Q: I gotta find it. So for how long did you stay with the Hippy Boys band? This wasn't, mainly, a recording group, more like a club act, you didn't record frequently?

A: No. It was like a cabaret group, we play cabaret shows and hotels and things like that. We stay together I guess for about two years. We had Carlton Barrett and 'Family Man' Barrett on rhythms, Glen Adams, Alva ('Reggie') Lewis. Lloyd Charmers joined later on. We play for about two years and the group mash up.

Q: I know of one album titled 'Reggae With The Hippy Boys'. Did you participate on that recording?

A: No, I didn't. That's after me, I think that was done by Sonia Pottinger. Yeah.

Q: Ah, OK. So how come you left the band, it was some disagreements with other members, or you just wanted to go solo at that point?

A: Well, yeah, it was disagreements in the group. Because every time, y'know, groups are basically like that; you have one guy making an arrangement and the other guy disagree, and because of that we weren't getting anywhere. They didn't have no ideas - I had the ideas, and I make arrangements, they make other demands. So I couldn't deal with it, I just branch off on my own.

Q: Right. How did you feel about that? 'Should I join another band, or should I try it solo?'

A: Well, it wasn't really a hard decision to me, because at the time...

Q: Too much pressure in the group you mean?

A: Yeah, too much pressure and basically I was a little selfish at the time, it was all about 'me' then, y'know. It was all about me wanting to make it in life. I wasn't gonna make anybody hold me back, that was the attitude actually.

Q: But how was the general attitude at the time, we're talking '68 and Desmond Dekker hit big, and I suppose a lot of you looked at to get the big break overseas.

A: I didn't have no sort of any overseas ambition or anything like that, I didn't see myself in that light. I just see myself mediocre on the Jamaican scene. And then I did break through and that's what start the whole revolution of my whole career.

Q: But I heard something that you were more or less 'forced' to voice that tune, 'Wet Dream'.

A: Yeah, I wrote the lyrics. But at the time I was, y'know, I didn't want to take that direction in music. You know, I wanted to sing about love in another light, not deal with sex. So although I had the idea, but I didn't want to do it. I mentioned it to Bunny Lee and he had a few ideas of his own work into it. So he said, well, I'm the person that he wants to sing it. I wasn't in his crew at the time, y'know. And I didn't really want to, but he said, "Well, if you don't want to you can't stay around here". It wasn't really a serious thing, it was just suggestion. So I said, "All right, since you feel that way about it I'll do it". I reluctantly did it and out of all the songs that was done on the session, it was the only one that made the international market.

Q: Mainly because of the lyrics, but was that one like a forerunner to what Lloyd Charmers did a bit later, or he was before this? He did have at that time a 'suggestive' act called Lloydie & The Lowbites, if you remember that?

A: Yeah, right after I come everything... Beca' what happened; that England was such a stuck-up society and the morality at the time was at an all time high. I mean, immorality was in the closet. So, for me now to come with a song like that, and then again it was being supported by the skinheads at the time. You know, they took onto it, because in a society where you can't even say 'damn', here you are talkin' about 'wet dream', y'know what I mean (chuckles)? It was a low note. So they played it once on the BBC and some Jamaicans hear it and call in and protest that the lyrics are lewd. And up to they repute the whole thing it was banned, and that make it even bigger. It stays in the British charts for twenty-six weeks and reach as far as number two. It was heading for the number one position. The Beatles kept it out with a song called 'Get Back (To Where You Belonged)', y'know (giggles).

Q: Ah, so you actually 'competed' with the Beatles, that's something to say the least.

A: Yeah.

Q: So, obviously, in a perfect world, you should've made some good money for this. But no reward?

A: Nah, there was no financial reward. But what happened was that it sort of launched my solo career, and I get the opportunity to do tours in England at the time. It take me a lot of time before I come across royalties. But, basically, at the time in England, that song was big.

Q: Before I forget, how was the encounter with Bunny Lee, or you had met him before this?

A: I knew Bunny Lee before he start produce. As a matter of fact, the first session he did - as a matter of fact - I influenced him.

Q: He wasn't established at that point?

A: I was in the business long before Bunny Lee. Bunny Lee was a desk clerk for an auto supply place in Kingston. And he was also - because he likes the badness, he was a bouncer for Duke Reid, and he used to take - the same job I was doing for Ken Lack, he was doing that for Duke Reid, taking samples to the radio stations and go down to the shops, before he get involved in business.

Q: You said at some point that Bunny Lee was one of the persons who - for whoever it was - had to get the records played 'by any means necessary'. You meant forcing, simple as that.

A: Yeah, he forced DJ's, beat up DJ's to play the record and stick them up with guns, if necessary, for them to get played.

Q: So that was the norm even in the sixties, a common practice among some producers the decade after.

A: Yeah, that was '66, '68 to '69. '70, that's when that whole thing start happening. Radio change taking payola from people, which was against regulations and the rules. And there was a very prominent radio guy in Jamaica at the time that Bunny Lee cause him to lose his job. But Bunny gave him a cheque to play the songs, to plug the songs, and then he take the cheque up to the station controllers, and the guy was fired. Yeah.

Q: Not common knowledge, perhaps. Well, it should be.

A: Well, those were the early days, y'know. It's the early days.

Q: And everything was still at a infantile stage at that time.

A: Yes, everybody was new to it. We didn't know anything about copyright or publishing or anything like that.

