Legs Larry Smith on The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Tap Dancing, The Beatles and Still Barking
A conversation with one of British music’s true originals
There are some interviews that feel like ticking a box, and then there are those conversations that remind you exactly why music matters in the first place. Talking to Legs Larry Smith of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was very much the latter.
For anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of the Bonzos, this band was never just a group. They were a collision of music, comedy, visual art, surrealism and sheer unpredictability. They could be absurd, unsettling, hilarious, musically brilliant and completely unlike anyone else — often all within the same song. For many of us, they were also a doorway into a very different kind of creativity.
I told Larry during our conversation that I first came to the band in that familiar way many of us built our collections in those days — through chance, curiosity and a cheap record in Woolworths. Gorilla was one of those purchases that expanded your record collection and, very quickly, expanded your mind as well. At the time, my friends and I were already watching Monty Python and trying to make sense of this wonderfully skewed British humour, and here was an album that seemed to come from a similar universe — except, of course, it had come first.
That is one of the fascinating things about the Bonzos. They arrived at just the right cultural moment, when comedy, music, art school experimentation and a love of the absurd could still collide naturally. Larry reflected on how the band grew not out of some grand plan for stardom, but simply from a desire to let off steam. Art school by day, chaos by night. They found pubs in south London where they could drag in ridiculous instruments, play strange old songs from the 1920s and 30s, and entertain themselves as much as the audience. The lack of structure was part of the point. They were not setting out to be polished. They were setting out to be free.
That freedom is what still leaps out of the records now. Listening again, what strikes me is not just how funny the Bonzos were, but how alive they sound. Larry spoke with obvious affection about tracks such as “Jazz: Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold”, recalling how it was captured in a burst of pure inspiration. They were in the studio working on more serious material, went down the pub, came back, told the engineer to load a fresh reel of tape, and launched into this glorious piece of mayhem in one take. No polishing. No overthinking. Just pure instinct and mischief committed to tape. It is perhaps the perfect Bonzos story.
The same spirit runs through “The Intro and the Outro”, one of those records that seems to become part of your DNA once you have heard it enough times. Larry laughed as he recalled introducing himself to Boris Johnson years later, only to have him instantly respond with “Ah, the intro and the outro.” That is the thing about the Bonzos: even their most absurd moments found a way to become immortal.
Of course, one of the most legendary parts of Larry’s own story is the tap dancing. I had to ask him about the tale that he had one lesson, bought the most expensive tap shoes he could find, and then practised in a London Underground station. Amazingly, it is true. The lesson itself, he said, was dull, so he decided he would learn more by doing it himself — and Holborn tube station, with its marble floor and natural reverb, became part of that education. There is something wonderfully telling in that story. It speaks to a time when passion and nerve could be enough to get you started. No waiting for permission. No need for official validation. Just the desire to do something and the determination to make it happen.
That passion took him a very long way. Larry talked about tap dancing with Elton John at Carnegie Hall, and about developing what he called a rock and roll tap dance while touring with Eric Clapton. He described tap dancing as “only drumming with your feet”, which is one of those simple observations that suddenly makes complete sense when you hear it. In a musical world filled with guitar heroes and increasingly serious rock mythology, the idea that Elton John or Eric Clapton thought that the perfect thing to add to a performance was Legs Larry Smith tap dancing across the stage tells you everything about the respect he commanded — and the unique spark he brought.
Then there are the stories that only the Bonzos could generate. At the Isle of Wight Festival, for example, Larry and Keith Moon had apparently disappeared into a boozer while the band were trying to get on with the show. Vivian Stanshall went to the microphone and asked, “Is there a drummer in the house?” Jimmy Capaldi stepped in behind Larry’s kit, the band powered on, and Larry eventually arrived in time to tap Capaldi on the shoulder and say, in effect, “Excuse me, my turn.” It is ridiculous, chaotic and entirely perfect.
