Charlie Speed - a Biographical Interview

Childhood memories seem to come through strong in your music (such as in the song "10 Years Old"). Can you share some of these with us?

I had a very happy childhood.  We were poor so every weekend or school holidays mum dad & my sister & me would go camping in an old army tent on and around the banks of the river Swale In North Yorkshire - full of wildlife and packed with chubb, barbel, roach, dace, trout and the odd massive pike. For years it was really good cos we lived on Ritter Street opposite the Leeds University. Rows & rows of back to backs, old factories & dark satanic mills. A fantastic playground for kids.

What got you started with music in the first place?

Watching the Beatles on local TV at 6pm in 1963/4? I can't remember what it was called but we were having a TV dinner and all the family saw it and we were all mesmerised. I couldn't finish me dinner (maybe I made that one up). They were so exciting they seemed to jump out to all of us. I'd never seen anything like it.

You played with some great bands in the 70s/80s and even tried your luck in London at one time. What were the highlights of the early part of your career?

Gygafo were my first band. We rehearsed for two years before doing a gig. We were only kids but it turned into a damn fine outfit. The highlight of the early version of Gygafo was playing the Fforde Grene & packing the place out. They were queuing right round the block. It was a great feeling. The other was a UK tour the length & breadth of the country in the Summer of 1976, the hottest weather on record, and ending up at the Marquee. What a way to spend a life at that age.

We were gigging with Be Bop Deluxe who had just been signed and Wally who were a brilliant band also just signed. We were there when Dire Straits were picked up cos they were using our stage lights & PA at the Rock Garden in Covent Garden. The gig was a shit hole! We were expecting a massive place. It was down some steps with a tiny stage but you had to play those toilets so that you might be seen and picked up by a record company. The lazy bastards couldn't be bothered to come up north so we went to them instead...!

Did no good what so ever. Then punk hit us for six! So we retreated to think about that for a while.

What made you decide to go it alone - to go solo?

I got invited to go play with a guy called Roy Sundholm who had a new album out called The Chinese Method. He had some great songs. We relocated to Ladbroke Grove & lived the high life rocking & rolling and just having a great time. We did a lot of great tours with the likes of Elvis Costello and John Miles and recorded  lots of versions of various songs but after a year Roy was dropped - either that or the money ran out.

The band members were Roy Sundholm on vox & Guitar, Simon Climie (later of Climie/Fisher fame) on B/vox & Guitar, Andrew Rawson (later of Charlie Speed Band fame) on bass, Andy Cave on drums & me on guitar. I was listening recently to a tape of a live session recorded at the BBC stusios in Maida Vale. Everything was played so fast. It had a lot of energy. So many stories.........!

I didn't have 2 pennies to rub together. My wife was with me for a short while and we just missed Leeds & Yorkshire so much we decided to come home. It sure was a good feeling coming up the M1. On the Sheffield boundary you always new you were "home" for two reasons. 1) the smell of the steel city and 2) there was a 100 foot chimney visible from the motorway that was always burning off some kind of gas - it was like an olympic torch on the horizon and marked the gateway to my neck of the woods. Another 35 miles and we would roll in down the motorway past King Climax train breakers yard (all musos will remember that place - if not they're lying or blind!).

This was my homecoming and I decided to try and get a trade whereby I could at least have a regular income coming in so we could buy or rent a decent house. I took nine months off driving a truck taking potatoes off farms on the Yorkshire Wold - a great job in the summer but shit in the winter! The spuds had to be roped & sheeted which destroyed my hands. I never did get the hang of doing a real mans job!

After this I decided to pack the job in but the boss told me he had a job in the office doing traffic control. To be honest, I really liked it and the pay was good. I played on a weekend for a while which got us thru and I got down to writing songs again. The CHARLIE SPEED BAND was formed with Steve Hield on drums (it's his fault I'm playing now - he got me back out again), Dave ????? on bass, Dave Parkinson on keys\vox and me on guitars & lead vox. We went through various line-ups, and recorded my first solo album SILVER STRINGS which was well received. I started my own label, SUGARFREE RECORDS, and worked throughout the UK & Europe whilst building up my trucking business which has been successful now for almost 20 years. That company allowed me to really spread my wings and make the kind of records that I wanted to. I think I have stuck to that principle ever since.

