The feud that drove a rift through Supertramp: “It’s a question of right or wrong”
Despite having had plenty of chart success at the time, Supertramp are the sort of band that gets criminally overlooked in today’s world when people come to highlight the finest acts of generations past.
Having created some of the finest progressive pop albums of the 1970s, all filled with songs that tickled those looking for something catchy but also those who were after something complex to dive into, Supertramp ought to be much more highly regarded than they are. Records such as Crime of the Century and Even In the Quietest Moments still stand tall as stellar examples of their talents, but perhaps this tug of war between prog and pop styles was the root of their problem.
They never dived too far into either camp, and having elements of both would have ultimately put off those looking for them to go more extreme in the other direction. If this toss-up between two conflicting styles was to be their downfall, surely it would have been in the best interest of those writing the songs to have found some way to compromise and work together on developing a sound that made them stand out in one particular field.
Being spearheaded by two songwriters, Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, this would surely have put them at a greater advantage, with two minds working better than one, but rather than being on the same page about the direction that the band should head in, they both made up the two opposing factions of the band who wanted to pursue conflicting identities.
Tension began brewing between the two core members around the release of their best-selling album, Breakfast in America, which also happened to be their most commercially accessible album to this point. However, things came to a head while on tour in support of the record, with Hodgson seemingly growing tired of the prospect of being a member of the band.
Understandably, touring can take its toll on the health and sanity of any musician when done extensively, and the feuds that erupted between Hodgson and Davies made the entire experience of being in the band laborious.
“The fun went out of it,” Hodgson later claimed. “That’s when people started thinking independently.”
The rift eventually caused Hodgson to depart in acrimonious fashion, and with a young family around him, he opted not to tour for 16 years while only making three solo albums in the period between his departure in 1983 and the end of the century. However, Hodgson would reveal in a 2010 interview with Prog that the parting words from Davies were something that he couldn’t possibly ever forgive, and this caused their relationship to be irreparable.
“He said, ‘I realise the band isn’t going to be as successful in the future, but I just want to make music with dignity.’ Those were his exact words,” Hodgson recalled. “What he’s been doing these last three or four tours is anything but making music with dignity in my book. It’s sad that the artist in him has sold out.”
Furthermore, when asked whether he cared whether the then-current incarnation of Supertramp continued to play his songs, he responded with a cutting remark.
“That’s a pie-in-the-sky spirituality that’s not based in reality at all,” he added. “I understand totally that when fans think of Supertramp, they think of ‘The Logical Song’ and ‘Breakfast In America’. But it’s not a question of spirituality, it’s a question of right or wrong.” It’s fair to say that without Hodgson, the band weren’t a patch on what they used to be, but if he was this aggrieved about being there in the first place, then it’s fair enough that he wanted to leave.
