Michael Des Barres - B. P. Fallon brought him to see me in New York early this year in his guise of image-booster and confidant to fledgeling stars. It was Silverhead's second trip to the states and there was a big pitch about flying me out to L.A., which allegedly was already trembling at the knees in sweaty anticipation of their visit.

Michael was a pretty boy in an intense, English way, but he talked too much and ate messily, which seemed to matter at the time. He resembled too much the public school snot who's got into pop because it's what's happening and he was over-fond of hip cliches. Possibly he felt overshadowed by the ever-presence of Mr. Fallon, ordinarily a rather amusing man, who appeared to be functioning as a kind of placenta - which I take to be the organ that nourishes the foetus and is only expelled at the afterbirth.

In fact, the trip to Los Angeles didn't materialise until much later, by which time all concerned had beetled back off to England, but they'd inspired such graffiti on the walls of the lady's loo at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco that it was simply impossible to ignore their existence. Undeniably, Silverhead was a reasonably attractive property in the vicinity of LA at least.

Behold, upon returning to England it was apparent that Purple Records were also alive to a certain quality of animal precociousness, and had released their second album with a salacious cover picture of a young girl, nicely-larded with puppy fat, reflected plumply and wetly in the mirror of another ladies' room. It was a triumph of leering lust, especially as the album title was 16 and Savaged. Moreover, although musically it was quite samey, the band had a lot of bottle. Certainly they sounded no less distinctive than the NY Dolls, which many people, especially in New York, would interpret as a compliment. Des Barres' vocals may have been a little too close for comfort to Steve Marriott's, but it was an honourable point of reference.

These days, it seems, B. P. Fallon is no longer closely in attendance, having elected to devote his energies to the completion of a semi-autobiographical work that should make the driest of palms clammy. Though the friendship is still sound, Des Barres, indeed, is not displeased that he's not "vibing" for them anymore. He wants to be his own man.

Michael, in fact, has become much less frantic than the time when he spilled water all over the coffee shop table and proceeded to draw in it. He still has his obsessions, like his refusal to see that Aleister Crowley was a misguided oaf, but then Marc Bolan used to say he'd observed a picture of a tyrannosaurus rex come to life, and he hasn't done so badly. Really, there are similarities between their personalities, which surely explains the presence of B. P. Fallon in their respective lives. (Chelita Secunda works for them, too, and she also was with Bolie). Like Bolan, he's got a very proper sense of himself, and combines pretentiousness with a sly, and quotable, sense of humour. And always, he talks. He speaks, ergo he is.

Silverhead's product manager should be proud of him. Given time, the property will be even more saleable. Not least of these qualities is self belief; "We're the dirtiest band in this country and one of the strongest," he says.
"There's nobody that can tell me we aren't tight. This thing may have started off for me being dilettante and a bit of a game, but now I know what I'm doing."
He means by this that his baptism in rock and roll has been achieved with rather unholy water.
In one of his more inspired phrases, he describes himself as "an impoverished aristocrat with PA."

His father, he says, was French, the Marquis Des Barres, and his mother was from somewhat less giddy social heights in Liverpool. After boarding school, from which he says he was expelled at 16, he went to the Corona Drama School and did work in TV and films.
Then he formed a mixed media group called the Electric Church, which included Tim Hinkley of Jody Grind.
He was playing acoustic guitar at the time, and boning up on Aleister Crowley, "the only person with power who had a sense of humour - he was the greatest force behind me then."
He got his break through an introduction to Tony Hall, who was enjoying a reputation as a music entrepreneur.
"I phoned up his chick said I'd like to meet a mogul. I went up in the summer to his place, played for him, and he got off on it."

"Me and my old lady were living in the back of a car, and I said this is no good, it's not Rudolf Valentino." So he looked for a backer.

"Then Robert Stigwood said would I like to do The Dirtiest Show In Town. I played the part of Rose - I'd already done Z Cars and Dixon. After that, Tony Hall said Andrew Lloyd Webber would like to see me, so I did a living room concert for him and his 12 prissy friends, all sipping 35 quid wine and talking about Malcolm Sargent. I thought 'how do I interest him?', and I played "In Your Eyes" and a ripple of applause goes through the chaise lounge.
Next morning I got a call and he gave me some bread. I signed a contract - I wish I hadn't - and he sent me to Purple Records (Ian Gillan had been on Jesus Christ Superstar)."

"Originally it was just me. I didn't want to be a Bowie-Bolan figure, but then I decided I wanted a ballsy rock band. I didn't know how to do it - I mean, I thought PA meant personal assistant."

So he advertised, and came up with Rod "Rook" Davies on guitar, ex of David Bowie's Riot Squad, and Nigel Harrison on bass. Pete Thompson, an old friend of Davies', joined on drums, and then a second guitarist, one Steve Forrest, subsequently to be replaced by Robbie Blunt, who'd played and recorded with Bronco. He joined the band after a gig in Kidderminster, his home town. And then there were five.

They're now backed in this line-up by a management combination of HEC (Purple) and Webber. Michael thinks they haven't done too badly. After all, here he is living in a nice Hampstead flat with an attractively milk-skinned pre-Raphaelite-looking lady, and the group is out on the road with a big British tour headed by Nazareth.

One wonders why they haven't played more in Britain. Well, he replies, MCA, the record company they signed with in America, insisted they pursued the market in the States. The first time they went to America, in fact, they'd only played three gigs in England, and the third one was at the Rainbow with Deep Purple. Besides, he felt innately more at home in America.

"All our fantasies have been concerned with getting off a plane with a shoulder bag, like those old newsreels you saw of John Lennon when you were 13. And if you get up any energy in London they say, 'oh, my dear, give him a valium'."

"They seem to resent energy in London. We get criticised for playing at being rock stars, but they really have no sense of humour."

"Like, Dingwall's, it's very ethnic - they'll close it soon, though. It's all right if you're into that pub-rock thing, but when you've built up to a concert pitch playing a club that small is weird."

Musically they are New York out of Led Zeppelin. Des Barres has that right kind of punk attitude, half tough and verbally sophisticated, half foppish and slack-wrested. He insists, however, that they don't want to be part of that whole Max's Kansas City stable of not-so-bright young things, or to be associated in any case with that glam-glitter label.

"In the beginning I just wanted to be fresh and musicianly, alive and dirty."

Still, he pays the obligatory homage to the Dolls. "They're what's happening in the Satyricon that's New York. But we don't exist on that heath."

"My idol's Crowley, not Brian Connolly. The image is good but it's not important. I don't want to cultivate an image other than what I am, and the trip with New York bands is that one has to fit the image of New York. But Warhol is dead! All that fifties stuff is bullshit."

16 and Savaged, all the same, is an outgrowth of experiences in America, where "everywhere you go you see rock and roll casualties."
The drug and groupies lifestyle, which is unmistakably part of touring in the states. Anyway, he says, without the groupies there wouldn't be the groups.

Michael says Silverhead should be thought of as "liberating people's inhibitions" - a touch pretentious maybe but justifiable if you can tell Andrew Lloyd Webber to build a rock and roll band around you.

As for the punk band thing, he goes on, yes, sure it's there. They're young, ain't they? (he's 25, to be exact).
And yes, they do rock out, "which you can't say about Bowie - his mascara doesn't run." And surely, they must be doing okay, commercially; they have a tour of Japan in the offing.
But perhaps after all, one suggests, he's into rock and roll because that's what's currently groovy for actors seeking outside employment.
"That's for you to decide, not me," Michael replies very flatly.
Quite right, too.