Your style is a heady mix of rock, R&B, blues etc... Which other artists have most influenced your music making?

The Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Clapton and, last but not least, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac all really moved me. But as a teenager, Free became my favourite band of all time. Wonderful songs, fantastic musicians and probably the best vocalist I have ever seen or heard - Paul Rodgers.

I listened to all the old blues stuff. There are many influences that came later on. I have supported some great bands and some of their magic does rub off. I played with Steve Earle & the Dukes at the Irish Centre in Leeds. Before the gig I was sitting in our dressing room and Steve Earle walked in. He picked up one of my guitars and jammed with me for a while. He was cool. All he said was "Charlie, you gotta have songs boy - you gotta have songs". The band were red hot that night and he did inspire me to write some songs in that vein.

Another band was Los Lobos. Now there's a special bunch of guys. We were welcomed like old friends. They took us to their hearts, especially David Hidalgo who has the voice of an angel but plays guitar like a demon,. On the last night of our little tour, I met up with him and took him round some music shops looking for guitars. Later at the sound check he was playing one of my guitars which was a handmade Telecaster. He really liked it. Then, after their incredible show (where I was dancing right at the front of the stage with 2 bottles of lager in my pockets whilst I drank a third), I was so taken by them I gave the guitar to David - cos I know he liked it so much. At first he wouldn't take it but I insisted. It was one of those instruments that I couldn't get on with - always strung and ready to play but I never picked it up. Instead I would use the Music Man or Strat or Les Paul.  It seemed the right thing to do at the time. My wife said later "Why didn't you just buy him a pint!!". I suppose she had a point there.

Your first album was "Silver Strings". What made you decide to release an album on your own label?

The songs were there and they felt right. It was time to put my money where my mouth was. The record companies weren't interested. I didn't want to be based in London. You need to be there if you want to get on in the business - especially back then. And also it was a natural move for me I was still hungry to show folks what I could do. I had a lot to say thru those lyrics and we always went down very well live.

The CD release of "Silver Strings" features a live version of "The Working Fields". Why have you never recorded this live favourite in the studio?

I did. It was the title track of an album recorded by Slow Down Zone. The band were Jon Shepherd on drums, Dave Roe on guitar and lead vox, Chris Swindells on bass & b. vox, Peter O'Grady on keyboards & b. vox and me on big guitar and b. vox. A Rock Blues band - a lot of fun - a great bunch. I had some happy times with that band. It was a great live track that was very hard to capture in the studio.

"Heartland" features some classic Charlie Speed songs. Which are your favourites from this album and why?

There all my babies, except Roy's song - "Should I Wait"......................mmmmm?

"Ready to Rock" has a good feel, "Ten Years Old" is about playing in the school yard & acting out your dreams like only a ten year old can. Most of the songs are about my experiences up to that point in my life. I lost my father, Fred, in '79 - "Blue" was about that and how lonely you can be when your rock is washed away. He meant a lot to me. So did my mother, but there was a special bond between me & dad. He was my mate. After we lost mother, he kind of gave in 2 years later. Yet he'd been a creaking gate for 25 years. He fought every day to bring food to the table and he was my working class hero.

"In The City" is about how the towns and cities have been lost to a minority of morons who walk the streets looking for trouble. Everybody's looking for a good time, but some just give off a bad vibe. It's much worse today. There are so many disaffected young people who are never going to get a bite of the cherry. Why is that ????

I think they've been ignored for so long that something has to be done to lift these kids up and give them some hope for the future. When I left school you had a job lined up and you could choose what you wanted to do - more or less. I always wanted to be a musician and write and arrange songs, but I also worked in several different types of job until I found something I was good at or could at least make a reasonable living from....................

Time to get off the f***ing soap box!!!

Why the long wait for the next album?