The Bonzos were never confined to the stage. Their appearances on television, particularly Do Not Adjust Your Set, helped to place them right at the heart of a major cultural shift. As Larry said, it was a happy and creative time, with Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and others all around that world. What stands out looking back is how central the Bonzos were to that meeting point between music, television and surreal comedy. They were not simply adjacent to that movement; they were part of the fabric of it.
And then, of course, there is Magical Mystery Tour. Larry’s memories of The Beatles are wonderful because they capture the awe that musicians themselves felt in their presence. Seeing Lennon’s black Rolls arrive at Abbey Road, watching the four Beatles step out and head into Studio A, peering into the empty studio and seeing Ringo’s drum kit shimmering in the corner — these are the sort of details that bring an era vividly to life. Later, when the call came asking the Bonzos to appear in Magical Mystery Tour, off they went. Larry was honest enough to say he did not think the band looked their best in the film, but the thrill of being there, meeting The Beatles and attending the wrap party with the Beach Boys all speaks to just how extraordinary that period was.
What also comes through very clearly in talking to Larry is that he never stopped being an artist. Before the Bonzos took over his life, he imagined a future in design and advertising, and that side of him never disappeared. He still paints every day, still thinks visually, and still speaks about composition, form and perspective with genuine enthusiasm. He talked about working with George Harrison on artwork for Gone Troppo, and about how important visual ideas always were to the Bonzos. They did not think of themselves as simply a band playing songs. They were a visual event. Props, paintings, dummy figures, costumes, explosions — they used space, stagecraft and imagery as part of the performance itself. In another age, with everyone carrying cameras and social media documenting every second, they would have been everywhere.
That leads naturally to the Still Barking box set from Madfish, which I have already reviewed separately and which so many readers and viewers have told me is one of the most important box sets in their collections. Talking to Larry about it only deepened my affection for it. He had recently got his copy back from one of his daughters in time for our interview and was clearly moved by what Madfish had done. He talked about the beauty of the packaging, the quality of the book, and even pointed out the little dog paw motifs in the corners of the artwork — a detail I had completely missed until he mentioned it.
What makes the set feel so significant is that it does more than gather albums and outtakes. It crystallises a body of work that has rippled out across music, comedy, television and British culture for decades. The endorsements and reflections in the book underline that. From musicians to comedians to writers, the Bonzos have influenced far more people than they are often given credit for. Larry spoke with real emotion about that legacy, and you could hear how much it meant to him that this work had been gathered together with such care.
As we came towards the end of the interview, I found myself unexpectedly moved by some of the smaller details in his stories — the pork pie diet on the road, the Daimler ambulance gag on the motorway, the image of Neil Innes and the others leaning out of the windows while Larry pretended to steer from the passenger seat. There is something very British and very human in those memories. They are not just tales of great art being made. They are stories of friendship, touring, improvisation, bad management, near misses, absurd decisions and endless creativity.
Larry was also keen to mention that his own more recent solo album, Mr Wonderful, is out there and available. He spoke particularly warmly about the song “Oyayki”, written for George Harrison as a kind of return serve after George had once written a song about him. That alone tells you a lot about the sort of life Larry Smith has lived: one in which the surreal and the historic often seem to sit side by side quite naturally.
What stayed with me most after the conversation was not just the list of names — George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Keith Moon, The Beatles, The Who — impressive though that all is. It was Larry’s attitude. The sense that if you are passionate about something, you do it. You follow it. You keep creating. You stay curious. You keep moving. He is still painting, still making music, still talking with warmth and enthusiasm about what comes next. That, more than anything, feels like the real legacy.
For those of us who first discovered the Bonzos by chance — perhaps through a cheap copy of Gorilla, perhaps through a repeated listen to The Intro and the Outro, perhaps through a sense that this was somehow connected to the Python world we loved — Still Barking feels like a gift. It is a reminder that the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were not a novelty. They were not a footnote. They were, and remain, one of the great British originals.
And after speaking to Legs Larry Smith, that feels truer than ever.
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band Still Barking Box Set Review
