Olympic Studios, Wembley. It was produced by Glyn John. It’s great to think about Glyn’s stories, staying up talking about Keith Moon, about The Beatles, the Let it Be sessions, Morocco with Brian Jones.”
Dennis has lived in south east London since the age of six, in the Elephant and Castle, Blackheath and now Charlton. His kids, now 19 and 25, went to John Ball and John Roan Schools. Indeed, I remember some years ago seeing NBZ at an Up the Creek fundraiser for cash for updating John Ball’s toilets – oh, the glamour of the music business.
“I always feel I’ve had it nice,” he says. “I’ve had North London, then the family coming to south London. Hampstead, Primrose Hill, then Blackheath and Greenwich, they are very similar, with heaths and parks.”
Although Dennis has seen a good deal of the world touring with the band, south east London remains very much home.
“We were in Blackheath originally, had kids and then moved to a bigger house in Charlton. The house was built in 1905 and only two other families had lived there. We moved to Charlton 21 years ago and have just watched the area grow. The pubs are thriving, both the White Swan and the Bugle Horn have been done up, as has the Indian.
“I adore having football on my doorstep, I like that social thing, although a lot of people moan because they can’t park when there’s a match.” But Dennis supports Tottenham: why not a local team?
“I was born in Tufnell Park. In 1962, we were going to be ‘£10 poms’ as my mum and dad thought England had no prospects. We were in a house in Burghley Road with 20 other people.
Two other families were there. My dad and mum felt there weren’t many prospects.
“We had our tickets for Australia, we’d visited Australia House, and then suddenly a flat came up in Darwin Street in the Elephant and Castle from the Peabody Trust. It was amazing, dad got a new job as a bus driver, he’d finally come out of dead end jobs. I remember watching him skid the buses in the wet, learning to control the bus.
“So I had already been indoctrinated by my family, although half the family is Arsenal, half is Tottenham. I first went to White Hart Lane in 1961 when aged four with my dad and my uncle and it was like a church, the passion. It was amazing, you’d walk down the street with hundreds of people, queuing outside the sweet shops, by the hot dog stands. My dad would pick me up and walk us through the turnstiles. He made a stall for me to stand on. Every year I’d stand on it, he’d cut it off as I got taller and taller.
“My grandad used to own the paper store outside Tufnell Park tube station, that was my pocket money job, I’d sell The Standard. There’d be a queue a mile long for the paper, to get the football results, you had to wait until 6.30 at night. Funny how now on our phones it’s so instant, I follow Tottenham on Twitter now and it’s instant.”
“One highlight of my life was the 1981 F.A. Cup Final. We drew the first game, I couldn’t go, and my uncle gave me his ticket for the replay, which I’ve always cherished. That was pretty special.
“All my mates supported Millwall, Mark’s [NBZ’s harmonica player] team. In my dad’s time when Tottenham were away we’d go to QPR, Chelsea, Arsenal, we’d just go to watch a football match, any match. We were football fans. You can’t do that now with the ticket prices.”
Was there less trouble then?
“I remember the day my mum stopped coming to Tottenham. West Ham were marching down the street in 1968 or 1969, and it scared her. That’s when it changed. Fashions and tribes became important, boots, Crombies, skinheads and mods.
“In ’69 my uncle stopped dressing like a hippy with his kaftans and petchouli oil. Then he started wearing his Sta Press, Crombies, Ben Sherman. My mum had been taking me to the football at that time, and when she stopped going I had to find my own way. That was really nervewracking, getting on the tube with all the supporters, when you’re aged 11 or 12.”
Dennis built himself a secure base from a young age: in his early 20s he’d married his childhood sweetheart and got a car, house, job and mortgage. He’s really seen the music industry change beyond recognition during the four decades NBZ have been going, most notably vinyl and then CD sales to Spotify where royalties for a track are around 0.02p per play. At that rate, with ten million plays you could buy a studio flat in the area. When NBZ signed there were many record labels, now there are just two majors, Sony and Universal.
Dennis’s son Sonny is a drummer, currently touring with Aaron Keylock. He wants his son to follow his musical dreams, but is also anxious at the vagaries of the music business.
Fortunately, NBZ have always had a sizeable loyal following, so have been able to adapt to the changes in the music business.
