HEY Magazine’s EXCLUSIVE interview with STEVE HARLEY!

HEY MAGAZINE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH… STEVE HARLEY OF STEVE HARLEY & COCKNEY REBEL

I was genuinely excited and honoured to be given the opportunity to spend time in an exclusive, one-to-one chat with no other than Steve Harley, of Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, and he was an absolute pleasure to talk to. I grew up listening to their iconic tracks such as Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me).

Albeit, our chat was over a telephone call, he is such a nice, genuine person, it felt like a real fireside chat between friends. We talked about his career to date, his tour, his new album and his love for Yorkshire and the friendly Yorkshire Folk, and he is known to describe the people of Hull as “super, super people”.

And he really means it. Steve is probably more active in the Hull & East Yorkshire region than many of us realise. Firstly, Steve is a trustee of the Mick Ronson Music Foundation along with Mick’s daughter, Lisa Ronson, and John Bird. Steve and Mick were good friends. Mick Ronson was a superstar, a legend, and a Hull lad, working with the likes of David Bowie, but Mick sadly passed away from liver cancer in 1993. Steve played a tribute concert for Mick in 2016 resulting in a memorial being placed in Queens Gardens. The Mick Ronson Music Foundation is a charity setup to benefit and promote the education of young people within music for Hull and surrounding areas. We’ll be learning more about the Mick Ronson Music Foundation in a future issue of HEY Magazine.

Also, Steve recently performed at various Yorkshire venues, one of which was his gig at the Bridlington Spa where he donated tickets to members of the Bridlington Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Steve explained that whenever he performs gigs in a coastal location, he always donates free tickets to volunteers the local RNLI station as a token of thanks and appreciation for the invaluable work they undertake, putting their own lives at risk to save the lives of others at sea. Steve explained where this came from, talking about how he looked up to his dad throughout his life, Steve’s dad is his hero and a great volunteer and, if they could, his dad would have been a volunteer for the RNLI and it something that Steve wanted to do too, but unfortunately, he was unable to due to having Polio as a child. So, Steve tries to help where and when he can, and this is in addition to other charitable work Steve undertakes despite his very busy schedule touring, gigging, recording and of course, spending some very well needed, and deserved, downtime with his wife, Dorothy.

Building on a hugely successful career, spanning nearly 50-years, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel have released 5 albums and had 12 singles in the UK singles charts. Steve explained that professional musicians like himself have been on the same journey as many of us, Covid doesn’t favour nor discriminate based on our jobs, success, status, or wealth, and like all of us, he felt the impact of Covid was keen to be able to start to go back out into the world, albeit tentatively and as safely as possible. For Steve, this meant reaching the point where he could visit Rockwell Studios on a 2-week residential visit for him and his fellow musicians to be able to record his new album, ‘Uncovered’.

‘Uncovered’ is an album that includes 2 of his own tracks and 9 tracks that are ‘interpretations’ as Steve calls them. The album also includes a new, original track from Steve called ‘I’ve just seen a face’ which has a real folk and country feel. The other 9 tracks are an opportunity for Steve and his talented band of musicians to recreate tracks originally by the likes of David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Hot Chocolate and Longpigs: in their own unique way.

In part, this is achieved by the recording itself. Steve is incredibly proud of this acoustic album that was recorded with a great sound engineer but absolutely no EQ. Steve explained that there’s no engineering involved by means of digital manipulation or trickery. It is a genuine, authentic, and true sound. Steve describes the album as having a ‘roots feel’ going on to explain that the sound recorded on the album is ‘natural and real’, produced by talented musicians playing ‘organic’ string instruments. Steve loves piano but pianos and keyboards have no place on this album, string instruments and vocals only. What you hear when you listen to the album is exactly what they played and how they played it, and it sounds amazing! You simply must listen to this album. The track ‘Star of Belle Isle’ includes vocals by Eddi Reader.

‘Uncovered’ is available to buy from Steve’s website on vinyl LP or CD and can be signed by Steve himself at no additional charge – www.steveharley.com/shop/music-and-video/cdsand-dvds.html or listen on Spotify.

Steve added that his focus right now is on his autumn and winter tour dates and gigs, commenting how he and his fellow musicians are always left astonished by the beauty of our Yorkshire region whilst they travel around on their tours and will often wander from the main routes and opt for routes ‘back and beyond’ to take in the sights of our amazing county.

Finally, I asked Steve if he had a message that he wanted to leave for his fans and he asked that we all ‘keep the faith’, be ‘totally honest’ and stay true to ourselves, ‘keep believing’ and wanted to say a huge ‘thank you’ for all the love and support he’s had over the years.