A week or two ago NSGs Billy Vitch had the opportunity to sit down and Zoom with 90s Brit teen icon Chesney Hawkes. Chesney Hawkes exploded onto Radios and TVs around the world with his No1 Hit ‘The One and Only’ in 1991 after the release of the film ‘Buddy’s song’ in which he starred alongside The WHO’s frontman, Rodger Daltrey.

Billy got to chat with Chesney about the highs and lows of mega stardom at such a young age in this interview and find out where that stardom took him and what life is like for him now.

Today I find myself sitting at my computer waiting for a zoom guest to arrive. It’s around 6.20 pm UK time and my guest should be appearing on my screen any minute now. I’m a little nervous as my guest was one of the biggest stars in the UK when I was around 11 years old and I honestly believe that I had my first slowie dance at the school disco to his No1 hit song… 

It’s currently 10.20 am in LA where my guest is right now and I’m starting to get a little worried that we may have misinterpreted our timing. Fortunately, my worrying has all been for nothing, and the wonderful, ever youthful looking Mr. Chesney Hawkes appears on my screen with a big welcoming smile!

Billy: So hello Chesney, and welcome. Thank you for coming. How are you today and what have you been up to so far?

Chesney: Thank you for having me. Today’s been crazy, I’m in Los Angeles and it is early morning for me, it’s like 10:30 in the morning for me and I’ve been up since 3.30 Am! I took my wife to the airport as she’s going off somewhere on a trip, but it’s one of those things isn’t it,  do you go back to bed or not? So I thought, Nah, bugger it. I’m just gonna stay up and did a bit of recording, took the dogs for a walk, did some work and you know, I feel like I’ve done a full day’s work already and it’s only 10 o’clock!

Billy: I think there’s a blessing in that though, sometimes isn’t there like when you wake up early and you realise how much you can actually do in a day and it’s still only morning.

Chesney: Yeah, you can achieve so much, it’s pretty amazing and you know, you read about or hear about these successful people, high achievers, and a lot of them do actually get up really early and get their workout sorted by five o’clock! A lot of the time I’ve got to deal with English time so the earlier the better for me. I do like to be up early and as I’ve got older, I’ve gone from being a kind of nocturnal musician type to being up with the lark, which is quite nice. I think it’s good for your mental health as well.

Billy: So the year is 1989. What are you doing? And are you aware at all by this time that within a year or two, you are going to be one of the hottest artists to come out of the UK?

Chesney: That’s a good question. Well I was 17 and I had actually just got the part of Buddy in the film “Buddy’s Song“ co-starring Rodger Daltrey, so I had an idea.

Billy: Wow so you already knew in 1989?

Chesney: Yeah, you know it was a pretty long process actually and I guess that’s the way it works with feature films, you know, it’s like you get the part, then you wait for nine or ten months to start filming and then you do the filming and you know, then they gotta do all the editing and all that. So it’s a pretty big process. So yeah I was young. I was really young when I got that part, but up to that moment, I was literally playing piano in bars and pubs around my area. I was like the piano man! I was playing Elton John and John Lennon and Stevie Wonder songs.

I’d grown up around music, my dad was in the well-known band ‘The Tremeloes‘ so all dad’s mates were all kinds of 60s superstars you know. The house was like guitars propped up in every corner and so like I don’t know, fame, wasn’t weird to me, you know what I mean? So in a kind of an odd way when it eventually kind of came to my time to start releasing records or whatever, it didn’t feel odd. Right? Don’t get me wrong it was a weird experience for anyone to go through something like that but you know at 17 I was just excited about the future. I was writing songs all the time and I was playing gigs with my band, I was playing piano in pubs and stuff like that you know, and I had just gotten this part and so I was waiting, I was kind of like waiting in the wings as it were.

Billy: That makes a lot of sense!

Billy: So I was 11 or 12 when your hit single “The One and Only” came out and obviously it was everywhere! Admittedly millions of teen fans, boys and girls, myself included either wanted to be Chesney Hawkes or they wanted to marry him. I guess to a lot of fans, it looked like you had everything, you were living the dream, but what was the actual reality of that?

