The Misunderstood: The Californian Garage Band Interviewed About Their Time As Rock 'N' Roll Stars.

They started as just three kids from California, who all shared a mutual respect for Surf music. First formed as the ‘Blue Notes’ in 1964 with Greg Treadway and George Phelps on guitar and Rick Moe on drums, the trio was short-lived. While the group were still just as enthralled by the waves of that sunny-state sound, the ‘Blue Notes’ never got to any gigs and their musical tide had gone out. With most of the members spending more time with their surfboard than their band equipment, the former outfit had taken a back seat, but when Treadway met Rick Brown at a surf club, they became great friends and Brown was asked to be lead singer when the band regrouped in 1965, now as ‘Treadway & Company’. When I spoke to Brown, he remembered the meeting well. “I met Greg in first year of High school and we were best friends since. We were surfing and started hanging out in Encinitas and Swamis. We were founders and members of Swamis Surfing Association together. Here is a pic of our first ever meeting and we are both in the photo, sitting side by side. Greg was my best friend.”  

(Summer of 1964, Treadway in front of man with black sweater and Brown to his right).

Brown didn’t know that Treadway had already been making music before they met and was yet to find out that the pair would be spending a lot more time together.  “I never knew he had a surf band, never heard them either, and when I heard about it I was asked to be the singer. Then I joined and we did UK tunes like THEM and Animals and Who, and also started writing originals, many which were recorded, like our environment song “WHY?” - which is WAY ahead of the times. When we started the band seriously, we stopped surfing and just practiced all the time…” 

Having never sung professionally before, Brown mastered the job pretty quickly and his vocals have remained prominent today, with a reputation to blow the roof off, in the best way possible. Brown remembered their first gig well. “First Gig was awkward. Then I got better and it became a blast, quickly. I really don’t remember Treadway & Co. It became The Misunderstood pretty fast, long before Glenn joined on Steel.” It wouldn’t be long now until ‘Treadway & Company’ was soon joined by Steve Whiting on bass. Being a few years older than the rest, Whiting helped give the band more of an edge.

The group weren’t afraid to joke around and their youthful banter had its perks when ‘The Press Enterprise’ newspaper wanted to speak to the hottest new ‘English’ band. Once they had revealed that they were in fact not British, they got a full-page story where they announced they would now be known as ‘The Misunderstoods’, soon to be shortened to ‘The Misunderstood’. In early 1966, Phelps decided to leave the outfit and the members were left to find a fresh guitarist. After seeing him play with ‘The Answers’ at a Holiday Battle Of The Bands, Glenn Ross Campbell had made quite the impression. Lead singer Rick Brown had decided to get Campbell’s number at the show and called him over for an audition. The rest is history. 

Legendary DJ and soon-to-be ‘Misunderstood’ manager John Peel, has championed the band since he first heard them play. He became the fuel that helped skyrocket their success when it came to being known outside of the US. Lead singer Rick Brown became very familiar with him and spent a while living with him and his wife. “ I lived with him and his wife a lot in Riverside, and later in London in 1967 en route to India. I was staying and hanging with Jeff Beck a few weeks, and then moved in with John. Before Christmas 1967 I sold a fringe jacket to Jim McCarty - drummer of Yardbirds, and bought my India one way ticket.”

Peel had invited the band over to stay with his mother when they arrived in the UK, but when his brother forgot to inform his mum they were coming, the group were left waiting on the doorstep, for quite some time. Drummer Rick Moe recalled it as an awkward endeavour. “We showed up at John’s mothers door, with a stack of equipment, and she had no advance notice that we were coming. Bless her, after a phone call to John in California, she took us in.” 

The time the group spent in England had given them a lot of exposure but it wasn’t all plain sailing. Glenn Ross Campbell recollected that the band had received some rejection when they first came over. “It was a resounding NO except for one who eventually signed us up and put us in the studio straight away, and found us a place to live outside of central London.” Unlike the life of a modern musician, time spent in the UK as a new rock group in the Sixties, was not always the most glamorous. “A damp cellar flat full of rats and mould, and just one room for all of us.  The rats ate a hole in one corner of the board that blocked off the fireplace. We were freezing and starving and broke. We weren't really homesick, just physically sick - cold, itchy, and hungry.” 

Although the group had a rocky start, life in London had its perks. Lead singer Rick Brown had just been drafted for a physical before the band went over to the UK and he made sure to have a good time once he came over. “First night in the UK I was taken to meet Viv Prince - took acid with him and Mick Wayne, then went to hear the Who at Starlight Ballroom, met a model named Nova Saint Claire from Paris, and somehow survived to morning.” All the members immersed themselves in the British music scene at the time, Rick Moe mentioned that they visited the Marquee Club with other like-minded musicians. “Because we were involved, the depth and breadth of the music scene was extraordinary. I can remember being at the Marquee Club standing next to Steve Winwood, listening to Jimi Hendrix on stage. It just never seemed to stop or fade.” 

The Misunderstood had made a significant mark in London but it wouldn’t be long before the group would go their separate ways. Treadway had been drafted for the navy and young guitarist Tony Hill came to replace him. They remained successful with Hill and two of the songs ‘I Can Take You To The Sun’ and ‘Who Do You Love?’ were released as a debut single and they even signed a record deal with Fontana Records, but “Vietnam was calling!” as Campbell puts it. Both Campbell and Brown were drafted for the army. Brown recalled the time after ‘The Misunderstood’ as immensely eventful. “Faced with prison or the army, I took the army as the only way to escape. From boot camp I escaped to San Francisco and the 1967 Summer of Love, as a fugitive.” 

Although the band had come to an abrupt end, their influence on Garage Rock has been beyond compare. ‘Rolling Stone’ have even cited them as the ‘American Yardbirds’ in 2004. With a new release on Cherry Red Records, of their complete recordings from ‘65 to ‘66, ‘The Misunderstood’’s legacy will live on to be a remarkable one with a discography that can tear up a room like nobody else.