Steve Marriott - Humble Pie

Humble Pie

Shortly after leaving Small Faces, Marriott joined the newly formed rock band Humble Pie with Frampton, drummer Jerry Shirley and bassist Greg Ridley. In the early years, Humble Pie allowed Marriott the artistic freedom he craved but was denied in Small Faces due, in part, to commercial pressures and individual differences. After extensive secret rehearsals at his Clear Sounds home recording studio, the band released on Immediate their debut album As Safe As Yesterday Is, closely followed by the Marriott-penned debut single "Natural Born Bugie" (often mis-spelt "Boogie"), which peaked at No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart in the summer of 1969. Humble Pie almost disbanded after their first American tour when they returned to Britain and discovered that Immediate had gone into liquidation. They transferred to A&M Records and focused all their attention on the lucrative U.S. market. Their new manager, Dee Anthony, had the band scrap its 'unplugged' set and crank the volume up.

Humble Pie toured constantly over the next three years, completing nineteen tours in the U.S. alone. The band's next album releases, Humble Pie and Rock On, benefited from their touring. Their live album Performance Rockin' the Fillmore (1971) became the band's most successful release to date. During these recordings, Marriott's strong vocal performances became the focal point of the band. Dee Anthony pushed Marriott to take more of the on-stage spotlight, something he had, up to then, been sharing with Frampton and Ridley. Mariott's new prominence is said to have resulted in Frampton's decision to leave the band. (Frampton was replaced by Clem Clempson.)

Some close to Marriott would say that his personality changed for the worse when he toured America. Eventually, possibly as a result of excessive alcohol and drug use, Marriott started showing signs of mild schizophrenia. He had regularly taken amphetamines (speed) and smoked cannabis in his days in the Moments and Small Faces, and in the latter half of the 1960s he also tried LSD. But towards the end of his Small Faces career and in Humble Pie, Marriott allegedly developed a destructive cocaine and alcohol addiction, which is thought to have been the cause of his marriage breakups and to have contributed to his premature death in a house fire.

"He (Steve) became another person in order to cope with the pressures, he would say things like, "Please tell me that you’ll leave me if I go on tour again because if you say that I’ll have justification not to go, if I go and have to be that other person again I’ll just go mad." This would be said in a moment of truth but the next day had changed his mind and he’d be up and off.... He was married to his music and I didn’t mind that especially in the early years when he would play me new songs on an acoustic guitar but what didn’t make me happy was when he was in the home studio, out of his brain, trying to come up with the next album because he was being pressurised into it. He would just disappear into the studio for three or four days at a time. He never slept and there would be all sorts of strange people in there with him. It was a crazy business and even the nicest people get mixed up. All sorts of chemicals were presented to him and he became addicted to them in the end. It was drugs that destroyed our relationship. Before the home studio was built Beehive Cottage was our sanctuary, afterwards it just became his workplace." – Jenny Rylance

Rylance finally left Marriott in 1973. She said: "The drugs and the drink I would tolerate no more. It broke my heart to leave Steve but it had to be done, I was ultimately the stronger". Due to the breakup of his marriage and growing drug use, some band members said that Marriott at times became domineering, aggressive and intolerable to work with. Humble Pie disbanded in 1975, citing musical differences as the reason for the split. Financial mis-management and widespread substance abuse within the band also played a part. In an interview in 2000 with John Hellier, Jerry Shirley said:

"We were all doing too many drugs, we’d lost sight of our business arrangements and no-one within the band had any control over money matters. But the main reason was that we were making bad records, it all came to a head in early 1975. The rot had set in so deep it was inevitable." – Jerry Shirley (Humble Pie).

Marriott always believed Dee Anthony had syphoned off band earnings to promote his new project, Frampton, and his album Frampton Comes Alive. After Marriott's death, his second wife Pam Stephens claimed in an interview that while they were making the Marriott solo album they were warned off accusing Anthony of any financial misdealings and received threatening phone calls. Anthony was alleged to have links with the Genovese crime family (amongst others). She also claimed that after Marriott confronted Anthony about missing money, she and Marriott were summoned to a meeting at the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy district. Among those present were John Gotti, Frank Locascio and Paul Castellano, all members of the Gambino crime family. Marriott was informed that he would not be getting any money and was warned to drop the matter. Marriott took the threats seriously.