![]() Bassist Steve Priest sported eyeliner, fake lashes and anything from red hot pants to a Nazi officer's uniform. Their golden-haired singer, Brian Connolly, snapped microphone stands over his knee as Scott blew him kisses. Sweet rose to the challenge set by Chapman's songs with ever more outlandish TV performances. The band could play on the A-sides (Wig-Wam Bam, Block Buster!, Hell Raiser), which Chinnichap would continue to write, and the B-sides would showcase Sweet's songwriting and Scott's hard-rock riffs. After their fourth hit, Little Willy, Chapman realised Sweet were better than the session musos, and a compromise was reached. The songs were written by the prolific Chinnichap partnership (Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman), and recorded by session musicians – Sweet merely sang on them. It was either that or look for another job. A skilled rock guitarist – his scorching solo on Sweet's 1973 B-side Burning would do credit to Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck – Scott, like his bandmates, acceded to the strict rules of bubblegum pop on Sweet's early hit singles Funny Funny, Co-Co and Poppa Joe. Scott was 20 when he joined Sweet in 1970, after moving to London from his native north Wales. Unfortunately, we can't play all the hits in the time they give us, but the gigs are fun and they pay quite well." ![]() We've done the 70s package tours in England, with Showaddywaddy and the Rubettes. We've played in front of castles, and in stadthalles. As long as other bands keep going, why shouldn't Sweet? There's still an audience for our music in Germany. "I can't survive on fresh air, so I have to work. "I'm a realist," says Scott, nowadays a Wiltshire-based family man. Gone are the days of Block Buster! and The Ballroom Blitz, when Scott appeared on Top of the Pops more often than some of the presenters. Scott still tours with a line-up of Sweet today, but you're unlikely to see them on television. ![]() But he admits luck was involved: the owner of the insurance company just happens to be a friend and a lifelong Sweet fan. Scott, 61, joins an illustrious band of unlikely rock stars who have made the leap to advertising, including Iggy Pop, John Lydon and Alice Cooper. The winning mix of nostalgia and self-parody (after explaining how easily a van insurance deal can be found, Scott exclaims "Sweet!") proved a big hit with viewers, and a follow-up ad was commissioned – it will air next month. They starred Andy Scott, the guitarist from the 1970s glam rock band Sweet, in the unlikely role of an expert on van insurance. Earlier this summer, while England were licking their World Cup wounds and Cheryl Cole was recovering from malaria, the funniest TV adverts of 2010 appeared on our screens.
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