Jason Barnard interviewed Jeff Christie for his podcast website, Strange Brew, in July 2025, to coincide with the release of the Outer Limits double-CD box set.

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BEFORE Jeff Christie turned the global dial to Yellow River, he was at the helm of The Outer Limits, a group that recorded some of the most criminally overlooked British music of the 1960s. Now, with an extensive new box set, Jeff reflects on the band that was, the break that wasn't, and why, after all these years, The Outer Limits weren't science fiction, they were the real thing.

SB: What was it about Heartbreak Hotel that struck such a deep chord?

JC: The sound of the record soaked in echo, the haunting vocal and Scotty Moore's guitar solo backed by Floyd Cramer's slowed down boogie style piano. The song built its tension patiently by only using a walking bass line punctuated by a double strike chord against Elvis's tortured vocal, gradually filling out with more tinkering high piano and subtle background guitar licks till the end. Just over two minutes of glorious excitement and new sounds after much of the anodyne 50's pop music.

SB: Your parents had very different musical tastes, opera and ballet versus crooners and swing. How did those influences shape you?

JC: They all had the cumulative effect of helping me appreciate all kinds of music. Certainly this was bound to be reflected consciously or unconsciously into my songwriting as nothing was out of bounds musically.

SB: Can you take us back to the transition from the 3G's +1 and The Tremmers to becoming The Outer Limits? How did the band names and sound evolve?

JC: The Tremmers emerged out of the ashes of the 3G's +1 which was a short-lived group. I think a couple of youth club performances and that was it, but as the group folded I met several lads in that club that could sing a bit or play some instrument.
    I remember one day this older lad brought his guitar into the cloakroom where I sometimes would sit and play as it had great acoustics with loads of room echo.
    I knew how to play Walk Don't Run by The Ventures and I was playing it as he walked in. Some kids would come and go and some would stop and listen for a bit but this lad sat down, asked me what key it was in and joined in. He knew some chords and so I told him the rest and we started to play.
    We hit it off and decided to get together in each other's houses to practise together. After learning a few songs we would meet up in the youth club's cloakroom and play a bit, when one day another older lad came in with a biscuit tin and some drumming brushes and joined in.
    Now there was three of us and what's more he had his own drum kit. We knew another lad who played saxophone and he would hang around and wanted to join us but we needed a bass player as we now had two guitars, drums but no bass. He sold his sax, got a bass guitar and would come over to my house and I'd give him a few lessons till he got the hang of it and now we were four: Gerry Layton, Stan Drogie, Rod Brooks and me.
    That was how The Tremmers started, mainly an instrumental group playing Shadows, Ventures and similar groups. We wanted a name that implied earthquakes as that kind of name was in fashion. After a while we got a couple of vocalists, one black for Little Richard numbers and one white for doing the white rock'n'roll songs.
    After a couple of years Rod left to join another group and we carried on, first with a lad called Ken until he left, and was replaced by Paul Cardus. We then morphed into the Outer Limits when Paul left and was replaced by Gerry Smith. We were all fans of a Sci-Fi series called The Outer Limits and we thought that was a great name for the group.

SB: At what point did you feel ready to move from covers to your own compositions?

JC: When we (Outer Limits) needed to get a recording contract, and it became obvious the game was up doing covers. I think we failed maybe two auditions, one for certain by playing covers. I remember particularly one A&R man taking me to one side and saying 'you've got a good band but you need to write your own material if you want to stand a chance of getting a contract'. That was the defining moment and I then set about trying to write songs so we would stand a better chance of being signed to a record label.

SB: You crossed paths with some incredible figures; from Reg Dwight in Bluesology to Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, and Bryan Ferry. Which of those early encounters left the biggest impression?

