It’s been 28 years since The Quireboys burst onto the scene with their debut release “A Bit of What You Fancy”, reaching number 2 in the UK album charts. 11 studio albums are now firmly under their belts and the band are showing no signs of slowing up, with 2017’s White Trash Blues receiving rave reviews. The Rockpit’s Sean Bennett managed to grab some talk time with guitarist Guy Griffin, to discuss the band’s 1990’s Monsters of Rock appearance, Homewreckers & Heartbreakers, family connections with Freddie Mercury, his love of Australian music and some unexpected news on Down ‘n’ Outz with Joe Elliott…
Sean: Hi Griff. Thanks for sparing the time for a chat with The Rockpit. How are you doing?
Griff: Hey mate no problem. I’m great thanks.
Sean: I see The Quireboys are keeping as busy as ever. Last years “White Trash Blues” was great release. How did you decide on the song choice for the album?
Griff: Thanks mate. Well, there were tracks on there like Walkin the Dog that we’d done in the past anyway… the first ever show I played with The Quireboys was in a little club called Gossips in London, when I first joined the band just to break me in and we did 4 or 5 songs and that was one of them that we did. A lot of them are favourites we’ve had over the years, especially me & Spike (vocals) and we wanted to go a bit bluesy but not the 12 bar stuff, more the R n B side of it… the British 60’s sort of sound too where bands like The Animals, The Stones or The Pretty Things had done versions.
Sean: With songs by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry & John Lee Hooker to name a few, was it a daunting challenge to tackle them?
Griff: Yes and no. They are all open to interpretation and you kind of know that whatever we do is going to end up sounding like us anyway (laughs). We didn’t change too much from whatever version we tried to take it from, apart from taking out that little bit of insurance by making it sound like a Quireboys song.
Sean: And you’ve been touring extensively this year, not just in the UK but with some shows around Europe too. How’s that been going?
Griff: It’s been really good. We are coming to the tail end of it now so we still have 2 or 3 songs from the album still in the set, like Leaving Trunk & Goin’ Down. We did a couple of shows where we did the whole album which was fun, but there are obviously certain songs we have to keep in the set for the fans… the old favourites of course and maybe trying to do something off every album. We do like to try and change it around but it’s trying to get Spike to relearn the lyrics again (laughs). We still play 4 or 5 from A Bit of What You Fancy (1990 debut album) which is always hard to leave out, like 7 o’clock, Hey You, There She Goes Again… but we don’t mind that. It’s like going to see AD/DC and they don’t play “Highway to Hell”, you’d be kind of pissed off (laughs). It’s about giving the audience what they want.
Sean: And some festivals in Europe too?
Griff: Yes they were fantastic… especially in Sweden. At one of the shows we got to hang out with Steel Panther. They were at the side of the stage watching us. Turns out they had been waiting 20 years to see us play, which was pretty cool. They do a great show – even though it’s a sort of tongue in cheek thing, they are still amazing musicians and some fantastic guitar playing.
Sean: The 3rd of September sees the 10th anniversary release of Homewreckers & Heartbreakers. Where does the time go? Another great album of yours.
Griff: I know it’s crazy… every year gets shorter doesn’t it. We are so looking forward to the re-release on vinyl and CD because you haven’t actually been able to get it for years. For us, it’s one of our better albums – we still do plenty from it in our shows like Hello, I Love this Dirty Town and Late Night Saturday Cool. Mona Lisa Smiled is always in the set; in fact that’s probably become our most popular song over the years.
Sean: And a huge gig on 14th September at O2 Forum Kentish Town (tickets available from Live Nation) for the re-release as well…
Griff: We are really looking forward to it – it’s such a great venue. I was there last week watching Steven Tyler there, which was a fantastic gig. It’s been about 10 years since we last played there coincidentally. It’s going to be a great night. There are some great songs Spikes looking forward to visiting again too.
Sean: So where did it all start for you musically? Was it a musical household?
