The Velvet Hearts: Blues Tavern Tales

Exclusive Interview with American-influenced Blues Rockers

Oct 25, 2009

The friends and founders of The Velvet Hearts describe their teen years spent jamming with the heavyweight rock 'n' roll players at Britain's famous Blues Tavern.

Throughout their teens The Velvet Hearts’ songwriting duo Steve Jones and John James Newman were immersed in a world of consummate musicians, where former (and current) rock stars went to relax and jam.

Thanks to connections through their musical fathers (John’s dad is Sandy Newman of 60s/70s favourites The Marmalade) they were regulars at the Blues Tavern, favourite haunt for Britain’s blues and rock ‘n’ roll stars, including Roger Daltrey of The Who, and Wings’ Denny Laine. Suite 101 spent some time with the guys, finding out how this unique experience influenced their musical careers.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Legends, Denny Laine, Zak Starkey

Suite 101: What was it like being 16, 17 and hanging out with all these major rock stars?

SJ: At the time I didn’t really know who those guys were. My dad was impressed more than anything. It was run by Denny Laine. He started it all, but through him all these other guys used to come along.

JJN: Chesney Hawkes used to come down with his brother. I know Chesney through my dad. His dad was in the Tremoloes which was another 60s/70s band. He’s a great guy! See there was another connection there through fathers. It was cool, we became part of the gang. It was very rock ‘n’ roll.

Blues Tavern Spirit

JJN: Amazing place, it kind of gave you the spirit. To have all these dudes around, you had to stop and think “wait a minute, this is a bit special”.

SJ: As I became older it became a bit more special, because I started to realise who a lot of these people were. We didn’t really appreciate it before.

JJN: Zak Starkey [Former Beatle Ringo Starr’s son, and former Oasis drummer] was there too, he used to go down.

SJ: It gave us the energy, the bug to really want to play blues. I come from a lot of that blues stuff, it’s what I really love. That music is all about being together with a bunch of people that you don’t know, and being able to communicate easily. Sometimes it’s s$%£. But sometimes you get moments that you know you’ll never forget. That gave me the real bug for playing saxophone.

Embarrassing First Performances

Suite 101: Is that where you got all those awkward first performances out of the way, you know the ones where you’re a little bit embarrassed?

JJN: I used to be really into heavy metal. Before we got into the band where it was more funk and blues, I did a gig with a friend at school in second year. We’d written our own song called ‘Destruction’ or something like that, with lyrics like “Push the button / Final eclipse” and all this rubbish. The school play that was going on at the time had a gallows on stage.

We played in the school assembly and it was just me, on drums, and my mate on guitar. He had a wireless guitar. We took our school ties and hung them from the gallows, pulled our shirts out, and the whole school sat in front of us. My mate jumped off the stage with his wireless guitar. We got a slow clap afterwards! [he laughs]. They were like “er…what?” But for me at the time, that was the biggest rock ‘n’ roll event of my life. That was definitely an embarrassing gig.

The Velvet Hearts’ debut album Into the World is available to download now from i-Tunes.

The copyright of the article The Velvet Hearts: Blues Tavern Tales in Indie Music is owned by Lisa Sutlieff. Permission to republish The Velvet Hearts: Blues Tavern Tales in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.