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Dave Clark was in his early teens when he scraped together £10 to buy his first drum kit.
For someone who had never shown any interest in music - the family piano was the least-used piece of furniture in his parents' house - it was a daunting purchase.
The bass drum, he recalls, was bigger than him, and it took all his strength to beat out the rhythm with the foot pedal.
Dave Clark: The former pop star insists he has not had a facelift
But he persevered, and he recruited four North London school friends - Mike Smith, singer and keyboard player, Rick Huxley and Lenny Davidson on guitar, and Denis Payton on saxophone - to form a band. And so The Dave Clark Five were born.
In the Sixties they stormed their way through the Mecca ballroom scene, creating a 'North London sound' to challenge the 'Mersey beat' that brought fame to The Beatles and other Liverpool groups.
With floor-stomping hits like Glad All Over, Bits And Pieces and Catch Us If You Can, they sold more than 100 million records and toured the world.
By 1970, says Clark, 'we'd been everywhere, done everything - there was nothing new to keep our interest' - so the group disbanded. But they were already legends.
'What I couldn't have dreamed of,' muses Clark, now 65 and a multi-millionaire from his many business ventures, 'is that the fame would last for the rest of our lives without me having to play another note.
'Thousands of artists have come and gone since then. You remember a few, but a lot you don't. But for some reason everyone still remembers The Dave Clark Five - even people who weren't born then!'
Earlier this year they were given one of music's greatest honours when they were inducted into America's Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, joining such luminaries as Elvis Presley and old rivals The Beatles.
Tom Hanks led the tributes, telling Clark: 'I've always been a great fan of yours.'
Madonna, Meg Ryan and Justin Timberlake were also there for the occasion.
But the induction ceremony was a bittersweet triumph, because it came too late for two of the Five.
Denis died from cancer aged 63 in 2006 and Mike - who had been paralysed from the waist down after an accident at his Spanish villa in 2003 - died of pneumonia a few days before the ceremony.
'It's been an emotional time without them,' says Clark, who has dedicated the new gold-embossed compilation of The DC5's hits to them.
What stood out when he accepted the award was how much younger he looked than the remainder of his bandmates.
In fact, he looked so young in the pictures taken at the ceremony in New York that people were asking if he had invested in some cosmetic enhancement.
He explodes with laughter. 'No, I haven't, and I haven't had Botox either. I was very flattered that people thought I had, but if you put a picture of me in the Sixties against one now, you'll see my hair was much thicker and my fringe was over my forehead.
'Anyone can look good if you have 500-flash bulbs exploding in your face. I tell you, though, if I had big bags under my eyes I wouldn't think twice about having something done.
'I've got nothing to hide, you know. But now when I get in a cab and the driver says: "God, you look like Dave Clark", I say: "Oh, he's my father!"'
The Dave Clark Five performs during their heyday in the 60s
The son of a Post Office security officer, Clark left school at 15 with no academic qualifications. But he was streetwise, driven and self-confident, and is now a shrewd businessman whose fortune is built on deals he negotiated when he was just 20.
Record companies were so desperate to find a London alternative to the Mersey beat that Clark was able to negotiate a royalty share four times higher than The Beatles'.
He also managed The DC5, produced their records and co-wrote most of their hits - all bringing in royalties.
But his masterstroke was a clause in the group's three-year contract with record company EMI, which allowed him to claim ownership of all their tapes once the agreement expired.
'To my amazement, they let me get away with it,' says Clark, who also retained the lucrative American rights to their recordings.
'They never looked at longevity in those days - it was all about making a quick fortune. Nobody thought that the music boom of the Sixties was going to last.
'Anyway, it was important for me to keep control. We had slogged our way around dance halls, pulling in 6,000 people a night. We had our own style, our own way of making music, and wanted to hold on to it.'
With EMI acquiescing to his demands, Clark was in a position to call all the shots, from the way The DC5 dressed - a 'uniform' of dark jacket, white trousers and Cuban heels - to what the other band members said publicly, which was very little, because Clark was the front man and wanted it to stay that way.
He then set about taking control of all the group's business interests, the publishing of their songs under the banner of Spurs Music Publishing Ltd - named after his favourite football team - and rights to their TV appearances, including the group's 18 performances before audiences of 60 million on The Ed Sullivan Show in the U.S.
Years later, he acquired the rights to ITV's Ready, Steady Go pop series.
Now, with the group's music enduring and royalties continuing to roll in, plus income from some very shrewd investments,
The Dave Clark Five are mobbed: Left to Right: The late Mike Smith, Denis Payton, Rick Huxley, Dave Clark and Lenny Davidson
Clark is very well set up. The trappings of success are everywhere at his palatial home near London's Hyde Park.
He greets me in jeans and bare feet, a thick gold chain worn under his shirt and an enormous signet ring on one of his hands.
