Graham Gouldman: He don't like touring (oh no) - he love it

The man who co-wrote the classic summer anthem Dreadlock Holiday, among other hits, talks to Graham Reid about dusting off his songbook

Improbably, there's a line that joins 60s British pop classics - Herman's Hermits' No Milk Today and Listen People, the Hollies' Bus Stop and Look Through Any Window, the Yardbirds' edgy For Your Love, Heart Full of Soul and Evil Hearted You - to American bubblegum. Then it goes on to British singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan and New York's Ramones.

The connecting line is modest songwriter and Manchester United fan Graham Gouldman.

Now 67, Gouldman can flick pages of his impressive CV back to penning those 60s hits to working - unhappily as it turned out - with bubblegum writing team Kasenetz-Katz in New York, and production jobs just 18 months apart on albums for the whimsical O'Sullivan and the Ramones (Pleasant Dreams in 1981).

"Yes, two extremes of the latter," he admits. "O'Sullivan I could understand, but the Ramones? I asked them why and they said, 'We write songs like you'. I think what they meant is they loved the early- and mid-60s era.

"I loved that myself, so there was some commonality, but I did say, 'Let's not get too starry-eyed about this' and suggested we do a couple of tracks and see what happens rather than commit to a whole album. But they were happy, although I know Johnny wasn't later. But he never said anything in the studio.

"I thought they might be late or disorganised, but they were very professional and punctual, it was a pleasure to work with them. Joey - who produced great punk music and is an icon - was quite the perfectionist and there was something endearing about him.

"He was a gentle and very charming person."

But O'Sullivan, the Ramones, soundtrack songs, solo albums and production jobs are mere blips on Gouldman's radar. His most significant period - currently enjoying a second life as he tours again - was in the hit machine 10cc, whose songs spanned the 70s.

From their first singles, Donna (retro 50s pop) and Rubber Bullets (tongue-in-cheek glam-rock 'n' roll) through exquisitely crafted art-rock (I'm Not in Love, One Night in Paris) to the chart-topping reggae-parody Dreadlock Holiday, 10cc - Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley - were unstoppable, arty, often witty and uncategorisable, and never delivered the same style twice.

"If you put 10cc songs together and took them to a record company today I'm not sure what would happen. It doesn't have any pigeonhole you could put it in.

"We had no record company input besides talking their money because we were very confident - and were proven right - that we didn't need help from anybody, thank you very much."

Being independently successful before they joined forces, and having their own Strawberry Studios, doubtless helped, but they were also four songwriters and creative personalities. One more than the Beatles and the BeeGees even?

"Right. I don't think there was anybody else like us, but 10cc wouldn't have existed without a studio for us to play in when others weren't working in it. That's how 10cc evolved, writing and recording for our own pleasure and satisfaction."

And as technology changed from four-track to eventually 48-track, their sound grew along with it, hence Wall Street Shuffle, which was closer to Pink Floyd than their earlier pop ("Whenever there's any financial crisis that'll crop up as prelude to an item on television") and I'm Not in Love with the distinctively whispered "big boys don't cry".

Gouldman insists songs rather than their personalities carried their career through the 70s - before members went into other projects - so that today, more than 40 years after Donna, a version of the 10cc band he helms is touring again.

"I started 10cc again a few years ago because I missed the camaraderie of a band and the fun of working as team."

And his songs follow him. He recently heard For Your Love in a Phoenix shopping mall when about to do a phone interview, but the strangest place 10cc songs have been was in northern Vietnam.

Gouldman, carrying his guitar, was there on a trek and others had fallen ill after swimming in a lake. The guide asked if he would sing around the campfire and "people who were really poorly came out of their tents wrapped in blankets".

"Then I noticed behind them people from the village in their amazing red headdresses were standing at the back. That was definitely the strangest audience I've had. I don't know if they knew what was going on. And then they just left quietly."

Who: GRAHAM GOULDMAN OF 10CC
What: Touring with Lynyrd Skynyrd and Starship
When: The Amphitheatre, Taupo, Feb 8; Matakana Country Park, Feb 9

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- TimeOut