Jeremy Williams-Chalmers, Arts Correspondent
In Conversation With Chesney Hawkes
Photo: Chesney Hawkes
I'm good, thanks. How are you doing?
Yeah, not bad, not bad at all.Okay, let's start with the most spontaneous thing you've ever done...
Oh wow, probably moving to America.
That's a big thing; tell me a little bit more.
Okay, so this was in 2012. My wife and I were sitting back in our garden, looking back at the house. The kids were asleep, and we were enjoying the beautiful sunset. The kids are doing well in school, and life was good. We were essentially expressing this while enjoying a glass of wine together. We were cheering and saying, "Life is good, isn't it?" And then my wife asked, "Is this it?" And with those three words, everything turned upside down, and we decided to follow our dream of moving to the States. And literally, within a couple of months, we were living in Los Angeles.
Oh wow! That's amazing. We thought we'd find out the most helpful thing that you own...
Helpful? I mean, God, there's a few things that come to mind, but for me, it's probably going to be my beautiful Guild acoustic, because it's helpful to me because it relaxes me. So if I ever need to switch off and just go to another place, as it were, I'll just sit with a guitar and just pick some chords and just disappear into some other land. So that's my favourite guitar. Her name's Astrid.
Amazing. Is that the one you write on?
Yes, it's a guitar that can't be plugged in, which means I can't play it live. It's a type of guitar that's typically found in a corner of the room. And it's always there. She's been with me for a long time. She's a beautiful guitar. And it is one that I write on because there's something about, you know, really amazing, beautiful instruments that kind of bring something else to the table. I don't know what it is. It's like they help you write, you know, so Astrid has helped me write a few songs over the years.
And you're looking back at your younger self, and they're going to meet you as an adult. What would your younger self tell you as an adult instead of giving you advice?
Never been asked that one. Wow. Well, the thing is, when you're young, you have a plan, don't you? And you think that life is going to go a certain way, which it never does. And so, yeah, that's why people always ask it the other way around. Yeah, because you could go back with experience and wisdom and say, Well, you shouldn't do this or whatever you do; don't kiss that girl or whatever. But it's the other way around. Wow. I think actually the one thing that I had as a young man that was kind of like mottled away as I got older is that kind of utter belief, you know, so the kind of undying, unwavering knowledge that you can do this. You know, it's like I never, ever thought that I wasn't going to make it. Which is crazy, you know, because it's like winning the lottery to make it in the music industry, but I never had any doubt. So that doubt does kind of wear as you get older. Therefore, my advice to my older self would be to not allow that doubt to fade away.
That is truly remarkable advice, as I believe we tend to lose this as we age.
We don't need to. That's because you're still the same person. You have the same abilities and possibilities in front of you. And the only thing that changes is your own head and your doubts that come that come along unnecessarily. You know, so it's that belief that keeps you going in what you do. And of course, you know, if you get knocked back, some people don't get back up, and some people do. It's that tenacity. I've always been very tenacious, you know, so I think that that has carried me through and helped me through in life.
Chesney Hawkes with son Indiana
Happiness. I've got it. I found it. I think there's all sorts of things. I mean, if you're talking about kind of like general things in life, like visiting certain countries or, you know, playing certain venues or whatever or meeting certain people, there's loads of those. You know, I'd love to play Wembley Stadium. I never did that. That's on the bucket list. I've always wanted to go to China. I don't know why. I want to see the Great Wall of China. That's one. But mainly these days, it's about that, you know, one day at a time happiness, which I always try and achieve every day. You've got to look for the things that make you happy, you know, and they can be the smallest of things. And if you concentrate on those, you know, your dog greeting you when you come home, I don't know, your daughter's smile, whatever it is, if you concentrate on those things, I don't think you'll really ever go wrong.
You have the Reminisce Festival coming up very soon; can you tell us a little more about it?
Well, it's a retro festival, as I think it's kind of a celebration of 90s old school. You know, there's going to be a lot of club tunes and lots of pop DJs and artists like myself. I think Rozalla, N-Trance, Damage, and Basshunter are going to be there, which is good. I don't think I've met those guys yet. Alison Limerick is going to be there. Five will be there. So a lot of the acts from your childhood. So come along, check your inhibitions at the door, and relive your youth.
