A Little Bit Better: Peter Noone to Headline AROTR

By Kevin Murphy Wilson • Photos Provided 

Although Peter Noone is also an accomplished actor and broadcast personality, he will forever be most closely associated with Herman’s Hermits, the 1960s rock n’ roll band he co-founded as a teenager and continues to front [in a modified form] even after all these years. As part of the so-called British Invasion, Noone’s group sold more than 60 million records worldwide, racking up a fair amount of gold singles and albums in the process. Herman’s Hermits’ numerous radio staples [aka “WAKY bangers” if you grew up locally] include: “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat,” “I’m into Something Good,” “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” “Silhouettes,” “Wonderful World,” “There’s a Kind of Hush,” “Just a Little Bit Better,” “A Must to Avoid,” “Listen People,” and “No Milk Today.” We recently caught up with the English-born hitmaker ahead of his headlining set at Abbey Road on the River [Saturday, May 23, 2026] to discuss such things as his early days in the business, his thoughts on the Beatles, and Noone’s current work as a DJ on Sirius/XM. 

VOICE-TRIBUNE: Who were some of your musical influences when you were starting out? 

Peter Noone: “When I was a kid I had the biggest record collection in Manchester, really. And I was, like, such a big fan of music, but mostly American music, you know. I had ‘At the Hop’ by Danny & the Juniors, of all things. And I had a lot of other ‘50s-going-into-the-‘60s music, like Dion and the Belmonts and, you know, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers, those people.” 

VT: When did you first encounter the Beatles, and what sort of impact did they have on you? 

PN: “It was August, 1963. I went to a show in this field near my grandmother’s house and there were the Beatles playing on this, like, 12-inch high stage. They really inspired me. More than the music, even, I was struck by their interaction with each other. They were clearly enjoying every minute of it. And at the end of the show, they stood around the stage talking to their fans. You know, I don’t think the Beatles were lucky. 

I think they were brilliant. And hard workers. So, after that encounter, I decided that I would find four idiots who would believe that I had a good idea. 

And it was a good idea, which was that we would form a new group, rehearse 10 hours a day, and take any date that was offered to us. We got up and went to work every day, you know. 

It’s like there was nothing else going on because work was the hobby. It still is! So, we grew pretty quickly, and we got a thing called a following. 

And, you know, like [the Beatles’ manager] Brian Epstein had said, you get a following, then you try and grow a following, and then you try and keep a following. That’s the routine, right? So we were growing a following and labels started to get interested and we were hustling for a record deal because we thought what we had appealed to youngsters. We were teenagers who thought we knew what teenagers liked. And then [record producer and label boss] Mickey Most shows up, and he signs the band, and we go and make a record, and it goes to number one, and then our following went from ‘Margaret plus three other girls’ to, you know, thousands and thousands of people. We went on tour with Dusty Springfield and then we were invited to Wembley [for the NME Poll-Winners’ All-Star Concert at the Wembley Empire Pool] with the Beatles and the Stones and the Yardbirds, and we suddenly felt we’d made it.” 

VT: You definitely enjoyed a staggering amount of success in those days. How did you handle that level of fame at such a young age? 

PN: “I often think about this. How come I’m not completely mad like all those other teen idol guys? And, you know, I think it’s because I saw the Beatles when I was a kid. And I saw a lot of big stars when I was a kid. 

And they knew how to manage reality. I’d run into the Beatles, and they were always kind, and made fun of me. John Lennon always called me ‘Hermit.’ That was my name to him. 

He’d say, ‘Hey Hermit, what are you drinking?’ You know, that sort of thing. They were huge stars already, but they were still normal in a kind of way that only people from the North of England understand. 

They couldn’t get a big head. ‘He’s a big head,’ was, like, the worst thing you could hear people say about you. Ron Wood [guitarist for the Faces and the Rolling Stones] in his memoir writes that he remembers when he was in this band called The Birds, B-I-R-D-S, they were loading their gear into the Oasis [Club] in Manchester one day and I walked over and said, ‘You can’t get in that way. The PA’s got to go around to the side door there,’ and I proceeded to help them in with their gear. And I was, like, one of the biggest stars in the world at the time. But I was still normal. I like being normal, you know, I think it was Paul McCartney who said, ‘It’s great having a career, but you’ve also got to have a life at the same time, so don’t go all in with the career, go half in with it.’ And he did great, didn’t he? 

I mean, he got married to Linda and they had a career and they were in a band together but they also went home and raised their babies in a farmhouse.” 

VT: I always enjoy hearing your personal take on the events of the 1960s, as well as your superb song selections, during episodes of your popular radio program for Sirius/XM’s Sixties Gold Channel. And your stories about working with people like John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and David Bowie before anyone outside of the London studio scene knew them by name are incredible. All that is to say, your show [“Something Good”] must be a lot of fun to produce. 

PN: “Yeah, especially since I know something about every one of the records that is in the playlist. And I’m a bit of a raconteur, you know, so I always say at the beginning of each show that, ‘some of the stories I tell this week may be true.’ And then, of course, most of them are.” 

VT: Looking back from this juncture, what are you most proud of? 

PN: “I’m just proud of myself, really, that I somehow managed to, like, avoid all the things that are supposed to happen to people in this business. 

You know, the drug abuse and the divorce and all that stuff. I can’t even write a book because nothing bad happened.” 

To purchase tickets to see Herman’s Hermits Featuring Peter Noone at Abbey Road on the River visit: www.arotr.com.