“We’ve got this tremendous fan base, which we’ve had since 1979, we’re so lucky to have that,” says Dennis. “We built up the website, Twitter, Facebook. I wrote about Soho the other week. I’ve got old school mates working in porn shops up there. I wrote about the changimg face of Soho. I put up photos and how it has changed, the corporate things. Suggs out of Madness would say the same, he lived above a Soho pub with his mum. It got a big number of hits on Facebook.”
So what’s best: playing large or small venues?
“Small, although it’s intimidating. Once, I wore contact lenses as I’m a bit blind, see things a bit blurred. It was the worst thing I’ve done. I could see my mates, I could see all their expressions, everything clearly, and I kept wondering ‘do they like it?’
“A 500 to 1000 capacity for the music we play is probably enough. Festivals are completely different. They’re open, it’s a contradiction. We’ve just played Glastonbury and Faversham and its a vast area, but somehow as it’s a festival you and the audience make it like a small venue.
“I can’t stand ‘corporate’ gigs, like the 02 or Earl’s Court. I saw Led Zep and the Stones there, but the best gigs are seeing some blues guy or some jazz in a small venue. I really have problems with big venues. But then if I’m as big as Coldplay would I do small venues? I bet the pressure the musicians get from the record companies, the agents…”
Despite his love of Charlton, Dennis loves touring – but finds it’s getting more difficult with the roads increasingly packed.
“It can be stressful, but it’s been a good opportunity for me to educate myself. The day I left school was the day my education started. | wasn’t receptive at school, but after I left I read extensively, on buses, airports, planes. Travelling you’d meet foreign places and people, taste the wine and the food – it was a wonderful education.
“One of my sins is watching daytime TV, but I need rest from touring. I have trouble relaxing, I’m a bit hyperactive. My father died when I was 21, aged 44, it was an aneurysm. There was no counselling then. I wonder whether I would have handled it differently if there was.
“The day he died my career took off. He died on a Friday and our first gig at Dingwalls was on the Sunday. I suppose I got that early doors awareness, that life won’t go for ever. Once I had that experience, I struggled with that sense of doom.
“My career is all-absorbing and with involvement in my son’s career now takes up time as well. One way I relax is cooking. I really like to cook. For example, someone cooked red cabbage in cinnamon recently and I had to have the recipe. I do lots of cooking at home, probably it’s the only thing that relaxes me. My Indian neighbour passes on tips, and I think I can make a good curry now. When us musicians have nothing to do on a Monday or Tuesday we’ll watch Rick Stein.”
That said, in recent years things haven’t been busier. A chance meeting with neighbour Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze resulted in an offer to record a new album at Glenn’s studio, It’s Never Too Late. European tours followed and Jools Holland and Paul Jones asked the band to guest on their shows.
In 2013 their first three albums were remastered and re-released by Universal, seeing the original line-up back out on the road. Dennis and harmonica player Mark Feltham from the band also released an album of covers and new material, Duo, featuring Mark’s distinctive melodic, sweet and virtuosic harmonica playing. The Duo tour included a spot on variety show The House of Fun in 2014 with Arthur Smith at the Blackheath Halls.
Incidentally, Mark, who’s played with everyone from Robbie Williams to Joe Cocker, became ‘Harmonica player of the year’ in the British Blues Awards in 2016. NBZ’s new album, 13 Shades of Blue, features a cross-section of styles that come under the heading of blues and R’n’B, and which they are currently touring around the UK. And it features the new eight-piece band.
“It’s great having the big band now. I always wanted to do it, it’s given everybody an injection. I liken it to being midfield on the football pitch, let all the young ones get experience, benefit from their energy. When we’ve been going as long as we have, we have to keep things fresh, reinvent ourselves, not become a tribute band but to continue churning out new songs.”
Dennis also manages to fit in presiding over a blues jam each last Sunday of the month at the Pelton Arms in Greenwich.
“Funnily enough, five of the people who turned up for the blues jam are on the latest album,” he says. “There’s some brilliant talent out there.”
So, if for some unfathomable reason you can’t catch NBZ on their latest tour, be sure to drop in at the blues jam at the Pelton one Sunday.
NBZ’s latest tour dates can be found at ninebelowzero.com
This article appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of Black + Green Magazine