HISTORY

Can you remember when and how you first discovered rockabilly?
AD: For myself, it was getting a second-hand record player and only finding Elvis in my mum's collection; thinking that he was a movie star and then discovering that he did actually sing.
How old were you?
AD: 13. Being on a low budget with just my pocket money...I didn't have much money so I used to go to Woolies or whatever and the selection of records there, which I didn't know, but I knew Elvis recorded roundabout in the fifties, so Bill Haley was about the next person that I could see roundabout that decade, so I tried that and liked the beat of that. I went from one record to another and that's how it started.
So you weren't influenced by your school friends and what they were listening to at the time?
AD: No I wasn't.
What was in the charts at that time?
AD: Police, the Clash, the Sex Pistols. This was the late seventies.
How about you Rob – how did you discover it all?
RT: My cousin was a Ted – Andy – he's quite a lot older than me. And he influenced me.
So would you class yourself as having more of the rock 'n' roll influence when you first got into it?
RT: Well, you don't really know what it is when you first get into it. You don't class yourself... You don't know whether you're a rockabilly or whatever, do you? That comes later.
AD: Yeah – that comes later.
Do you think rockabillies actually existed then or do you think that you were part of the crowd that evolved into the rockabilly scene? [Some discussion here where I clarify that I meant in recent England – not the deep south of America fifty years ago]
RT: The scene here started in the early eighties.
So you kind of grew up with it, evolved with it?
RT: You had all the old psycho [psychobilly] first – that was all part of it as well.
So it was the fifties sound that hooked you then?
AD: Yeah – it was the fifties sound – but I mean you can have the fifties sound of just Bill Hailey and it's not the same. For us, rockabilly-wise, it was more the country side of it, it was a better sound to me personally.
RT: More raw.
AD: Yeah – it was more done in a garage than some sort of, you know...just better sound.
How did you find out about other people that listened to rockabilly music, other rockabillies in general and where to go?
RT: It was me and you really, wasn't it?
AD: Yeah – me and Rob got together and there wasn't anywhere that you could really go then.
Were you friends before or did you become friends through this?
AD: We definitely became friends through rockabilly.
RT: Yeah – 'cos I was living here and I was into it but I wasn't 'properly' into it. I used to write 'rock'n'roll' on my bag and stuff at school, and then Ski moved into the village.
How old were you when you two met?
RT: Fifteen. I remember it now – he came up to me at school and he said to me, Are you into rock'n'roll and that?, and I said, yeah. And he goes, Elvis and that? and I said, yeah and he goes well, I got a badge round mine that you might like. So I went round his after school and he gave me a little confederate flag sew-on patch and I've still got it!
That's so sweet!

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