Chesney: Yeah I mean probably very different to what you’ve just described. Part of it was a dream you know because as a young man and a young musician it was everything that I ever wished for, I got to experience touring around the world and there were times when I didn’t know where I was waking up. I’d wake up in New York and then I’d be like, where are we going today? Oh you’re going to Sweden to do TV, then you’ve got MTV in London then after that you’re gonna end up in Belgium, you’re doing a gig, you know, that’s kind of what my life was like. So in one way I kind of missed out on that right of passage you know, university life, like all my friends, we’re all doing.

Billy: It’s a massive trade off, isn’t it?

Chesney: Yeah It was a bit of a trade off but the other thing about it that you don’t really think about is that my life was not my own, I mean I didn’t have that kind of ability to just get up and go to the pub. 

Billy: You were sort of owned in a way weren’t you by the industry, you’re like a commodity?

Chesney: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was very much so you know, I couldn’t just kind of decide that I wanted to go to the cinema with friends or do whatever and I only really got to experience that kind of life, you know years and years, after all that, and it was all a bit of a shock to me because, you know, at that point people were like getting me up, taking me places, you know, doing stuff for me, I had teams and people doing stuff, It’s just the way it was so it is good and bad in a way and of course when you have that kind of exposure and that kind of fame there’s always, there’s always another side to it, you know what I mean? So I experienced that as well and that was hard. I’m quite glad that it didn’t stay that way for me though, mainly because I feel like I have managed to have a somewhat ordinary life.

Billy: You’ve experienced both worlds now?

Chesney: I kind of have you know, I’m a father of three and I’m so lucky to have been around for their childhood and be there for the school runs and the nappies and all that kind of stuff. 

Billy: As you know we are a Liverpool based music magazine. I was out having a pint with my friend Cammy who happened to be in Liverpool band ‘The La’s’ and his partner on Sunday and his partner told me that you’re a massive fan of them! You seem to like a lot of historical scouse bands, like The Beatles, Gerry And The Pacemakers to name but a few, Gerry Marsden was a family friend wasn’t he? What is it about the city and its music that you are so drawn to? 

Chesney: The La’s, a great band, and well obviously The Beatles are everything. I mean, without The Beatles you don’t have anything, haha. My son said to me today, Dad, would you rather have no Beatles Or no football? I was like, oh, That’s a tough one man!

Billy: Mindblow! 

Chesney:  I’ll let you ponder on that one haha. 

Billy: It’s like Pandora’s box that one isn’t it? haha.

Chesney: It is, haha, you open up a whole can of worms. so for me, Liverpool has always been kind of like that magical place. It’s just where they came from you know? and so I always loved coming to Liverpool, I’ve got fantastic and wonderful Liverpudlian friends and I just love the spirit of the city. You know, I love the people. I love the banter and the comic value of everyone. Everyone’s got a great joke here and there and I’m also a massive football fan, I grew up in the eighties and ‘Liverpool FC’ were always at the top of the league.

Billy: So like Your interest in the music though, do you think it’s more to do with a collection of those experiences that draw you to Liverpool music itself? Or is it something about the music? 

Chesney: Well, I mean, if I take the music just on its own merit, it’s just music that I love. Whether it comes through that kind of Liverpudlian spirit I don’t know. The Beatles are my favourite. I love bands like The La’s and Gerry And The Pacemakers, obviously. ‘Gerry Marsden’ from the band was an old mate of my dad’s so it could be something to do with that, I mean, it must be something to do with where they come from. 

Billy: I think Liverpool music’s very steeped in history, you know, Irish roots and things, and I think football’s synonymous with a lot of Liverpool music, like ‘The Farm‘ and other bands?

Chesney: Yeah, I still love The Farm as well. God, God, we would bump into each other, doing promotional stuff. They were always really, really lovely to me.

Billy: Your rise to fame was meteoric, to say the least! Do you feel there was much support during this period? I see a lot of younger artists now who have extremely fast success but end up burnt out. What are your thoughts on this and what do you think can be done differently in means of support available for young artists?

Chesney: My own experience was a little different because I have a really supportive, lovely family that had kind of been through similar things with my father, you know? My brother is the drummer in my band and has always been so for me we got to experience it together. He’d keep my head from going through the clouds, you know, he’d call me an idiot if I needed it, so it helped to have family members around me.

