"I'd be the first person to admit that the Move are now very worried about the image that has been thrust upon them," said a very worried looking Carl Wayne. "Tony Secunda, our ex-manager and manager of the Moody Blues, moulded us to fit his own ego. He's a nice man, but he wants to be respectfully feared by everyone in the pop music business. When we got into all that trouble by doing that drawing of Harold Wilson we were furious because we didn't know anything about it till it was too late. It certainly wasn't our idea to send out those postcards. I can naturally understand a great many people taking offence at them and putting us down, but they were the people who didn't know the whole story behind it. When the news about it first broke I thought the papers had got the name of the group wrong...I just couldn't believe it was us.

"We're not the only group that have been treated like this by frustrated managers, but at least we're doing something about it and not just sitting back and taking it without giving a taste of what we're getting. The Wilson affair really brought things to a head and we couldn't take any more. That was when the break started to happen."

What were Carl's views about the fighting image the group have got?

"That makes me even madder. Of course we can fight, any man can, but we certainly don't go around bashing everyone up for no reason, like some people suggest. Actually, since we've been in pop we haven't had a real fight. Naturally, we've had arguments, but we're not hard nuts or show-offs and I'm sure that anyone who knows us at all well will agree with that. There are tons of groups about that have really been affected by the idea of being famous and being able to have as many girls as they want all the time, but we're not like that. I've had a steady girlfriend for ages and I don't believe in going around from one girl to the next just for the fun of it. We do one-night stands popwise, yes, but not girlwise. 

"My steady's called Pauline and I've been going out with her for over five years. After the first couple of years we decided to get engaged, but as soon as that other business happened we had a great bust-up. Although we don't go round with other people, neither of of us likes the idea of being tied down all the time."

What did Pauline think about the group's image? "She's certainly not pleased with it, especially as she feels she knows our image better than most, and she got very angry when we wanted to do a tour with Scott Walker and our manager said it wouldn't be a good idea to do a "tame" tour as it wouldn't suit our image, and we would lose a lot of fans. Another time that he really got us angry was when he couldn't get us on a certain TV show. He explained it by saying that the BBC is mostly controlled by men who were between the ages of fifty and sixty. Knowing our image for being loud they didn't want us. It's just not fair to us."

I then asked Carl what he planned to do to change the Move's image. Would it be instantly recognisable as such? "All we've got planned at the moment is our new record which is certainly different from anything we've ever done before. It's called "Blackberry Way" and is coupled with "Something." We wrote "Something" about two years ago and I wanted us to release it as a single, but nobody agreed with me. When people hear it now they will think we've copied the Marbles' "Only One Woman" because it's so much like it. When I first heard the Marbles' record I couldn't believe it. When it started to rise in the charts all I could say to those people who told me that "Something" wouldn't make it was "I told you so!" 

And all I can add is good luck to the Move with their new image and their new single ... I'm sure they deserve it!

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