Excert from MB autobiography

“My first solo album, Schizophonia, came out in July, 1977. I had worked on it through 1976, and at one point stopped and remade it from scratch, throwing away all that I had recorded up until then. I called it Schizophonia because the first half had an Arabic, concepty feel, and it was really a mini-concept album on one side of the record. Musically and stylistically it was a return to the natural schizophrenic style that seems to be my compositional signature when I am writing for an orchestra with a rock rhythm section. Lots of contrasting ideas, licks, riffs, pace. Songs would alternate with ambitious  compositions. I never called it Classic Rock. 

All across Europe, South Africa and Australia - where the Wombles hadn’t been successful, my solo albums were very successful, selling many hundreds of thousands of copies. There was even a nice little ripple of appreciation in the States.

Personally, I was very satisfied with Schizophonia”. I had put together a great rhythm section of the young Chris Spedding on guitar, Ray Cooper on percussion, Clem Cattini on drums and Les Hurdle on bass. They were actually the same guys who had played the Womble records, - but all very respected and highly regarded players. I’d written some good songs. “Railway Hotel”, a song about a down-at-heel love affair in a seedy hotel room, has endured as one of my best, over the years. The Arabic material happened to attract the attention of Elmo Williams, the producer of the movie, “Caravans” based on the James Michener novel, - and lead to my being commissioned to write the score for that movie in 1978, of which more later.”