JC: I have a distant memory of running into Beach Boy Bruce Johnston outside some London club one night in the seventies and was struck by how approachable, he was, easy going and easy to talk to, unlike Harry Nilsson who I met one winters night on a deserted Sunningdale station while he was waiting for the train to Ascot to meet Lennon. He was edgy and the total opposite of Bruce.
    Undoubtedly of those you mentioned, it would be Jimi Hendrix as he was unique. Reg had yet to emerge as Elton when we (Outer Limits) were on the same bill with him and just stayed in the background playing keyboards with Bluesology. Brian Ferry also was yet to emerge as the lounge lizard of later fame, before which he sometimes played records in the Jazz Lounge at the Club a Gogo Newcastle when we used to play there in the Sixties. Joe Cocker was still unknown, but being his backing group for a few numbers in Sheffield, one time confirmed he was going to be a force to be reckoned with: you could see he was also a bit unique with that incredible voice and jerky stage presence. We used to play at Pete Stringfellow's Mojo club occasionally and one time Pete asked if a local lad could get up and do a few numbers with us which he duly did, and was dynamite. Jarvis was probably just learning to walk!
    Being on tour with Jimi for three weeks and having the opportunity to watch him perform day in and day out was a privilege and a huge learning curve. Everything about him, personality, guitar mastery, great songs, showmanship, stage presence, he had it all! One can argue about the guitar greats and who is the greatest but if you want the whole package for my money he's the one, major dude!

SB: That story about Hank Marvin taking your advice on a chord (for Kitty Lester's Love Letters), did that moment give you a new kind of confidence in your musicianship?

JC: Well firstly I suggested, not advised, as that would have been a bit pompous of me although you could say a bit cheeky, especially as he was an idol of mine at that tender age. Even then, who knows if he agreed or not. I feel almost sure he probably did but I never heard a Shadows or Hank Marvin version of Love Letters to confirm that chord one way or another. I think the fact that the great one had spared us a few minutes of his time to talk to us was a confidence booster in itself, but I was also progressing rapidly and was known at the time for being one of the best Hank Marvin copyists in the Leeds area and the feedback from audiences were so enthusiastic that that can't help but build confidence, or arrogance, I hope it was the former.

SB: Many of the recordings on this box set, like Sweet Freedom and Someday Somehow, were demos left unheard for decades. How does it feel to finally have them out in the world?

JC: A little strange but also liberating. These demos were never meant to be released in their form as they were basically notepads intended for later polishing up before better studio production would enable them for general release.
    As is often the case when you write lots of songs and styles and fashions change, some songs just do not fit the mood of the era you are now in so they get left behind until one day Cherry Red turn up and ask me what rough diamonds are in the vault baby. At first I was reluctant to let them hear these less than perfect demos but they were quite persuasive and asked if they could at least hear them so I sent them down London town and they replied saying they were great and please could they include them.
    They said there was a substantial market for these demos of that era as they were collector's items with a dedicated fan base. So I acquiesced and if for nothing else it is interesting to see the different styles, progression and experimentation in songwriting from those first arguably charming beginnings to hopefully a more mature higher standard later on.

SB: Your songs from that time often feel filled with quiet longing; not just for love, but for change, for escape, for something just out of reach. Where do you think that sense of yearning came from?

JC: All those things but isn't it a universal longing to love, be loved, understood and the constant striving for some kind of personal Nirvana in the ever-changing landscape of an often unfriendly and frightening world.

SB: The BBC's decision to not play Great Train Robbery clearly had an impact. Did censorship or industry politics often get in the way of creative momentum?

JC: Well, it was definitely a blow as it was the follow-up to Just One More Chance, which had been a minor hit in the UK and therefore arguably a stepping stone.
    It made us lose the momentum of following that early success by being banned for broadcast by the only main radio station. The Shadows' original drummer Tony Meehan, who scored the orchestration' told me years later at a big BBC Millenium party it was deemed too political as it hinted at the infamous GTR of the sixties even if the song said it was in 1899, although in the original demo version I sang 1949, close but no cigar!
    I did learn a lesson as it inspired a different approach to my writing which often became the modus operendi in which the use of metaphor allows the writer to mirror autobiographic experiences onto other subject matter at times, or write an ambiguous lyric that means different things to different people, which may or may not be what the writer is thinking about at source.
    Sometimes though it is an obvious choice to write a direct lyric with no hidden meanings. Ultimately it comes down to what mood I am in when I'm in writing mode.

