Who has played with Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney and The Wombles? Chris Spedding is one of the world’s most versatile guitar heroes and has defied easy categorisation over a 60-year career. He celebrated his 80th birthday in May, but the Derbyshire-born virtuoso with the silver quiff still enjoys recording and touring, adding tasteful, understated riffs to every project he comes across. “I always try to bring in a Spedding element to make it different,” he says, smiling.
You started playing the violin when you were nine. Why did you switch to the guitar?
I grew up in a household where opera was constantly on the radio. My mother sang in the local choir, my father played the organ in church. That’s why I chose the violin. I had a talent for it, but it wasn’t my heart. When I was twelve, I heard skiffle and Elvis singing hunting dogI thought, “What am I going to do with this piece of junk violin?” Girls talk to me when I play the guitar.
Were any of your neighbors afraid that you might commit a crime?
Listening to rock’n’roll would be like your precious little boy suddenly deciding to listen to gangsta rap. So people in my town would say, ‘We’re really worried about Chris’ (laughs).
What did a typical week look like in the early 1970s when you were a sought-after session musician?
I could do a session for a mediocre artist like Petula Clark in the morning and play with John Cale in the afternoon. I could take the lick of the day – whatever guitar piece I was working on – and put it in both pieces. Nobody would know. Who would buy Petula Clark and John Cale’s records and say, “Hey, I recognize that lick!” So when people say, “You’re very versatile and you play with all these different artists,” the opposite is true. I just kept playing the same thing. And never got caught. Until now.
Any memories of working with Harry Nilsson?
I’d heard stories about John Lennon’s “lost weekend” with Harry – parties and all that madness. But there was none of that in the studio. Harry was very focused. There were some great musicians there – Peter Frampton, Herbie Flowers, Ringo. But those were the days when you’d do a hundred takes sometimes; tape boxes everywhere. And then, after listening for hours, they’d usually say, “I think we did it on the second take.”
What memories do you have of your hit single? Motorcycling?
I had worked with (producer) Mickey Most on a Donovan album and we got along pretty well. So I went back to Mickey with this idea for a song, Motorcycling. It was almost like one of those Hollywood scenes where he’s sitting there smoking a cigar with his feet up on the desk and saying, “This is going to be a hit, boy!” At the end of the week we were in the studio and recorded it. And it was a hit.
How did you end up making the first demos for the Sex Pistols?
Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren had a shop called Let It Rock and she made me 50s style teddy boy clothes. Chrissie Hynde worked there too and invited me to the 100 Club to see the Pistols. There were no A&R people there, just about fifteen diehard fans. And in the end only about half of them showed up because they would have put people off.
After that I went to a rehearsal and listened to their entire repertoire. We took No feelings, pretty empty And Problems. It was fascinating to be around them because they were teenagers and I was in my thirties. I couldn’t really identify with the whole angst of the punk rock thing, but I loved the energy. After we did the demos, (producer) Chris Thomas got interested. And they were really into Chris because they were secretly big fans of Roxy Music. This all came out later, that they like music by these super boring old geezers (laughs).
Didn’t you have the chance to own the master tapes of these Pistols demos?
I didn’t really trust Malcolm McLaren. I thought he was some kind of pusher. Before I went into the studio I said, “I’ll give you my time and my expertise, but I’m not going to be left with the bill.” I thought that was really smart. In fact, if I had paid for those sessions, I would have owned the masters and probably made quite a fortune from them.
What memories do you have of working with Paul McCartney on the music for Greetings to Broad Street from me?
We recorded at Air Studios and I thought I had died and gone to heaven because the people in the studio were Paul and Linda, George Martin was producing, Geoff Emerick was engineer and Ringo was playing drums. I was the only non-Beatle there! When we were filming, during the break, we jammed to Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Elvis; nobody dared to do a Beatles song. But I thought, ‘If only those jams had been recorded, it would have been absolute gold.’ And it would have made the film fantastic. But nobody would tell Paul that.
Is it true that you have an enthusiastic Japanese fan who comes to all your performances?
Yes, his name is Toshio. I first met him when I was touring Japan in the 90s. In 1992 he started making a fanzine. And then when the internet came along he turned it into a website. Thanks to Toshio I had a website before I even had a computer.
You look fantastic for almost eighty.
I did all the naughty things in the 70s that I shouldn’t have done (laughs). So my current lifestyle might seem boring. But I like it. I live on the south coast, in an apartment overlooking the beach. Very quiet. And every now and then I go out and play a bit of rock’n’roll.
Chris Spedding performs with Jeff Wayne’s musical version of “The War of the Worlds” in 2025. Tickets are now on sale.
