Rod Temperton/Biography

As Rodney Lynn Temperton remembers music was in his bones from an early age; "My father wasn't the kind of person who'd read you a story before you went off to sleep - he used to put a transistor radio in the crib, right on the pillow, and I'd go to sleep listening to Radio Luxmburg and I think that had an influence." Temperton attended that the De Aston School in Market Rasen and he formed a group for the school's music competitions. He was a drummer at this time. "I'd get in the living room with my snare drum and my cymbal and play along to the Test Card, which was all kinds of music they'd be playing continuously." On leaving school he started working in the office of a frozen food company in Grimsby. He soon became a full-time musician however, a keyboard player now, and played in several bands, and this took him to Worms in Germany. In 1972 Temperton and guitarist Bernd Springer formed a soul cover band called Sundown Carousl. With Temperton on an old Hammond organ, the band performed in clubs and bars in cities such as Mannheim. In 1974, he answered to an advert in Melody Maker, placed by Johnnie Wilder, Jr. and so became a membr of the popular funk/disco band, Heatwave, which Wilder was putting together at the time. "He was the first Biritsh guy that I had ever met personally. He spoke kind of funny, but he had a good sense of humour, and he was a very friendly guy. After meeting him, and then seeing him play, I kind of determined he was a good enough player and entertainer, and I just knew he would fit in the group", said Wilder. Temperton played tunes he had been composing to Johnny Wilder, Jr.: "I was very interested, because we were doing a lot of cover tunes - we weren't doing a lot of original material - I was really interested." The songs provided material for 1976's Too Hot to Handle, including Boogie Nights, which broke the band in Britain and the United States, and the memorable ballad, Always and Forever - both tracks were million-sellers in the U.S.