Griff: Not really. I grew up with more of a sports background. My dad managed football teams and he boxed, that sort of thing. So it was all about sport. But music was always there because he was also a nightclub promoter, so I would hear a lot of the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye… that sort of stuff. And then when I was 14 or 15 I first heard AC/DC and that changed everything for me – I realised I was never going to be a professional footballer so I wondered what the next unrealistic profession to go for would be (laughs) so I started playing in bands. Also when I was 13 my parents split up and my step-dad Bruce was really into music too – he was actually in a band called The Hectics with Freddie Mercury – my dad was the singer and Freddie was the piano player. So he carried on being in local bands, and still is – every now and then I still play with his blues band when I’m in town.
Sean: If you had a table at a restaurant and could have 3 other musicians, past or present, who would you like there to talk to?
Griff: Oh wow… That’s a good one… So hard though… If it could be people I would never get to meet it would have to be Jimi Hendrix or Brian Jones just to get the stories. I’ve been lucky because I’ve met a lot of my heroes… I’ve hung out with Keith Richards quite a bit, Jimmy Page is a really cool guy… God, there is so many to choose from, James Brown… I’m naming more than 3 now aren’t I (laughs)…
Sean: Sounds like I need to book the whole restaurant (laughs)…
Griff: Jimi Hendrix definitely though because he was here for such a short time, like a lot of them sadly… Actually I’d say Bon Scott too for sure.
Sean: There’s a reason to come visit us here in Australia, with Bon Scott’s memorial and grave in Fremantle…
Griff: Believe me we have been trying to get there for a tour for years. We even had a thing where the singer of The Choirboys contacted us about doing a “Choirboys & Quireboys Tour” down there, which we thought would be quite funny… But we do keep trying and I’m sure one day it’s going to happen, so any promoters who want us, we would love to do it. We have so many great Australian bands come over to the UK & Europe and play with us – We had the Screaming Jets supporting us one year, the last tour we had a fantastic Australian band called The Black Aces. We did some European dates a few years back with Doom Fox, which was Mick Cocks’ band, from Rose Tattoo. Another one is My Dynamite – great sound. There are a lot of good rock n roll bands in Australia.
Sean: So what are you listening to right now?
Griff: I do have a playlist on Spotify which I update… last stuff I put on was The Jayhawks, The Inmates, some Eddie & The Hot Rods… all sorts of stuff. I heard the brand new Ace Frehley track the other day, “Rockin’ with the Boys” which is fantastic.
Sean: You brought up Spotify there, which leads me to ask how you feel streaming music is affecting the industry.
Griff: Well, I saw a thing with Peter Frampton and he said that one of his big hits, it may have been “Show me the Way” or something like that, it had 55 million streams and he received $1700, so he took it to congress because it equated to 0.0000309091 of a cent per play. What other industry would allow that? It’s killing music because you can’t make any money from your records anymore. People make a record now so they have an excuse to tour. When people ask us how the tour is going, there isn’t a tour anymore really because we play all year. We are lucky in that we’ve always been a live band. But with the amount we put into the band, we would hope to make a bit more out of it, but it’s harder now. Things will change at some point – they have too.
Sean: I’ve got to ask about 1990’s Monsters of Rock gig at Donington. I was there that day and have to say it’s still one of the best years I went to. What are you memories?
Griff: It was pretty unbelievable really. I remember travelling to the venue in a tour bus, down all the windy country lanes and passing all the fans going into the festival. Then we rode over the crest of the hill and looked down onto a sort of valley where the dressing rooms were but you could see the stage and all the thousands of people out the front of it. And that when the butterflies hit… For us it was still the proper Donington, five or six bands, one stage, 90,000 people… it was pretty amazing experience, and still a bit of a blur (laughs), but there is photographic and video evidence that we were there (laughs).
Sean: A kind of link to that is that you done a few of the Monsters of Rock cruises too over the years.