Q: In-between when you had left the Hippy Boys and recording for Bunny, did you record anything else, anywhere else?

A: No, basically from the Emotions to Max Romeo, there were times when they use a name on record that I even didn't have anything to do with. And at one point, if I'm singin' for this producer, the other producer is scared to record me. I did use a name ('Trevor Lambert') on a recording for Joe Gibbs called 'Bald Headed Teacher' (Max also sang under various aliases like Ben Rude Dick, Rasta Pickney and Mert, Turt & Pert), because Joe Gibbs had a big feud with Bunny Lee at the time.

Q: OK, to cover it up.

A: Yeah, he didn't want people to know that I was recording for him, so he put it out. The first one I did for him was 'Bald Headed Teacher', he put it as 'Joe Lambert' and I told him no. He used my name, and the rest of them, which was one called 'Cock Fight' and one called 'Deacon's Wife', he used my name on it.

Q: When was that Joe Gibbs stuff?

A: Yeah, this was early seventies, 1970/71.

Q: But nothing of note became of it?

A: Yeah, well, they were prominent songs around the Caribbean and Canada and the New York area, and things like that.

Q: What's the story of that name, 'Max Romeo'?

A: Well, obviously my way with girls, or words with the girls, in them young days, and like I say me and Bunny Lee met before music, I know him from boy days.

Q: In Greenwich Town.

A: Greenwich Town, I was living in Greenwich Town at the time. This was like, late teens, early twenties, that's from when I know him. And they always call me 'Romeo' because I'm always saying nice things to girls, y'know. So I decide to pin that name on it. And then I said 'OK, my name is Max Smith' - that's my real name, so I just used Max, which is abridgement from Max, maximum. And Romeo is actually adopted from Romeo & Juliette, which is the emblem of love. So Max is for 'maximum' and Romeo is for 'love', that is what actually the whole thing means, as 'Maximum Love For Jah', y'know.

Q: You hung around Bunny a lot in the late sixties, early seventies. What studios did Bunny use around this time when you recorded for him? Was it Federal, or did he use the newly built Randy's? I believe the construction of Randy's was finished at that time and in full swing, recording about 1969.

A: Yeah, '68 I think Randy's was around. We basically was using WIRL, West Indies Records Limited, which is now Dynamic Sounds, the same studio. That's the studio we used. Basically we used Federal Recording Studio as well, and Randy's studio, until Bunny Lee built his own studio. A matter of fact, he build it at Joe Gibbs. Joe Gibbs build that studio, and Bunny Lee buy it from Joe Gibbs, and Joe Gibbs build another one. So that's basically where we did most of the recording.

Q: So the whole controversy surrounding 'Wet Dream' again, you made up a story about the lyric being about a leaking roof. Is that true, or is this story a bit 'twisted', made up afterwards?

A: Nobody buy that story, because everybody know what a 'wet dream' was about anyway. Well, all I had was to crank up a story at the time in order to make it look good. Because parents was rebelling that I was exposing their kids to profanity at the time, so I was trying to correct all. They didn't buy it anyway.

Q: I'm sure they didn't. But you didn't stop there. In the aftermath came 'Mini Skirt Vision', 'Wine Her Goosie', 'Pussy Watchman' and 'Big Twenty', even though they didn't have quite the same impact as its predecessor.

A: Yes, those was spin-offs from that era, y'know, continuing in that vein of music. But then again, I start ask myself questions. I mean, 'How do I explain these to my children?' It's very embarrassing for my kids to ask me to explain what, y'know, 'Wine Her Goosie' is about, 'Pussy Watchman' and all these songs, explain the lyrics. So because of that now I go and reorganise myself, y'know, and I get involved in the Rasta faith. So, I started singin' from the bible.

Q: Before we get further into that, I would like to ask you about the tour, what you can recall of the first English tour in '69? It was a pretty extensive trip all over Britain, right?

A: Well, I play small venues. Big and small venues. One of the biggest venue was Wembley Arena.

Q: Right, there was a big Caribbean festival there.

A: Yeah, I did that. It had Johnny Nash, I think Percy Sledge...

Q: Bob & Marcia.

A: Bob & Marcia, Desmond Dekker, a couple of people. That was my biggest. I played all the major halls in London - Royal Albert Hall, Lyceum Ballroom at the time, Roaring Twenties, I played all of them. You name it - Dingwalls, you name it, I've been through them. I did most of if not all the little country towns in England as well.

Q: Who organised that festival by the way? This must've been one of the first, if not the very first arrangement of this kind for reggae in England and Europe, ever. I heard Junior Lincoln (then taking care of Studio One product in England through the Bamboo/Banana imprints) was involved somewhere.

A: I think it was Junior Lincoln and some other guys. Yeah.

Q: How big was the turnout?

A: We had about 150 000 people, I think. Because the place was very packed, they had close-circuit TV outside for those that couldn't get in.

Q: I believe this festival was even filmed - by Horace Ove, but I'm not sure if it was the '69 line-up or the year after.

A: I don't remember if they did it.

Q: The media reception, and in general, what was being said, how was the coverage? You had the 'A Dream' album out at that time on Pama to promote.

A: The public liked it, the kids liked it. Because, like I said, I had the support of the skinheads at the time and they have a custom; if they go to a party they request the song to be played, and if they don't have it then they smashed the bloody music up - party is finished right there and then! So it forced a lot of people to go get the record. Yeah, the skinheads did a big promotion on that record. I have to give them credit for that.