Billy: Like the Bee Gees?

Chesney: Kind of yeh, ‘Bee Gees’ or even ‘Oasis’, I know they don’t get on, but like, you know, at least they had each other. Or like ‘The Kinks’, you know, same, they’ve got each other. They still fought on stage, but they had each other.

The support system that you are talking about or the lack of support from the record industry and more so I think the kind of reality TV stuff that’s what you were alluding to, some of these kids that have come into fame fast, you know. Here’s the thing, my dad early, early on gave me this piece of advice, He said, Don’t believe the hype, don’t believe the good stuff, don’t believe the bad stuff because if you take any of it on, it’s gonna change your psyche. Yeah? And there’s always another side, you know, there’s always the other side of the hill as it were, you don’t think about that when you’re young and impressionable, lot of these kids come into fame just really wanting the fame and when they get it you know, their front page of the of magazines.

Billy: It’s not that good is it when it actually happens? Like they lose stuff, a lot of other things as you mentioned earlier on about your privacy?

Chesney: Well yeah, exactly. You lose all of that stuff, but you also think if you believe the hype, you believe what they say, you believe what the papers are saying. You believe what the public is saying about you, you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, you know, and if you start to believe all that stuff you don’t see that there’s gonna be another side to it. And when they get through the machine and then spat out the other side without any support, there’s gonna be mental health issues, you know, and that has happened and a lot as well. Now, because I write and produce for young artists I’ve kinda fallen into that kind of mentorship a little bit. I feel like maybe I can offer some good advice having been through the machine myself and that’s one of the things I always say is what my dad said to me early, early days is don’t ever believe any of it, cos it’s all Bullshit! 

Chesney Hawkes_Credit: Kate Carpenter

Billy: I guess it’s hard not to mention the pandemic obviously and even harder to find anything positive to say about it. but you seem to have with releasing your five-CD box set, titled “The Complete Picture: The Albums 1991-2012“. What motivated you to release all of your work as a compilation right now? And what would you like your fans to get from listening to it?

Chesney: I actually had a good experience with the pandemic, it was so hard for people and I guess I just diversified, which we all had to do. So many people were affected financially, it was a terrible time. Don’t get me wrong, it was really, really difficult, but you know, my life normally is me spending a lot of time away from my family, touring and things and iv always had that kind of like, ah, I really wanna balance this a little bit more and be able to spend more time with my family cos that’s my priorities now, you know so the pandemic just kind of just did exactly that for me, it allowed me to get off the train and just, just stop and breathe fresh air for a moment and I got to spend all this time with my family here. We went on dog walks as a family, had dinners together, and even played board games and watched family movies and I loved that. 

Billy: Well that’s something you couldn’t really do normally isn’t it? I think a lot of people work and fight against providing for the family and have the quality time together that the lockdowns offered a lot of families?

Chesney: Yeah absolutely. It’s a balance isn’t it in life, and I felt like I hadn’t quite kind of secured that balance in the right way. The scale was kind of slightly lifted towards my work so it really, really was a wonderful time for me in that respect, I mean I’m back on tour now and it’s great, great to be on a stage again but I loved that family time that the lockdowns offered.

Well, I did all sorts of things during the pandemic. I finished a musical called “The One” which is loosely based on my early days. I recorded the album through lockdown with a bunch of fantastic singers and put it out on it’s on my YouTube channel, go and check it out is quite fun. I started a podcast about mental health called “We are all a bit mental“, which is going, really well. We’re rebranding soon, but that’s been great. I finished an album that is coming out in the summer at some point and I put together this boxset. The reason I wanted to do it now is because it’s been 30 years since The One and Only, well, it’s actually 31, but I don’t count that last year so it’s 30 years. 

Billy: WOW it Seems like 15 years ago or something.

Chesney: I know it’s madness, isn’t it? It’s just crazy. I realise that most people, a lot of people out there that know me, will kind of find me synonymous with that one song and really, maybe only know me for the one song, you know? I have a wonderful fan base that’s very loyal, that have followed me over the years and they know all the music that I’ve put out over the years, you know, once an artist, always an artist, Billy! So I wanted to put it all together, a little kind of a box set of all of my albums up to this point for them.