Working hard at building my businesses, all the while writing stuff and putting it away for a rainy day. There's more to life than kidding yourself that you're bound to get a record deal sooner or later. It's just that I could see that being independent is something worth fighting for, There was always someone saying "don't do it like that - you want to do it like this". After a while it sticks in your craw and I decided long ago to go my own way and live a real life, you know... Have some things that we all need from time to time like food on the table, the odd new guitar (I can hear Gerry laughing as she reads this) and holidays.

I've invested a lot in equipment and had one or two studios that I built up over the years with a view to finding new talent and putting loads of stuff out into the world. I will always try to help rather than hinder - you know what they say - "what goes around comes around"......

Cue for a song!

SUGARHILLS is a departure from the classic Charlie Speed sound both in terms of songs and production. What are the reasons behind this?

I wanted to do my ultimate album and have the luxury of finding the right producer and cohort. Recording equipment had changed so much that now you could record anywhere in almost any space you wanted if the sound was right. And in some cases that isn't a problem either as long as one of you knows what you are doing. I found this person in Phil Evans who was introduced to me by Brendan Croker (of Notting Hillbillies fame).

I asked Brendan if he would sing on a track of mine called "Sleep & Me Apart". He came to my studio in Rodley and we tried. But unfortunately it never made it to the final mix. Shame about that, cos he has an amazing voice. It would have "made" the track. He invited me to his then Lion studios in Aire Street, Leeds, where Phil was the resident engineer. We hit it off! He's great to work with, and we recorded HEARTLAND and then SUGARHILLS together. He lifted those sessions when all seemed lost. He would stick with it. He is a very interesting guy and he can cook a mean breakfast any time of the day - very important in my view. 

Why all the jelly?

I love jelly what other reason do you need?

I didn't want my face on the CD cover in the usual pose.....have you seen my face??? I gave a brief to Jo Claewert, a Belgian friend of mine who has done the sleeve and production on all 3 albums. He has done a lot of great work over the years and is usually painstaking in the quality that he achieves. The jelly world was my idea but he made it happen. I had to send the jelly over though. They don't do jelly in Belgium!!!

What are your favourite gigs of all time?

The first time I saw Free was maybe 1970 at the Rliey Smith Hall at Leeds University. Fantastic! My first real gig.

I worked at Montague Burtons straight from school. I'd been there 2 weeks when Austin Austy or Austin Austin took me to see them and shaped my musical world with one invite. He was a blues man thru and thru. He taught me about all the blues greats. Once I saw Free, I was well and truly hooked. It opened a whole new world for me. I still play those albums. "Tons Of Sobs" was so exciting it blew me away!

A another great high for me was supporting Peter Green at the 1500 seat Redcar Bowl. The promoter asked if I would MC for Peter and of course I jumped at the chance. The Splinter Group were lined up to take the stage - Cozy Powell on drums, Neil Murray on bass, Nigel Watson & Peter were there waiting to be announced. I shook Peter's hand, said what an honour it was to meet him and thanked him for all the great music he'd been instrumental in making over the years.

We had a fantastic reception. The band clicked that night and were right on the money. I cant remember driving home - maybe we floated.

Cozy Powell died in a car crash a short time after that gig. What a waste of a great fella and an amazing drummer. Keep on rocking Cozy!

You always have some great guitars - Gibson's, Strat's and those beautiful guitars you use for slide work. Tell us about some of your favourites...

Pretty standard stuff really. My main guitar at the moment is cherry red Gibson 335, a lovely tone, thru a Fender amp or sometimes a small Vox 15 watt all with vibrato. I love that sound!

I also use a Mesa Boogie hand made amp. The dogs bollocks (in the right hands)! This amp can be dangerous. You can scalp the audience 50 yds away. It's very loud! You can't turn it up past 4 or 5.

What are your plans for the future?

Good question.........

I want to look at the whole of my back catalogue and pick out the best songs. Only trouble is, I have forgotten half of them. It is always good to look back as well as writing new stuff, just to put where you're going in perspective.

I have End Stage Kidney failure and that does not allow you to do much else other than dialyse and then spend time recovering from each session, At the moment I am training to do home dialysis which I understand will hopefully give me some energy back so I can get back out on the road. I have started to book gigs again starting in April at the Rock & Blues fest which promises to be good.

We usually have a great time at the Picturedrome in Holmfirth .