Worthing and Crawley dates as Mike Pender, original voice of The Searchers, looks back on long career

Key to it all – says Mike, who is on the road with The Sensational 60s Experience with dates in West Sussex – were the two stints he had at the famous Star Club in Hamburg very early on in his career.

It’s where they really learnt their trade and discipline says Mike who heads to Worthing Pavilion Theatre on Saturday, November 5 at 7.30pm (01903 206206 or www.worthingtheatres.co.uk) and The Hawth in Crawley on Tuesday, November 8 at 7.30pm (01293 533636 or www.hawth.co.uk). On the bill for The Sensational 60s Experience are Mike Pender, The Trems (former members of The Tremeloes), Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich, The Fortunes and Vanity Fare.

Mike is clear what helped it all happen: “If you go back to the very early days then you have got to give a great deal of credit to The Beatles. They really opened the way. We may have struggled a bit to get out of Liverpool and other bands in other parts of the country had it not been for The Beatles and we've got a lot to thank them for. But I was never really a big Beatles fan. I appreciated their music and all the fact that they were superstars but I was never really that much into their music. I was much more into rock ‘n’ roll, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis and people like that really.

“But what I think really helped us was going to the Star Club in Hamburg which was where we really served our apprenticeship. You had so much time to rehearse there and we were really the slaves of the Star Club. There are other bands that came but you had to be the one playing at three o'clock in the morning and that's how you learned.

“For us the Star Club I think was about the fact that we were going out of the country. Once The Beatles had been there and you heard about it in Liverpool then everyone was wanting to play there. When we were playing in the Cavern one afternoon a guy called Horst Fascher (a German music producer) came in to see Johnny Kidd & the Pirates. But he saw us and he loved our drummer Chris Curtis who used to stand and play the drums which was very difficult and unusual.

"And Horst said that he wanted us and I think Chris was one of the main reasons that we got to the Star Club. We did two trips there and I think trip each trip was about a month and the money was fantastic. You can do an ordinary nine-to-five job and I had a pretty good job at a printing firm back in Liverpool. I was being paid £8.50 per week which wasn't bad in 1959 and 1960 but when you went to Star Club you were earning a week £50 each and then you think what the big rock ‘n’ roll stars were earning on top of that!

“But for me always the best part of it has been just being on stage. Everything else, the travelling to the gig, the waiting around, the staying in hotels and the living out of suitcases, that's the part that you just don't like and you never get used to it even after 60 odd years. You get to live with it and you get around it but you then you think that the travel is just so much worse than it was say 25 years ago, all the delays and everything. But it's being on the stage that makes it worth it.”

Plus the fact Mike has got a break to look forward to the end of the year. He is not retiring but he is standing back for a bit: “I will have a break for about six months. My wife and I will be doing a bit of travelling around the world which will be nice to do.”