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More Of What You Fancy From The Quireboys

Posted on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 06:19:37 CST by Dean Pedley

"Everyone has been asking what's the new Quireboys album going to sound like and I just say well what do you think it's going to sound like? It's going to sound like a cross between The Rolling Stones, The Faces and Mott The Hoople and a bit of AC/DC. Can you get any better than that? I'd listen to it, you know what I mean". Just minutes after the Quireboys wowed the crowd at Hard Rock Hell VI, we speak with frontman Spike about the new album, on stage marriage proposals and stealing girls from Guns N Roses...

When 'A Bit Of What You Fancy', the Quireboys debut album, hit #2 on the UK album chart in 1990 it marked the culmination of playing hundreds of gigs, lots of hard work and overcoming setbacks along the way. "What people forget is that I've been playing in this band since I was nineteen and we'd been together for six years or so and Phil Mogg from UFO, who is still like a Dad to me, was our manager. We were doing our last ever rehearsal because we thought we had took it as far as we could, we had sold out the Dominion and places all over the country and we still couldn't get a record deal. And Phil came down with two carrier bags full of beer and said you're not splitting up yet, split up after the gig – we were playing Hammersmith Odeon with Faster Pussycat and Guns N Roses. Guy Bailey didn't even have a guitar, we couldn't afford to buy him a new one, and we were using UFO's equipment and crew and Axl and Duff were saying "you guys have really got it together haven't you" and I was thinking well this is all UFO's stuff." This led to the band being signed by EMI, being managed by Sharon Osborne and hitting the singles chart with '7 O Clock' and 'Hey You'. "And that was how we ended up being mates with Guns N Roses, they would play the Marquee we would go and see them, they would come and see us, they nicked our girlfriends and we nicked theirs and it was a wonderful time."

After second album 'Bitter Sweet & Twisted' in 1993 the Quireboys were a victim of the changing music scene of the era until they were resurrected to the delight of their fanbase, releasing further studio albums over the past decade and finding themselves still very much in demand on the live circuit. "We play all over the world and the audience we have still seems to be getting younger. I'm so pleased that we are doing a new album and I have also just finished off my solo album. Frankie Miller has had a brain haemorrhage and he can't sing anymore and he is my hero one of the greatest ever songwriters. And so his wife got in contact with me about doing a lot of his songs that people have never heard and so I picked sixteen and recorded them and it's not a tribute album but it is all friends of Frankie and friends of mine. The rhythm section is Simon Kirke and Andy Fraser from Free playing together for the first time in years, Ronnie Wood is playing guitar, Ian Hunter on the piano, Luke Morley from Thunder is playing on it and I have done a wonderful duet with Bonnie Tyler. So it's a really cool album that will be coming out in April.

"Ian Hunter plays some amazing honky tonk piano and I was fortunate enough to get to know him really well and he's a wonderful person. As you know Joe Elliot nicked my band for the Ian Hunter and Mott tribute band he had (Down N Outz) and I got up and sang with Ian at the Mott The Hoople reunion show which was a great honour. And on the song he plays on Frankie's wife asked me "why pick that song" and I said because I wanted to hear Ian Hunter banging away on the piano. And Tyla my very good friend from the Dogs has done this beautiful painting for me and the cover is me with a bottle of whiskey in my hand and it's called '100% Pure Frankie Miller' and what's great is that they have done a blend of whiskey for £100 a bottle that will go towards the charity for Frankie so we are really going to push that when it comes out. Tyla is so underrated and people think we fucking hate each other but we have grown up together and been through so much shit together and the only thing I hate about him is that he has nicked so many girls off me."

Aside from his solo project, 2013 will also see the new studio album from the band themselves, and refreshingly they will be taking the old fashioned route. "We start the Quireboys album in January in Rockfield and it's a beautiful studio, I was just there mixing my solo album there and as soon as I went in I thought we have got to record here. Plus we are going to record on tape and not computers we are going to record it old school live in the studio which is exactly how it should be done."

To close, Spike recalls a romantic anecdote from one of the Quireboys many gigs. "We were playing somewhere a couple of years ago, Glasgow I think it was, and this guy came up to me and says can you do us a favour I met my girlfriend back in 1990 and 'I Don't Love You Anymore' was our song. We split up and she went off and had three kids and we've got back together after 20 years. So I let him get up and he asked her to marry him and I thought - you soft bastard are you sure you want to do this."

Spike's new solo album will be released in April 2013 and the Quireboys release will follow later in the year.

Find Spike and the band on Facebook, Twitter and at http://www.quireboys.com/

December 2012
Dean Pedley and Mark Davies for Sea Of Tranquility