Sad Goodbyes With ANDY SCOTT From THE SWEET

Interview by Kris Peters
The Sweet have been a musical institution since the early 1970s
after bursting onto the scene with their debut album Funny How
Sweet Co-Co Can Be in 1971. Their Who-influenced hard rock style,
supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals,
struck a chord with youth the world over, propelling them into a
career which continues with much love, fervour and respect to this
day.
With a succession of hit singles, including Ballroom Blitz, Fox of
the Run, Love is Like Oxygen, Wig Wam Bam, Blockbuster, Teenage
Rampage, Hell Raiser, Action and countless others, The Sweet were
always the darlings of the music scene in all incarnations of the
word. They toured relentlessly and continually sold out larger
venues, in the process building for themselves a musical legacy
that will stand the test of time in comparison to most
others.
To put it simply, The Sweet have been, and remain an iconic force
in the world of music with no signs of slowing down just yet.
So it is with a touch of sadness that The Sweet soon hit Australia
for what has been dubbed The Farewell Tour - Greatest Hits. To run
us through what to expect and take us on a trip down memory lane,
HEAVY sat down with guitarist/vocalist Andy Scott to get the full
rundown.
"We're coming to Australia to tour in November," he began. "With me
will be my singer, Paul Manzi, my bass player Lee Small, my drummer
Adam Booth and our younger, genius, second guitar player/ keyboard
player Tom Cory. Also, I've just been told yesterday, that it looks
like we'll be going to Tassie and then finishing in
Perth." 
We ask what fans can expect from The Sweet in 2024.
"We've been through many phases, as you would imagine with the
difference in music styles," he explained. "Fifty-odd years of a
catalogue with almost three hundred songs in it… try picking twenty
from that (laughs). I think most of the set writes itself, and
we're certainly going to do about a dozen of the hits. Then we're
gonna fill it with things like Set Me Free and some of the heavy
rock stuff. Because we've been releasing some stuff more recently,
we'll probably chuck a couple of the new ones in. It depends how
long and whether we've got supports on all of the dates. It depends
how long we are going to be playing, so the set might change
slightly. There'll be something for everybody, I can tell you
that."
In the full interview, Andy talks more about what to expect from
The Sweet on the tour, the extra shows at Airlie Beach Music
Festival and on Rock The Boat cruise, coming up with set lists to
appease the fans, adapting to change over the years, memories of
the band's first Australian tour in 1975 and more.


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