John Fielding

ROCKHAPPENZ Public Collection

John Fielding  —  lead guitarist with Flying Wild .....

In 1973 John Fielding went overseas and the group broke up.  Andre and Ross played for a while with breweries band Sweet Feat on the pub circuit.  Following that, in 1974, Andre and Ross recruited Andre's brother Mark and Ramon York to form Ragnarok.  Also joining as vocalist was Lea Maalfrid who was born Lea Maalfrid Stevens in Alexandria, Central Otago in 1950.  Lea's husband Tony Wyber was the inspiration behind the name of the group and the Nordic theme.  Tony had a band at the time called Transformer, which included Lea and also future member of Mi-Sex, Kevin Stanton.  Transformer released one single in 1973 on the Revolution label, Crazy Feeling // Running In Confusion.

For several reasons, Fielding decided to go to the UK.  The band wasn't actually signed to a label, and his parents were heading to the 1972 Olympics in Munich.  They invited him to travel through Europe with them, and so he sold his gear after a South Island tour, and two days later was on the plane.  There was no musical plan once he got to the UK - he was just going to wing it, arriving in the UK in October 1972.  The only Kiwi muso that he knew in London was Gary Thain, although it was a vague connection that amounted to a couple of giddays backstage at the Plainsman Club in Christchurch in 66-67, when he was with The Secrets.  He managed to track Gary (who had just started with Uriah Heep) down and arranged to meet but when he got there Gary was pretty much out of his head and in a scene that John wasn't comfortable in.

In January 1973 Fielding started working on a building site, and a few weeks later went to Paris to for the weekend to see the All Blacks play France - they lost.  Fielding missed the ferry back to the UK, didn't get back to work on the Monday, and was fired.  A week later he saw an ad in the NME for a tour manager to handle The New Seekers.  He was interviewed by a Kiwi and got the job!  He learnt on the job during the New Seekers' tour of the UK, culminating in a headline gig at the Royal Albert Hall.  The New Seekers, says Fielding, "had a mixed crowd of screaming teenagers in the front and mums and dads at the back".  In about May 1973 Fielding accompanied the group as it embarked on a six-month tour of the United States, including appearances on the Johnny Carson and Helen Reddy TV shows, and gigs at Disneyland.  He quit after two months as he couldn't hack the actual manager of The New Seekers, who was a bully which didn't go down with John.  In hindsight he thinks he should haveperhaps pitched some of his songs to the group but he didn't really have anything at thst time that he felt suited them.  He was writing Never Gonna Leave You Again and the group heard sections while he was working on it.  They liked it - but they didn't pick their songs.

Returning to Britain, Fielding was signed as a songwriter to a new label called Ocean Records and went into CBS studios in London and put down three of his songs with session musos, Brian Bennett (The Shadows drummer who arranged the tracks and played clavinet not drums on the session).

A single, Put It In A Sack // Jack Up Shack Up, came out on Ocean in April 1974, after a delay of six months due to the impact of oil crisis on the availability of vinyl.  When it was eventually released in the UK it was competing against over a hundred other single releases that week.  It got a little bit of airplay in London with Emperor Rosko (a popular DJ at the time,) but mainly because of a song plugger paying to get it played - which was legal at the time.  The single was also released in Germany, on Atlantic Records in 1974.  Fielding was working on a third song, Never Gonna Leave You Again, while working with The New Seekers.  Ocean added the vocals of a singer called Bryan Taylor and released it as a single in May 1974.  It did not chart.  For 18 months Fielding gigged as a solo artist as well as with his own band.  At the end of 1974, Ocean was winding down, and Britain was going through an economic crisis, so he and his fiancée decided to return to New Zealand, getting married in January 1975 and then moving to Wellington.  On arrival back, back André, Ross and his replacement in Flying Wild, Ramon York, were all in Ragnarok and were just about to start recording their debut album at Stebbing's.  Fielding joined Marmalade Studio, in Wellington, as a producer.  His first assignment was producing The Heartbreakers' debut single Beachcomber // Heartbreak, and he produced a now-forgotten song for Shona Laing.  He formed the group Torpedo Gene, playing lead guitar and singing, with Neil Inwood on keyboards, Graeme Ward on bass and George Magoulas on drums.  Most of the songs released as Torpedo Gene were funded as jingles and the first, Time To Head South // Starchild, was originally a jingle for 45 South Whiskey on the Vertigo Records label, and a 60-second film commercial for theatres was made featuring Fred Dagg.   The second Torpedo Gene single, Think Drive // Looking For Blue Sky, was part of a road safety campaign and featured Beaver on lead vocals, released in 1975.  Ultimately Jet And Hawks // Jenny May was released in 1978.

In June 1976 Fielding moved to Brisbane. Two years later he won the Australian section of the Pacific Song Contest with his song Why Did You Take My Love (he returned to Christchurch to see it performed in a TV special by Linda Keene).  From there he played in cover bands in Queensland and New South Wales, worked as a radio announcer, and produced advertising commercials and promos. He remained in radio until his retirement in 2015, while continuing to perform in Queensland.  In 1994, as part of a duo with singer Ruby Slipperz, he wrote all the songs for a self-funded CD, Sweet Smell of Success, which won five Queensland Sunnie Music Awards. Another song by the duo, One Night in Goondi, won best country song in the same awards in 2000.  Fielding continues to perform as a guitarist and singer, and produce songs and videos for a local band.