They gave up the psychedelic scene to became boogie rock hitmakers

Alan Lancaster was there from the start when he and a schoolmate started the band that would become a pop chart phenomenon.

Status Quo musican Alan Lancaster who died in Australia, aged 72. Picture: AAP

Alan Lancaster and Francis Rossi – who started the band that would become Status Quo – hardly changed music. They saw trends and followed them early. But then in the era of glam rock in the early 1970s, they shunned the high-heeled boots and skin-tight Lurex costumes of the day and reverted to time-worn jeans and T-shirts, and a simple, propulsive boogie sound that imprinted itself on music fans’ minds and produced an enviable run of hit records, other than in the US. In that country, ZZ Top had done the same and there wasn’t room for the two.

Lancaster, who played bass guitar, was born not far from Rossi, who played lead guitar, and both went to Beckenham’s Sedgehill Comprehensive School where each played in the orchestra. With school friends, they formed a band called The Scorpions and played to a handful of people for free at a sports club nearby. Those who ­attended threw £4 into the hat.

In Lancaster’s final official gig with Status Quo, the band once again played for free. They were the opening act at London’s Wembley Stadium on Saturday, July 13, 1985, in Bob Geldof’s Live Aid seen by 70,000 Londoners and perhaps a billion people across the globe. That day they performed three songs, starting with John Fogerty’s Rockin’ All Over the World that had been a modest hit for him and a smash hit for Quo two years later in 1977.

Yet it all started so differently. The Scorpions became the The Spectres then Traffic (although there was one already with Steve Winwood), then Traffic Jam and finally The Status Quo (the definite article was soon dropped). Launching themselves at a post-Sgt Pepper’s London, they recorded the progressive-psychedelic Pictures of Matchstick Men. It ­became a worldwide hit.

A few songs in a similar vein failed to ignite the public’s imagination and the band turned to ­simpler pub rock. The band themselves produced the first album in this genre, Piledriver. All the elements were there but it lacked finesse. The next album, Hello, topped the British charts and included hit singles Caroline and Roll Over Lay Down (co-written by Lancaster) that defined their sound thereafter. The singles Down Down and Whatever You Want fitted that format and topped the charts.

Lancaster met Dayle, who would become his wife, while on tour in Australia with Lindisfarne and Slade in 1973. They settled here in the mid-1980s and Lancaster’s parents also later emigrated here, as did his brother and sister.

He immediately joined the rolling cast of legendary musicians who would call themselves the Party Boys; at various times they included members of Australian bands The Angels, The Choirboys, Sherbet, Skyhooks, Dragon, Rose Tattoo and Australian Crawl, as well as visiting internationals stars The Eagles’ Joe Walsh, and The Animals’ Eric Burdon. Lancaster was part of their most successful era, including the hit song He’s Gonna Step on You Again. Later he formed The Bombers with former Quo drummer John Coghlan and they were the support act on tours here by Alice Cooper and Cheap Trick.

While battling multiple sclerosis, he took part in two Status Quo tours in the last decade. Rick Parfitt, the band’s rhythm guitarist, died in 2016.

Lancaster wrote the band’s first single Hurdy Gurdy Man (as The Spectres) and Status Quo would record 100 singles, 60 of which charted – more than any other UK rock band. The band has issued 33 albums, but not all with Lancaster.