Meaty topics: Bob Gill

“I normally have a burger here but since it’s a special occasion I’ll have steak. When I was growing up in Brooklyn my mother would give me 50¢ on a Sunday and I would go to the delicatessen and get hotdogs. It was my favourite meal so Sundays were terrific.

My mother was a piano teacher and I was her first pupil. She was a single parent and that’s how she made a living. I went away every summer to the Catskill Mountains to play in a band. We couldn’t afford to take vacations so it was nice; I went when I was 13 or 14. There were two dressing rooms on either side of the stage and that’s where the band slept – two of us in each. There was a teenage comedian sleeping in the other who we didn’t think was very funny. Not Woody Allen, the other guy: Mel Brooks. He still owes me money from a gin [rummy] game. We earned $5 a week back then and in 1946 that sure came in handy.

I played piano in bars to put myself through art school. They would hire me to play a couple of hours and I would earn enough to pay for food. I enjoyed playing but never took it seriously.

Years later at an agency I worked at there was a kid that I would play with at office parties. I would play piano and he would bring his drum set. I would say to him, ‘Charlie, you’re a terrific drummer but you’re a bad designer. You’ll never be good. Why don’t you quit? Why not get a job as a drummer?’ One day he came to me and said, ‘I’m taking your advice; I just joined a band. You won’t like it: it’s a rock band.’ I said that was a dopey thing to do and asked him what it was called. He said ‘The Rolling Stones’.

After working in New York for a while I decided to have a holiday. I was thinking about going to London when an English advertising agency hired me as an art director. The minute I arrived in London I thought I’d spend the rest of my life there. It was like being on the Moon. London in 1960 was like New York in 1925. I loved it.

I met the two smartest, brightest designers in England and we started Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, which eventually became Pentagram. When they changed the name I saw it was becoming too big and lost interest so I went freelance.

At one point the Beatles called me to do Apple 1 [their first label]. I was told to meet them at the White Tower restaurant. I loved this because in New York the White Tower was a sleazy hamburger place but in London it was very elegant. I showed up but they weren’t there. Eventually I called their office and the secretary said that they were called to Paris at the last minute but that I should stay and enjoy the meal. So there I was, alone in one of the fanciest restaurants in London, surrounded by men doing business. No one went there to eat – it was too expensive. They were probably wondering, ‘Who is this maniac who eats alone at the White Tower where it costs $500 for a tuna sandwich?’

Things change; swinging London wasn’t so swinging after 15 years. I came back to New York in 1975. Freelance is the only thing for me. I’ve never really had a job but it’s still early.”