It’s been fun, kind of like dipping into like the vault as it were, and finding all the old demos of songs that didn’t make it into the “Buddy’s Song” film and stuff like that. It’s been quite cathartic in a way and fans have really liked it because to hear these songs and they’re like, oh, wow, that was supposed to be in “Buddy’s Song”, but it didn’t make it into Buddy’s song for whatever reason.

Billy: Oh wow Really? So there were a lot of songs that should have been in the film but never were?

Chesney: Yeah, yeah!

Billy: See most people and fans don’t know these things that happen behind the scenes do they, that there were more songs available for the film & With The One and Only becoming synonymous with Chesney Hawkes, it paints a picture that this is only who Chesney Hawkes is when there’s so much more to him as an individual and as a musician and songwriter.

Chesney: I appreciate you saying that Billy, but you know, I think there’s something kind of comic value about the fact that it’s called “The One and Only”, and that I’m kind of seen as that one hit wonder and whatever, I guess it all came together and made this like a perfect storm as it were.

Billy: I totally agree with the perfect storm theory!

Billy: So you still tour extensively on what you like to call the Heritage circuit and have shared the stage with some of the biggest artists in the world like Rick Astley, Belinda Carlisle, OMD, and The Human League to name but a few, yet you seem extremely humble, grateful and grounded. What do you think it is that makes you so and do you really understand the impact your music has had and continues to have on people’s lives?

Chesney: Hmm. Well, I’ll go back to what we were talking about earlier about family. My family kept me humble but then my wife has too, I was lucky to find my life partner at a very young age, I was only like 22, 23 years old when we met, and we’ve been married 25 years this year. Together 27 years and three kids and you know kids will keep you humble. I think I’m just generally a naturally positive person and I like people. I don’t really like the kind of taking on too much of that kind of personality, that kind of celebrity and fame thing. I’d rather just sit and have a pint with you in a pub than with someone famous or be at a celebrity party or whatever, you know what I mean.

Billy: I can understand that, definitely.

Billy: Do you really understand the impact your music has had on people’s lives?

Chesney: Well yes, I’ve had a lot of experiences and a lot of feedback from 30 years of it, you know, and I get messages all the time about how much in particular that song “The One And Only” means to people.

Billy: I bet people have been married to it and everything haven’t they?

Chesney: Yeah and funerals too. There’s one story I’ll tell you that just kind of hit me. It’s hard this one and it’s kind of a sad story but you’ll understand why I’m telling you. There was a young man who apparently my song “The One and Only” was his favourite record and all his friends said that whenever he was in a pub or club and it came on, they would lift him up in the air and he’d be like yeah I am the one and only! He’d be the guy at the top and they all knew him for this and his family all knew this about him and it was just kind of something they did, but then, unfortunately, he got cancer and he passed away at a young age, and at the funeral, they played “The One And Only” and as it came on his friends lifted the coffin. I heard this story after the funeral after one of his friends or his family contacted me and they just wanted me to know, and so what it did for me is it kind of reiterated in my mind the amazing effect that music can have because I feel like I’ve given up ownership of that record to people like that and it’s like I’m a custodian of the song and yes, I’ll play it and love playing it but I don’t feel like I own it anymore. I love the connections, the emotional connections that it’s made over the years as you say at weddings and stuff or for people who were at a club and the song was on when they met or they were at one of my concerts when they met or it was number one when their daughter was born or something like that I think is incredible. And there are so many of them.

Billy: One of my favourite songs of yours is an acoustic version of your No1 song “The One and Only”. I find it extremely emotive and it creates so many different emotions in me compared to when listening to the original, although they’re both the same song they’re just completely different songs. I think when I first heard it was probably during the lockdown and when I heard it, it was like, whoa, it really, really took my breath away. When you made the acoustic version was the intention there to make it so emotive and do you realise that it’s such a different song from the original? 

