Chichester date for Steve Rodgers, son of of Free and Bad Company star Paul
The “son of” tag is one that sits very easily.
“You can have limiting beliefs. You could be blind or deaf. There will always be something. But people will always succeed.
“Some children of famous people will see is as a hurdle, like a shadow on their future. I don’t. I have never seen it that way.
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Hide Ad“Dad is a musician through and through, and that’s ingrained in him, and that’s what he is.
“Sometimes at gigs someone will shout out at me ‘Do All Right Now!’ and I will say ‘OK if you want a very bad version of All Right Now, but if you want a proper version of it, go and see my dad!’”
The point is, as Steve says, there is a different vibe between them: “To me, he writes the greatest rock songs in the world. I am different. But we do share a lot of things, almost by osmosis, maybe the way we sing. But also with dad, I think it is about honesty. That’s what is so great about him. He is such an honest musician.”
Steve’s album was produced by Ken Nelson (Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Paolo Nutini) and mixed by Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse).
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Hide Ad“I had an EP out which I did myself, and then every time I had a bit more money from working, I would go into the studio. It did really well.
“That was about 2010. And then I was touring and touring and always writing new songs.
“We would be going from the tiniest places to gigging in the biggest places in the States. It was an amazing time.”
Steve guested at Wembley for Bad Company, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and the Robert Randolph Band. Tours also included support slots for Bad Company in the UK and Japan and his own headline dates in the UK and Canada. Steve also supported The Deborah Bonham Band and Midge Ure on their tours in the UK and Europe, and then in 2014 he supported Bad Company again with Lynyrd Skynyrd for their coast-to-coast US tour; in September 2015 he joined Stackridge for a three-month tour of the UK.
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Hide AdStill he was writing his own material: “I had lots and lots of songs, and me and my manager decided that we would record an album.
“I said ‘Let’s give the demos to all the best producers in the world,’ and I sent it to Ken Nelson. He said he would do it, and the album came together in a really, really short period in Liverpool.
“We were doing that in 2015, and then I came back to it again and then it came out in 2016.
“The songs on the album are personal stories. I don’t really write about anything that doesn’t make sense. Everything has to have a certain amount of story and make sense.
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Hide Ad“I am not saying I am doing it all at a very deep level. I just mean that I have to connect to the words and the emotions. I don’t like superficial. I leave that to somebody else. The songs are really personal, and each piece is different. They are songs about life or about heartbreak or they are uplifting songs.
“I have always loved the way with The Beatles how every song is different. I wanted every one to be different. I recorded them differently. Some are full band, some are just with a piano or some are just acoustic with double bass, but there is a theme on there that goes through.”
Tickets are available from the Chichester Inn in person or by telephoning 01243 783185.
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