We can assume you will be performing The One and Only. It's been huge throughout the years. It's never dwindled, has it? The popularity of the song. Is there something that surprises you? How do you balance such a big hit with your current ambitions?
Oh, that's a good question, too. It's difficult to live up to that hit. As you can imagine, I'm almost 52 years old, and I'm defined by a three-month period in my life when I was 18. Can you imagine that? Yeah. So it is difficult to kind of get past it sometimes because people literally say it's the one and only Chesney Hawkes. You know, it's like it goes hand in hand. And that's not something that I planned. But that happened. I'm very aware of what it means to people. And those connections that they have with that song are really not anything to do with me. Obviously, I'm honoured to be part of it. And, you know, I love the fact that, you know, I get letters and messages on social media and emails from people saying it was the song played at their wedding or it was played at their friend's funeral or whatever. So those kinds of moments are absolutely amazing. It can be difficult to kind of break free from that to move on to other things.
Obviously, that was 33 years ago. So I've obviously put quite a lot of different music out since then, different albums and everything. I've got a new album coming out this next year; actually, I am starting to put singles out this year. So it's always, you know, nice to put new stuff out. But of course, people do want to talk about that song and those days. I love playing it, especially at these retro festivals, because you can really feel the energy lift as soon as you play a big hit like that. You know, you can see in people how it effects them and takes them back to their days at school or whatever it is. And I love that. And I feel honoured to have that in my repertoire, you know, as part of my life. It's amazing.
And you just mentioned there is new music coming. Your most recent release was an EP known as The Sunset Sessions. And that was quite an intimate release. Is the album in that vein?
Well, not quite, actually. That one was very acoustic. And I'm going to do another volume of that at some point. But because that was literally all acoustic, and I was very careful for it to be like only one voice and one instrument on that. It was very acoustic and almost live-sounding. So now this next album is a fully produced pop record with a guy called Jake Gosling, who's like an A-List producer. He's basically responsible for Ed Sheeran's career. He wrote and produced his first album together. And so it's like a big release. This one is the first major release since the 90s, because all my other records were very much put out independently, you know, kind of quietly. And I just feel like I'm ready to step back into the machine. And, you know, the record has a bunch of kick the doors down bangers, pop bangers, as you would expect. But it's also got some very, you know, eclectic kind of, you know, reflective songs. Those cathartic songs that had to be written. And you get to a certain age, and you look back on certain things in your life, and you realise I need to deal with that. And I deal with it in song. So, yeah, it'll be interesting, this one.
Chesney Hawkes with son Indiana
It's chalk and cheese, really, because I mean, God, when I first put a record out, the Internet wasn't even here. You know, it's such a different world. It was all physical. There were obviously no mobile phones. It was a very different world. What happened then was it was very kind of like pop stars had this mystique, you know, and it was mysterious. You know, my favourite artist in the 80s was Prince. I love the fact I didn't really know much about him, you know, and I was constantly trying to find out and read between the lines. I was reading all his lyrics and reading his lines in the album notes and finding out who did this and who did that. And just because I wanted to know everything about him. But these days it's so different because, you know, because of the birth of social media and everything, you literally know what Adele had for lunch. You know, it's a very different world.
But you know, I'm certainly not a purist in any way. I love to use social media myself, and I love the fact that I can talk to the fans. I mean, the person that served you your coffee at Starbucks this morning probably has his music up on Spotify. So, you know, it's now kind of available to everyone in a way, and your career is in your own hands. And if you're good with social media, which you have to be now to put music out, then you know you can do it.
Obviously there's a lot more competition out there, and there's a lot more people releasing, and it's kind of saturated. But, you know, I do believe and do hope that the cream rises to the top and you can get discovered. It's like, you know, back in my day, you had to go out and play live and play in these places to get noticed. But now, you know, you can just get a lot of followers on YouTube and people will listen.