Griff: They’ve was great. Some good bands on there like Thunder & Queensryche. We are doing it again next year – Rose Tattoo are on the next one, who we love. In fact, they are playing in London the night before we play but we’ll be rehearsing so we can’t go. I’ve never got to see them play live as yet. They are one of mine and Paul’s (Guerin, Quireboys guitarist) favourite bands. I remember as a kid, seeing the Scared for Life cover with Angry Anderson and all the shaved heads & tats – it was pretty intimidating back then. But we play a bit of Rose Tattoo in the dressing room sometimes before we go on – it’s great.
Sean: So The Quireboys sound was always kind of compared to The Faces in the early days, but as you guys have matured and progressed where have the other influences come from?
Griff: From when we started we always got kind of lumped in with the heavy rock thing but we’ve always been kind of more an old style rock n roll band. When we released the first record I was 20yrs old, whereas Guy Bailey, who started the band with Spike, was 28yrs old then. Chris our piano player went to school with Guy, so he too was the same age. It was a big age gap musically. So, there was stuff like The Flying Burrito Brothers and the first Tom Petty album that were always playing on the old cassette player we had in the dressing room. And it’s still pretty much that sort of thing now – old soul music, blues, country and classic heavy rock like Thin Lizzy, AC/DC and Rory Gallagher. And we are just lucky we can fit in at festivals with our thing and if need be, we just turn the amps up a bit (laughs).
Sean: I can’t let you get away just yet without asking about the other side project you were in, with Joe Elliott (Def Leppard). I loved the first two cover albums with Down N Outz. How much fun was that and where did the idea come from?
Griff: Yeah, so someone who was involved with us was also involved with Ian Hunter. Joe is an absolute champion when it comes to Mott the Hoople, so when they were going to do their reunion, they asked if he’d like to be involved. Obviously he couldn’t have Def Leppard supporting them and we’d met Joe before at various times. We were in Ireland, where he lives, recording our second album many moons ago and bumped into him there a few times. So we kind of got in touch, put something together and supported Mott the Hoople, which was a dream come true anyway. And after the gig we felt it was a bit of a waste of all our efforts to just end it there so we decided to go record it all. And then we decided to record a second one in 2014. And now we’ve just finished another record…
Sean: Er, hang on… a new one?
Griff: Yeah, but this one is all original material this time. It’s all done and dusted and just need to be mixed. So that will be out next year sometime. And it’s absolutely fantastic, probably one of the best records I’ve worked on. It doesn’t sound like Leppard or the first two Down n Outz records. It’s kind of all the stuff Joe grew up with, a lot of piano type stuff, a bit Elton John, one track a bit 10cc, a couple of good rockers… a real mix of stuff. Joe’s voice sounds amazing and its great fun to do. We recorded it in the studio that Leppard record all their stuff. So it will be out next year but it’s trying to fit it in between Quireboys and Leppard stuff.
Sean: What’s Joe like to work with?
Griff: He’s great. You know he’s one of the biggest rock stars in the world but you wouldn’t think it at all. He’s such a music fan himself. He knows everything about anything to do with music. You go in his studio and there are all his framed concert tickets from when he was a kid – from Dr Feelgood to UFO, Slade and T-Rex. Paul & I went over to his place in Spain and he’s got a pub in his house called the Pirates Cove or something like that… and it’s just full of memorabilia he’s collected over the years. It’s incredible. At the end of the day you have to be a fan to remain in this business.
Sean: That’s so cool an insight – thank you. I’ll let you go after one final question – If you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what song would you choose?
Griff: Bloody hell… another hard one… Highway to Hell by AC/DC off the top of my head… All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople… You Were Always on my Mind by Willie Nelson
Sean: You’re not very good at this are you? You can only have one (laughs)
Griff: Oh well, I’ve never been good at maths (laughs)
Sean: I’ll let you have them, this time. Griff thanks so much for your time and the amazing insight into you and the music you’ve been involved with over the years. On behalf of us here at the Rockpit, we wish you all the best for the rest of the tour and the 10th anniversary show, as well as the new Down n Outz album. Hope you and the guys get down to see us here in Australia sooner rather than later.
Griff: We really hope so too. Thanks Sean. Take care.