Chesney: I understand what you’re saying. Yeah, totally. As you could imagine over the years I’ve mucked about with that song in so many different ways from Reggae to Country to Death Metal haha, guitar picking, the lot but I’ve never felt comfortable with any of them really because this the record, the original record was so kind of iconic, you know and it’s hard to kind of screw with it, but I was working with a really fantastic musician in Norway, I call him my Nordic brother, his names ‘Jon-Willy Rydningen‘ and we were making my album “Real Life Love”, in 2012 and it was kind of a very emotional time in my life and I was kind of like finding myself in a way and discovering myself and we started just mucking about and he started playing this piano part and it just kind of fell into place, previously I hadn’t had that emotion, the same kind of emotional connection that you are talking about with the song before. I hadn’t realised that it was even there if you know what I mean, that connection to self, that’s what it’s about, I am the one and only.

Billy: I kinda got the sense of a lot of self reflection in that version, it felt like you were really reflecting and looking back on your life?

Chesney: Yeah, totally, and for me, it was very emotional and maybe that’s where it comes through in the vocal because it was like rediscovering an old friend that you didn’t realise you loved.

It’s a beautiful arrangement and I can’t take a hell of a lot of credit for that. Jon the piano player, he’s just such a beautiful, beautiful man and a beautiful musician and he really encapsulated the emotion in it. My vocal, I just felt it, you know, and I think there was a connection there between us that just kind of worked.

Billy: Iv been wondering a lot about that version so thank you!

Billy: So a bit of a fun question…If you could pick three people from history to sit down and have dinner with who would they be and why?

Chesney: Um, well, first of all, I would choose, I’ll go for John Lennon from a musical point of view because for me he was kind of like the soul of The Beatles, John’s my man! I mean, he’s just the man, you know, what can you say? They say you shouldn’t meet your idols right because apparently, they could be an awkward bugger, haha, but what I love about him is he was more than a musician. He was more than just a songwriter, he was very open and real with his lyrics, you know, I love the way he would even mention names like, you know, where he is talking about Yoko. He actually said, Yoko, I love that about him and that he was just very vulnerable and open in his songwriting, which you know, I would love to talk to him about.

Chesney: My next one, I’m gonna go with Nelson Mandela, just what an incredible life that man had and what a difference in this world he made, you know, I mean he kind of encapsulates that change in this world so he would be my number two. Um, God, what would we talk about? I mean, where would you start with Nelson Mandela? He was an extreme as well. I mean, you don’t get much more of a change do you than he made in himself, just Incredible.

Chesney: Goodness, my third one, I’m gonna have to go with another musician. I’m going with Prince. For me Prince was the greatest ever, and nobody will ever beat him as far as talent, you know, an overall talent he was a phenomenon and no one will ever touch that talent and I would have loved to been able to have picked his brains, haha, you know.

Billy: He had a lot of humility I feel, again like John Lennon, I guess.

Chesney: Yeah, yeah, absolutely and very vulnerable and you know the music he made was the music to my teenage years and I’m honestly not sure that without the Beatles and Prince that I would be doing what I do now.

Billy: As some of us know, your father Len “Chip” Hawkes was and is a big star in his own right from being in the British supergroup, ‘The Tremeloes‘. What was it like growing up around him and his rock star friends?

Chesney: Yeah, it was wild. I’ll give you kind of like a broad outlook of what it was like as kids for us. My parents were friends with all these people, all these sixties bands, like Gerry And The pacemakers, Marmalade, The Searchers, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich who were a sixties band, and The fortunes. I mean all these people he was mates with, he knew all the Radio 1 DJs like Mike Read was a friend of theirs and so it was wild, they used to throw these parties where they would be kind of little stages for them to perform on. A lot of the time we would get up for school, me and my brother and sister and we’d have to kind of like step oversleeping “musicians” haha.

Billy: What’s the future look like for Chesney Hawkes?

Chesney: I’ve got so much on, I’ve got the podcast, which I’m just ramping up for season three. Lots of touring, right through the year. I have my new album coming out in the summer. Iv got the box set, which is happening as well. 

The podcast is called “We Are All A Bit Mental“ but we are actually rebranding and we’re gonna be called “Ferguson Harrington Hawks”.I’ve also got the musical, which I’m hoping to get onto a stage at some point soon as well. 

Billy: That’s awesome, man! You’re still playing Liverpool rock in July?

Chesney: Yes. Let’s rock and I can’t wait!

Billy: Thank you so much for your time Chesney its been a blast!

Chesney: Oh, it’s a pleasure meeting you Billy, really! Thank you for having me. Take it, easy mate.

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