Chris Spedding - Interview

  by Eoghan Lyng

published: 29 / 10 / 2024

intro

Top session guitarist Chris Spedding talks to Eoghan Lyng about working with The Sex Pistols, Paul McCartney, Roxy Music and The Wombles., and his band Sharks' recent film documentary, 'Not a Rock-Doc: A Shark's Tail'.

"I did the first session The Sex Pistols ever did in the studio," Chris Spedding explains. "That would have been in 1976, and it was the first time they were ever in a recording area." This is just one interesting anecdote for a guitarist who has had a lifetime of them. You name 'em, Spedding's probably played with 'em. "Up until joining Sharks, a lot of my work was with Mike Batt," he freely admits. "I've played on a lot of Mike's stuff, including 'Bright Eyes' which was a hit for Art Garfunkel. Mike and I had success with The Wombles." Noting my Munster accent, Spedding says he knew "all about Rory Gallagher, but never played with him." When I meet Chris Spedding, he seems relaxed. "I've got a cup of coffee here," he explains over ZOOM. I'm drinking a pint in the pub I'm calling from, to the sound of Bryan Ferry crooning 'Let's Stick Together' on the monitors. Yes, Spedding played on that track as well! "Sharks opened with Roxy Music on the second tour," Spedding reminisces."That's how I got to play on Warm Jets and how I got to meet Bryan. I played rhythm on 'Let's Stick Together. We worked on an EP together that included 'Shame, Shame, Shame', and we did a Beatles cover together ['It's Only Love.]" The nature of the ZOOM call is to discuss Not a Rock-Doc: A Shark's Tail. I interviewed vocalist Steve Parsons about the film in 2023, and since that conversation, the film has been screened across Britain. It's an interesting feature that explores the workings of the band, and includes a cameo from life-long punk Jordan Mooney."Enjoyable interview with her," Spedding replies. "I remember her from Let It Rock; Malcolm McLaren's shop." There is a humorous moment in the documentary where Spedding asks why he's there. "Money," comes the immediate reply. Spedding chuckles at the memory: "That was the motivation, yeah." "Steve lives in Germany, so we don't see each other very often," the guitarist admits. They communicate primarily over email, and they last saw each other "quite a long time ago; about six months." Spedding watched the film in Shoreditch, and confesses "I've been watching his reports of the screenings." "He filmed us without any direction, or sort of script worked out," Spedding says. "The occurrences while we were touring, and about things that go wrong." Very different to Give My Regards to Broadstreet, a musical biopic penned by Beatle and knight, Paul McCartney.Spedding can be heard on rockers 'No Values' and 'Not Such A Bad Boy.' "Paul McCartney must have seen something I liked, so if he liked you, and asked you to work with him.." He stops to take a sip from his drink: "I liked working with him; such a successful musician." I'm curious to hear if McCartney instructed Spedding to play like Keith Richards on 'No Values', considering the track's swampy, Stonesque groove. "No," Spedding insists. "If he asks you to play, he knows what you're going to play like. He doesn't direct you." Spedding is aware of George Harrison's misgivings, but says "I only worked on the one project with McCartney, so we got on alright." "I was able to get my ideas in," he continues, "and he'd say, 'That's good.' He didn't say: 'Can you play like this?'" Spedding laughs: "If you want a guitar-player that sounds like Chris Spedding, then you call Chris Spedding. That's what you need to do." Give My Regards to Broadstreet, like Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, is the vision of an artist in complete control of all the facets available to him. Unlike Megalopolis, Broadstreet is, in a word, terrible ("I had it on cassette, but fast forwarded to the musical numbers," is Spedding's only comment on the film.) But like 21st century Coppola , McCartney set out to make the film he was desperate to produce in 1984. "Nobody was going to tell him, because he was Paul," Spedding highlights. Spedding contributed to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, a film script fit to vinyl. "That was a major work," Spedding nods. "I used to work quite a lot with David Essex, so I got to know [Jeff Wayne]. I worked quite a lot during the 1970s." Bassist Herbie Flowers also performed on War of the Worlds. "I was sad to see Herbie go," Spedding sighs, referring to the bassist's death in recent weeks. Spedding says the Not A Rock Doc (A Shark's Tale) is a little light on Andy Fraser's contributions to Sharks. Fraser helped found the band in the 1970s, and the debut First Water stands up with the best of the decade for energy, gumption and elegiac introspection. "I like 'Steal Away'," he agrees. "Not really Sharks r'n'b material, but it's good." When I interviewed Parsons, he described Sharks bassist Andy Fraser as "probably the most difficult customer [he'd ever dealt with." Fair comment? "Well, yeah, especially between Steve and Andy after the first few weeks of recording," Spedding replies. The arguments, in time honoured tradition, were based on who wrote what. "Andy was known as the big 'hit-songwriter'," Spedding explains, no doubt referring to Fraser's time with Paul Rodgers and Free. But Parsons was a capable lyricist himself, as is evident from some of the ballads on Jab It in Yore Eye. "Steve and me have been working together since we invented Sharks," the guitarist says. "I've worked with Steve with the lyrics for my solo albums, and I've collaborated on his solo albums." Their friendship is evident in Not A Rock Doc (A Shark's Tale), a tale of two ageing rockers appreciating the moment. "We worked together with Glen Matlock on King Mob," he says, which paved the way for a re-booted Sharks. "We got a Japanese bass player in called Tosh Ogawa," Spedding says. He showed up in rehearsal, and gradually seemed to fit in with us." The younger Ogawa allowed twenty-somethings to see him as one of their own, in the way they looked at Parsons and Spedding as prodigious musicians of an older generation. "Maybe Steve set up situations without me knowing but that was what he wanted," Spedding explains, in an effort to put the ramshackled nature of the film into context. "Lighthearted, funny stuff. Lots of laughs." "We are erious when we do the music," he continues, "but there needs to be laughs. All bands have that experience of being on the motorway, trying to relieve the tension with laughs.Trying to have a sense of humour." No wonder: how do you reconcile the jauntiness of rock with everyday sensibilities without a giggle or two? "The film is finished," Spedding admits. "I watched it at Shoreditch, last year, and then I left Steve get on with the questions and answers. Steve's been spending a lot of time with the film." What is Spedding up to now? "I'm raring togo to the United States, and do some solo stuff in small clubs. Like Ray Davies, or Glen Matlock. More economical than the band, and it's a way of making a living more economical.I've no recordings in the pipeline." Explaining his rationale, he says it's an "Expensive thing to do." He jokes about being in the t-shirt business: "A t-shirt takes nothing to make, and you can sell it for 30 pounds. An album takes talent, and you can sell it for fifteen." He's issued a number of solo records, of which Hurt ,produced by Chris Thomas, was the most successful. "Depending on the day it is, I have a different favourite," Spedding says. He doesn't know which one to highlight, but then points to Enemy Within (1986). "That was a cd I did in New York in the 1980s." And then there's Joyland, a record that made the airwaves in 2015. "Steve helped with the lyrics," Spedding smiles. "Arthur Brown was on it, Johnny Marr from The Smiths too.That came out about ten years ago." Photos by Andy Holdsworth

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