The breaking of a deal made when they went separate ways in 1983 made a 21st-century reunion impossible – although Hodgson said he’d offered and been rebutted
On leaving Supertramp in 1983, Roger Hodgson made a deal: he’d keep his songs, Rick Davies would keep the name. But by 2010 the deal had been broken. That year, Hodgson told Prog he felt betrayed, and said it had scuppered the chances of a 21st-century reunion – even though he’d offered to return.
When Supertramp played at the 02 Arena in October 2010, there was one member of the band conspicuous by his absence: Roger Hodgson. Considering that, for many, his distinctive tenor voice and the songs that he wrote for the prog-pop group – Dreamer, Give A Little Bit, The Logical Song, Breakfast In America, Take The Long Way Home and It’s Raining Again – are what made Supertramp so special, it was a bit like going to see The Beatles without John Lennon or Paul McCartney.
Sure, you still had present and correct the band’s other songwriter, Rick Davies – the George Harrison of the piece, responsible for such classics as Bloody Well Right, Goodbye Stranger and Gone Hollywood – and there were the ’Tramp’s twin Ringos, John Helliwell and Bob Siebenberg, on, respectively, saxophone and drums. But their mainman, their driving force, was missing, even though many of his songs were being sung. And he wasn’t very happy about it.
Why? Because the agreement made between Hodgson and Davies in 1983 after the …Famous Last Words… album, when the former decided to quit Supertramp, was that Davies would keep the band name while he, Hodgson, would keep the songs he wrote for the band for his solo purposes. For the Davies-led version of Supertramp, Hodgson’s compositions would, it was decreed, be out of bounds.
It was a verbal contract – one apparently witnessed by the other members of Supertramp – that Davies stuck to for five years; but since the late 80s he has irregularly toured under the guise of Supertramp for concerts that substantially comprise Hodgson material.
Asked whether it was difficult watching the band – whose stratospheric success, including the 20-million-selling Breakfast In America, were in large part due to his input – carry on without him after he left, he replies: “Well, it wasn’t difficult initially because Rick upheld his agreement, which was that Supertramp would become a vehicle for him and his music and I would start a career with my songs and my voice. That’s the only reason I agreed to give him the name.
“The difficult part came when he broke that agreement and started playing my songs five years later. That hurt very deeply. I felt betrayed.” It was this betrayal, Hodgson explains, that has got in the way of a reunion with Davies over the years. “If he hadn’t done that,” he says, “it’s very likely that we’d have done something together at some point.”
Have they been in contact? “Many times. I’ve spoken to him, and even with what’s happened we’ve talked about working together, but it seems to go from bad to worse.”
