A chat with Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs by Janet Harding

There’s an awful lot of noise surrounding Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs at the moment, a real buzz, and quite rightly so. It’s very well deserved. I was lucky enough to sit down with 4 members of the ‘Chicken men’ for a lengthy chat. If you don’t know who Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs are, then take note…you soon will. Taking the northwest by storm with regular plays on Dave Monks’ and Clint Boon’s radio shows, and playing venues all over the region, this St Helens, 5 piece band are a hurricane of punk rock energy:

Ryan Morris – lead vocals, Tasha Clough – rhythm guitar, Liam Shrives – bass, Luke Hankinson – bass, Nathan McLiesh – drums

This hard hitting, cool, musically and creatively brilliant, 5 piece band are real movers and shakers of the local scene and are ones to watch. In this article Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs talk about all things wild and punk, inspiration, and friendship, among other things. A St Helens based, indie/punk band, Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs certainly make their presence felt whilst performing. Having seen them and reviewed them numerous times, it was a real privilege to catch up with the guys and interview them for New Sound Generation.

Janet: So how about inspiration, what or who inspired you to do this?

Tasha: Well I’m gonna say Moz (Ryan Morris). He inspired me, years ago he performed on his guitar to me, he played Oasis’s ‘Half a world away’ and I thought,” Wow!”  It properly blew me away, I just thought I want to learn to do that, I thought he was bloody brilliant, so yeah, Moz is my inspiration, definitely.

Ryan: I’m sure that was a terrible rendition I played on my guitar years ago! The Manchester punk band, Cabbage, they’re no longer together, but Lee and Owen from Cabbage used to work with myself, Tash, and Na (Nathan) in the hospitality industry in Manchester. After going to their gigs I thought, “you know what, we’ve got this in our locker.” The way they were on stage, I just thought: “We can do this.” On stage as a band Cabbage were just wild. We thought: “This isn’t that technical, we can learn to do this”, so for me, Cabbage as a band were a massive inspiration.

Liam: We all inspire one another and are inspired by totally different genres. For me it was grunge. So many different grunge bands, especially the Manchester grunge scene was a huge inspiration, but our sound is constantly evolving and developing and we’re always finding new inspiration.

Nathan: For me, I think the fact that these guys started so late is an inspiration. I’m a new member of the band but I’ve been friends with them for years. They only got this together in 2019, and I think it’s a testament to the band that they did only start in their mid 20s to play instruments. It’s inspirational, it puts that message out that anyone can do this, and they’ve made a success out of it.

CMATBE_Credit: Christabel

Janet: Tell me a little bit about the live shows, the performance, and onstage personas.

Ryan: It’s all about performing live, it’s the biggest compliment being called a live band. We wanted to capture what we saw bands like Cabbage do on stage in Manchester and bring it back home (St.Helens) where the music scene was dead. It’s passion, pure passion, we’ve all got it and we bring it out in each other. That’s what makes our performance. Yeah, the energy, the unpredictability. We try to bring something that leaves people thinking “What just happened?”.

Nathan: It’s great, cos we don’t worry too much about technicality, I’m from a strict metal background, where everything had to be perfect every time. We’re not like that, we still create a good sound, but we have fun with it and don’t get tied up in tech, and I think that comes across.

Liam:  We all enjoy it up there, and Moz as a frontman is so charismatic and gets totally carried away, and we feed off that energy. No one notices if it’s not perfect, they come to see the performance as a whole, not to listen for mistakes. It’s definitely about the energy.

Ryan: I do get totally carried away, I just get in the zone and just keep thinking I can push it further. make it a bit wilder a bit crazier, it’s what we’ve become known for, wild on stage antics and craziness, so I play up to that.

Tash: Moz is that guy with the charisma.

Ryan: If you’re not embodying that energy of enjoyment and showing the fun you’re having, then it’s not worth doing, there is no performance.

CMATBE_Credit:Christabel

Janet: So how did lockdown affect the band, and how did you get through it?

Tash: Well Clock Face, the Miners Club, it’s our old stomping ground, we used to practice there, but obviously in lockdown we couldn’t. Nowhere was doing anything, other than Allo sound, so we moved there. They were the only place that made a point of carrying on throughout the entire lockdown, obviously, there were stringent restrictions in place and you had to abide by the Covid guidelines, but they let bands continue to practice, record, and carry on. The music scene was getting shafted, but Allo did a series of live stream events involving local bands that really took off. So we stayed with them and now produce and record all our stuff there.

Janet: What genre do you identify as, or would you describe yourselves as?

Tasha: Definitely punk, but with lots of influences – grunge, rock.

Nathan: The wildness of punk and our sound is very indie/punk.

Ryan: Yeah I think it’s safe to call us a punk band, a new style, indie punk band. We’ve got the energy of the Sex Pistols but the refinery of the modern day. Polished punk… I think Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs just made a new genre.

CMATBE_Credit:Christabel

It’s safe to say these guys truly are the best of friends, great musicians, true performers, and an inspiration.  It’s been an utter pleasure chatting with them today. They have a real commercial, radio ready sound that’s well worth checking out, but the live shows are unmissable. They are becoming known for it and I can tell you from experience, they put on one hell of a live gig.

Thank you so much to Ryan, Tasha, Liam, and Nathan. You’ve been amazing, and our love and best wishes of course go to Luke.  We hope you’re soon recovered and back where you belong with your fellow Chicken men.

Thanks to Friars Court pub in Warrington for allowing us to conduct our interview there.

Interview: Janet Harding & Images: Christabel

To follow the band on social media click on the links below

Instagram/Facebook/

Twitter/Spotify