SB: You've described your time in The Outer Limits as an apprenticeship. Was there a moment on the 1967 tour with Pink Floyd, The Move, and Amen Corner that encapsulates that era for you?

JC: Yes, it was in some ways a second-tier apprenticeship as I'd already served my first having six or seven-years' experience under my belt and in my third group. But this tour experience was invaluable watching Jimi every night but also The Move and The Nice were great to watch and how they used the stage. Floyd and Amen Corner weren't movers or exciting for me, but Keith Emerson throwing daggers into his Hammond and at Hendrix, who egged him on from the wings, were.
    The standout memory from that tour was watching Jimi from the wings and the audience response, and on one occasion at Newcastle City Hall he was having problems with the tuning of his Gibson Flying V and getting increasingly frustrated trying to keep it in tune. He would sometimes close his set with the Troggs Wild Thing as he did on this occasion and would work the top line melody of 'Strangers in the Night' into his guitar solo which was a little bizarre but at the same time brilliant even though totally off the wall. It got so bad that he finally lost patience, turned and threw his arrow shaped guitar at his Marshall Stack from roughly a seven-yard distance.
    Instead of either missing or falling short it hit bull's eye centre speaker, quivering with feedback way north of 11 whilst emitting some sort of grey black smoke from the stricken amp as it rocked back and forth under the assault, Lemmy his roadie at the time most probably standing behind it to stop it toppling over.
    Mitch Mitchell, not to be outdone, kicked over his drum kit, Keith Moon style, leaving Noel Redding, sole survivor, grimly trying to carry on playing bass. The whole stage now a demolition zone.
    I was standing in the wings watching next to Carl Wayne of The Move and we just looked at each other in awe as did much of the audience who went ballistic! A part of me was horrified at that beautiful Stratocaster breaking and burnt demise, not to mention collateral damage to drums, mics and amps etc, particularly as we less successful groups were so short of funds to buy or maintain equipment, but at the same time recognising this as shock and awe rock and roll theatre although it was already not new as Townshend and Moon had already paved the way.

SB: The Outer Limits had a strong Yorkshire following. What ultimately led to the band calling it a day despite those signs of promise?

JC: We were demoralised and broke after getting so close to breaking through and especially after the highs of being on that tour. I tried to keep everyone together for one more push but as can be seen in the Yorkshire TV documentary 'Death Of A Pop Group', the lads were not for turning so I just had to carry on believing, and resigned to carry on alone and without a band.
    I set my sights on breaking through as a songwriter and maybe if success came, a new outfit would follow: as was the case a couple of years later but that's another story.

SB: With so many line-up changes and near-breakthroughs, did you ever feel the music industry was more about luck than talent?

JC: Sometimes it felt that way though I think you need both, but you have to make your own luck by being focused, determined and relentless and not get disheartened every time you hit a brick wall. At the same time be as good as you can be at whatever it is you want to be successful at. In my case I tried to be all that. I loved making music and was very determined and hungry and from day one in my early teens knew this was my life choice as there was nothing else that motivated me, apart from maybe girls.

SB: Just One More Chance and Sweet Freedom are standout examples of your early writing. How would you describe your songwriting process back then compared to now?

JC: I always try to write a strong melody and try and combine that with an appropriate lyric. That was and has always been the driver. I want to write memorable songs that firstly please me and then hopefully please others.
    I hope in some ways I've improved and matured sonically and lyrically over the years but never lost that sense of simplicity that should underpin my efforts even though I tend to use more complex chord sequences than in my earliest attempts.

SB: Listening to this box set, it's clear that The Outer Limits' music stands on its own, inventive, melodic, and emotionally rich. Do you feel the group is finally getting the recognition it deserves?

JC: Thank you for that generous assessment. In some ways the fact that Cherry Red have recogniSed its potential and are now vigorously promoting this Outer Limits Anthology release speaks volumes.