Alan McGee - my estranged son and the invite I refused from Prince Charles
By Carla Callaghan
TODAY Creation Records film, Upside Down is released on DVD after rapturous success at the UK premiers.
Creation boss Alan McGee is delighted, but also wants to tell ICScotland a few other truths that did not make the film and perhaps not a lot of people know about.
Let’s start with the delicate issue of Alan’s estranged son, Daniel Devine now 22.
The pair met up properly for the first time when Daniel was 16 but according to both the relationship did not work. But in an interview with The Quietus in March, Daniel who is singer for the band, Flats was scathing about his estranged father, saying: “That man, he abandoned me as a child. Then he abandoned me again when I finally met him after 16 years. He plays absolutely no role in my life and has never done a thing to help me.
“I really hate the fact that people think he has played a part in it, because I have worked my f****** a*** off.
“Over the past year I have slaved for this band - all of us have, we've all worked really hard - but it is a perception to some people. He has never done a single thing to help us. When we were getting a deal and stuff, I don't even think it would have helped us, but some people might have utilised it as a selling point. I didn't. To be honest, I never really discuss him with people.”
McGee who is now remarried and living in Wales with his wife and their daughter, reads the statement and says: “Daniel was adopted 17 years ago by my ex-wife’s husband and then I met him again when he was 16.
He adds: “Unfortunately we never got on but I wish him all the best for the future.”
On a lighter note, McGee also decides to reveal something else to ICScotland – about his invite from Prince Charles to attend BuckinghamPalace for a spot of supper. And in true rock ‘n’ roll style, the music boss turned the invite down – effectively giving the future King a big knockback. But now Alan admits that perhaps he was too hasty in stepping out of the royal invite and now wishes had attended.
Speaking exclusively to ICScotland, he said: “At the height of Brit Pop I had been to ten Downing Street and I was on a committee to change government legislations.
“I have absolutely no regret about any of that because the reason I know so much about New Labour is I was inside the machine – I was looking at it.
“In the middle of all that, I got a note from Prince Charles saying would I like to come for supper.
“For a week I was going to go and then I just couldn’t bring myself to go and knocked it back.
“Now at 50, I actually wish I had done it because now I would know how Royalty think.
“I wish I had gone because I would have known what made them tick - it was so anti what I stand for as a person, because I don’t respect them but I should have went”.
He added: “That is one of the things I regret – not going.”
Moving onto his oldest friend, Bobby Gillespie, Alan talks about the bond between Creation and Primal Scream.
After the airing of BBC’S Classic Album programme in which they concentrate on Primal Scream’s first album, Screamadelica, McGee is pleased with the show.
Talking about the band and indeed his friend of forty years, he said: “Bobby Gillespie – if there was such a thing as having met someone in a previous life, then I met that f*****.
“We were making Upside Down, he was in it, that was fantastic – he was the star of the film as he should be.
“I met him up a mountain in Spain with Bob Geldof, we spoke and he asked if the Classic Albums programme had contacted me.
“I don’t watch TV so I don’t genuinely know what these things are, so I knocked it back as I don’t want to be in things unless I know the people.
“But Bobby asked if I would be in it – it was out on Friday and it is f****** great.
He added: “It was really interesting seeing us all twenty years later – Primal Scream and Creation were so interlinked – we were all a bit damaged but luckily me, Gillespie and most of the other people are still quite functional.
“I am definitely not unscathed, I am a bit damaged by it – a bit like every other f***** that has done rock ‘n’ roll.”
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