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HAMMOND OF THE GOD

Morgan has an organ. It’s not his organ though, it’s Pete Townshend’s of The Who. Still, it just shows where an old mod’s organ can get you…

Text: Siobhan Grogan Photography: Alessio Pizzicannella

Even rock legends need to spring-clean once in a while. A few years back, it was Pete Townshend’s turn to realise he had too much junk, instruments and odds and ends accumulated from The Who’s many world tours, all gathering dust in the corners of his studio. This wasn’t the time for sentiment. It was just time to get rid of anything no longer essential and get some space back.

Though he’d always had a soft spot for his top-of-the-range Hammond organ – played on four of The Who’s reunion tours and several Free records – it was time to let that go, too. But it was too special to let just anyone have it. Which is roughly where Morgan Nicholls, now 29 and eyes still shining at the thought of his beloved instrument, stepped in. As luck would have it, Morgan’s dad, Billy, was a bit of a ’60s rock-god himself. He’d recorded two albums in his heyday, sung backing vocals on The Small Faces’ ‘Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake’ and was a long-time friend of Townshend.

“I just said I’d take the Hammond off Townshend’s hands, and he’s a very generous guy,” Morgan smiles dreamily at the memory. “I think the idea was to keep it in the family a little bit, so The Who still use it now. And when something like that’s sitting in the corner, you have to go and noodle about on it a bit. I mean, it’s The Who’s old organ!”

Up to that point, Morgan had never even touched a Hammond. But when you’ve got a little bit of history dominating your bedroom, you can’t very well ignore it.

Morgan’s hazy, melodic debut solo album is called ‘Organized’. Partly because of the Hammond’s predominance but mainly because it was born from anything but organisation. It’s very existence came about through a series of lucky accidents. Today, sat a stone’s throw from London’s fashionable Portobello Market with tubes rumbling by, he cites his greatest musical influence as his dad. Not for his hip ’60s friends and songwriting talent, though.

Morgan: “Thinking about it now, the greatest influence was being told not to play my dad’s guitar. He had an old Telecaster or something and I used to play it constantly and ruin the strings, which used to piss him off no end. Being told not to play was probably the biggest encouragement anyone could have given me.”

Those early string-destroying sessions, coupled with the effect of days bunking off school to listen to The Specials and Hendrix, inspired Morgan to take up the bass. By the time he left school, he was a member of early ’90s indie-punk band Senseless Things, enduring many years, bad haircuts and the odd Top Of The Pops.

Morgan: “It’s hysterical watching videos of the Senseless Things on The Word and at thousands of Reading Festivals now. I’ve done the guitar band thing and got the T-shirt. Got the scars, too.”

Following the Things’ demise, Morgan joined ex-Wonderstuff frontman Miles Hunt’s distinctly less-successful new band, Vent 414, and followed that with a still ongoing stint in Delakota. All the while, he raised extra cash working in an old-people’s home and writing songs for cheesy European adverts. Any money earned went straight into Morgan’s dream – building his own home studio in which the Hammond immediately took pride of place.

It was while writing advert music there that Morgan penned his hilarious, lo-fi, ragga-style debut single ‘Miss Parker’. Morgan: “I was writing loads of stuff in the hope that something might be picked up on for an advert and I wrote ‘Miss Parker’. They decided to put it out because it was a radio-friendly, poppy little song. From doing that, the record deal came about and then it was like, ‘God, I better get my shit together.’”

For the uninitiated among you, ‘Miss Parker’ featured Morgan’s 15-year-old brother William rapping about his boring geography teacher. On a tape recorder at the back of said teacher’s class. Every interview since, Morgan has fielded adoring questions about his little brother. NME just hopes he was paid for his contribution.

Morgan: “Actually, he’s the only person who has been paid. You have to fill in these PRS forms and he told my mum he was on 28 per cent of the song and he wasn’t. I told him that he could have 20 and, because there was a conflict in terms, all the money’s been frozen. So I haven’t been paid but he has,” Morgan exclaims in mock annoyance. “Cheeky little sod!”

In a way, William deserves it. The limited-edition single sold out the day it went on sale, became NME’s Single Of The Week and finally inspired Morgan to do his own bit of spring-cleaning. Searching through old tapes and notepads, he realised he had an album in scraps before him. He’s spent the last year fitting all those pieces together.

“I never really set out to do it, put it that way. It’s a bit of an accident, really,” Morgan shrugs, still dazed at the whole idea. “These tracks are just all the ones I got to the end of. It’s a ridiculous way to put an album together, really. But because it’s my album, I can do what I like and everyone else can piss off!”

‘Organized’ is truly a reflection of Morgan’s head and spirit. It’s a collection of songs that shouldn’t fit together, but somehow work perfectly as a whole. They document the last seven years of Morgan’s life, the Hammond articulating emotions more powerfully than any lyrics could by replicating moods rather than reenacting specific occasions. It makes you believe you’ve stayed up until dawn talking with the creator, like you’ve trespassed on his most secret thoughts or on a family Christmas over at the Nicholls’. See, aside from his brother’s famed appearance, ‘Organized’ also features Morgan’s dad (“He’s better at lyrics as well as being older and wiser, so it’s perfect”) and finishes with an original ’70s demo recorded with Townshend on bass. Morgan’s sister, Amy, and cousin, Rose, both lend their vocals as well. Frankly, this is family harmony gone crazy.

Morgan smiles. It’s hardly surprising nothing strikes him as peculiar any more. “If it had been done properly,” he muses seriously, “it would have been awful. It’s certainly not your normal, four-piece guitar album. It’s a bit of a mishmash. Next time, maybe I’ll do some things with other people. People that I’m not related to.”

For now, Morgan can’t even get his head round this album. It’s so personal, so unique, he finds it difficult to discuss as a finished project. ‘Organized’ is just a lengthy, vivid chapter in his life that he’s willing to share with us all. Of course, how he’ll follow it up is anyone’s guess. But it won’t be the last we hear of the famous, much-loved organ.

“There’s a queue of people wanting that Hammond. And they’re not having it,” he promises, suddenly becoming serious.

“Everything else would have to go first.”

Translator's Note: Not gonna lie, I didn't expect an interview of Morgan from NME. And as soon as I saw his face, I was like, wait a minute, isn't that Morgan Nicholls?!

And thank goodness I double-checked that it was indeed him, and decided to scan this page. I would joke that only older Musers would know of Morgan and how important he was, but it's no joke in how important he is to Muse during their tours.

Morgan Nicholls [NME (July 8th, 2000)]