Graham Gouldman says 10cc still have fuel in the tank

Despite being 76 and with more than 60 years of music industry experience behind him, an end date hasn't figured into his calculations. It's not on the radar.

There's no dreadlock retirement holiday planned.

"It's definitely not a farewell tour, no," Gouldman says over Zoom from England when asked about 10cc's forthcoming Australian tour.

"I think we'll keep going on until I don't want to do it anymore basically.

"I enjoy doing it. I balance it out with other things I do. I love working with the guys I'm with, it's a lot of fun."

Ever since 10cc's first Australian tour back in 1978, Gouldman has felt an affinity with the country.

The English soft-rock legends have returned numerous times, most recently in March 2020, just weeks before the COVID pandemic shut down the world.

"It's a lovely country to tour," he says. "We feel very at home.

"The first time we came out in '78 was really exciting for us. It was somewhere I always wanted to go to. I'm very fond of it."

During their '70s prime the Manchester-raised 10cc featured two songwriting teams - the more pop-orientated Gouldman and Eric Stewart and the experimental pairing of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.

Together the foursome scored Australian top-three hits with the glam-rocker Rubber Bullets (1973) and easy listening classic I'm Not In Love (1975).

By 1976 the band fractured due to artistic differences with Gouldman and Stewart continuing as 10cc's sole songwriting team and Godley and Creme formed their own rock duo.

10cc continued to score chart hits in Australia with The Things We Do For Love (1976) and the reggae-influenced Dreadlock Holiday (1977), which for decades appeared on the soundtrack of Channel Nine's cricket coverage.

"Ironically I've never been to a cricket match," Gouldman says.

"But I got the line from someone I was talking to about cricket in Jamaica. I said, 'What about cricket, do you like it?'. He said, 'no'.

"I was surprised and said, 'I thought everyone liked cricket over here.' He said, 'I don't like it, I love it.' He gave me the line. I owe him."

10cc's hit machine dried up in the '80s after Stewart was badly injured in a car accident and by 1983 they split.

In 1992 the original line-up reunited for the album .....Meanwhile, but the reunion was short-lived.

Since 1999 Gouldman (bass, vocals) has been the sole founding member in 10cc, with Rick Fenn (lead guitar, vocals), Paul Burgess (drums), Mick Wilson (vocals, guitar, keys) and Mike Stevens (keyboards, sax, guitar) completing the live line-up.

"The songs I've written or co-written, it's nice to know they will live on long after I'm gone," he says.

"I'm really happy with how things are at the moment. I'm just gonna keep on doing it.

"It's very gratifying for us, but more importantly, when you see an audience singing along to your music, you're basically bringing happiness.

"The happiness we give out, we get it back and it's a lovely experience."

The band has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and songs like I'm Not In Love, The Things We Do For Love, Rubber Bullets, Dreadlock Holiday, The Wall Street Shuffle, and Art For Art's Sake continue to be classic rock favourites.

I'm Not In Love even received renewed popularity after appearing in blockbuster film Guardians Of The Galaxy and comedy Bridget Jones: Edge Of Reason.

While Gouldman hasn't recorded an album under the 10cc name since Mirror Mirror in 1995, he's continued to write and release solo music.

Most recently he produced the 2020 album Modesty Forbids, which featured legendary Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

Gouldman is writing another solo album and even after 60 years of working at the craft, it remains an unknown.

"The actual creative part of it is a mystery," he says. "The getting to the creative part, I guess, I can tell you about.

"Basically for me, a lot of the time, it's siting down with a guitar messing around until I find some chords that suggest a mood, that suggests a melody, that suggests a lyric and then something magical happens and suddenly you have a song.

"That's generally how I work when I'm on my own, but I do a lot of collaboration as well.

"You can get an idea for a song from a title and work backwards if you have a good title. Or you might have a little lyric line or a little bit of a melody that keeps bugging you and you keep going back to it if it doesn't find a home."

Of the other founding members, Gouldman has remained friends with Kevin Godley, who subsequently forged a career as a director, making music videos for U2, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Ronan Keating, Bryan Adams, Sting and more.

Godley has appeared on stage with Gouldman over the years and has provided videos for the current tour.

"I don't know. He possibly will," Gouldman says, when asked if Godley will perform with 10cc again before the band retires from the road.

"He has appeared with us a couple of times over the years.

"Yes, it's not beyond the realms of possibility."

10cc's The Ultimate Greatest Hits Tour visits Twin Towns, Tweed Heads (June 10 & 11); Civic Theatre, Newcastle (June 13); Club Forster, Forster (June 14); The Art House, Wyong (June 15); Blue Mountains Theatre, Springwood (June 18); Llewelyn Theatre, Canberra (June 21); Anita's Theatre, Wollongong (June 22) and Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo (June 28).