The house seems to go on for ever, strikes me as more Hollywood than London.
There are are huge white sofas, thick cream carpets, massive modern paintings, tropical plants everywhere, a wall-sized TV in the lounge, and Buddhas he has collected from around the world.
Adjoining the house is a recording and film studio, and there's a Rolls-Royce parked in garage. He also owns a Mayfair penthouse.
Before his musical success, he gained a black belt in martial arts, which he used to make money as a film stuntman.
But by then his interest in the drums had developed into all-embracing passion.
'I knew what I wanted, and went for it.' he says.
'For one film, I had to crash a car, and the stunt was so dangerous that they paid me £300 - three times the going rate. I used the money to finance our first recording session. 'I never believed it was going to get as big as it did. But if you aim for the moon, you stand a chance of reaching the stars.'
When Clark called a halt to the musical adventure, it was a relief to all five members of the group.
'When you're touring, you only see the auditorium and the hotel room. You can't go out because you get mobbed. You're tired, edgy and under pressure. The fun had gone out of it, so we decided to walk away from it all.'
But there were many fond memories. 'The head of Paramount Studios threw a party in our honour. The people that turned up to meet us were incredible- - Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Lucille Ball, Natalie Wood. I was in awe of them and they came to see us!
Mike Smith's death in February 2008 affected Clark badly
'We had our own plane. I had always said: "If we do it, we do it in style." Each one of us had an armchair which transformed into a bed. We had a TV, lounge and study, and a private crew on board. It was wonderful.'
The DC5's own venture into films - de rigueur for any successful group in the Sixties - was called Catch Us If You Can. It was directed by John Boorman, and although it was a box office hit, Clark says there could never have been a follow-up.
'Let's face it, Lassie was a better actor than me,' he says.
While Clark admits this now, when he first quit music he tried to reinvent himself as an actor by studying drama at London's prestigious Central School Of Speech And Drama. He also studied in Hollywood under the direction of Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio.
But he abandoned acting to become a producer and director.
In 1986, he wrote and staged a musical, Time, and to the amazement and envy of other theatrical producers, he persuaded Laurence Olivier to appear in it as a hologram.
The London West End show starred Cliff Richard, who was later followed by David Cassidy, and was seen by more than a million people.
'It was so enlightening for me to work with Olivier because he was the greatest theatrical actor. Although he was at the top of his profession, he always wanted to do something he hadn't done before.
'I believe that's what kept him motivated and young. He didn't do it for the money. I paid him a standard fee, the same as the other actors got. He used to ring me and ask: "How did my performance go?"'
One of Clark's closest friendships was with Freddie Mercury. They had become friends when Clark asked him to record a song, In My Defence, for the album of the show.
'There was a mutual respect,' says Clark. 'Neither of us were yes men, so we worked together well, and sold millions of records.'
When Mercury was asked if he wanted to be in Time, he declined, saying: 'For one thing, my darling, I don't get up until 3pm, so I can't do matinees. For another, when I do a show, I sing my butt off for three hours and then I drop dead. So it would be impossible to do eight shows a week.'
Mercury's death affected Clark deeply.
'I was with him at his house right at the end,' he recalls.
'The doctors had left, and we knew it was only a matter of time. We were alone, and when he passed away, I went downstairs to tell Phoebe, his PA, and Joe, his chef. His former girlfriend, Mary Austin, came over, and I phoned Freddie's parents to break the news.
'He looked at peace. But it was such a waste. He gave so much, but he had so much more to give.
'There were two sides to Freddie. There was the performer who was larger than life - the bigger the audience, the better.
'And there was the other side. He was the most caring person. He was very honest with Mary when he decided to come out and admit he was gay. Their relationship always remained strong.'
Clark himself has never married, although in his heyday he was romantically linked with TV presenter Cathy McGowan.
'I always kept my private life to myself. I did find love in my life, but I love my freedom more. I found when I got into serious relationships it interfered with my work.
'You're travelling the world and you want to get on and do one thing but the other person wants you to do something else. I felt the need to come and go as I please, to answer to no one, so marriage wasn't for me.'
Of course, weren't the Sixties known to be a promiscuous time?
'I was careful,' he says. 'There aren't lots of little Dave Clarks running about, if that's what you're asking. Well not to my knowledge. I was certainly no saint. There were wonderful times and I had a lot of fun.
'I think if I hadn't had The Dave Clark Five, and I had just carried on playing at the ballroom venues, I would have been married, had kids, whatever. That was the done thing in those days. But when it took off I enjoyed it. I think that to do anything well you've got to put all your energies into that.
'But when I was with The DC5 I was very anti hard drugs. I liked to be in control and you can't be if you are out of your head on drugs. I've seen it with people.'
He did try cannabis for a time, however.
'I don't think there's anything wrong with cannabis. I think it's better than drinking a bottle of whisky. But heavy drugs are scary.'
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