Interviews....

Rob Halligan....

April 2003 ~ Easter special!

(Interviewed at The Tump Folk Club by Chris and Hannah)

Covfolk: Thanks for doing this interview for the Covfolk Website Rob!
CF: I know from your biography that your life started on the ‘sunny south coast’ as you put it on your website. Do you have fond memories of those days?

RH: Sunny Worthing! Well, I was born in Brighton and spent the first ten years in Peacehaven, which is where Gracie Fields was brought up! It’s a claim to fame! And then we moved to Worthing for about 6 or 7 years.

CF: Gracie Fields? I thought she was from Lancashire….

RH: Well, it was one of the wartime people….

CF: Sure it wasn’t Vera Lynn? *

RH: Yeah, it might have been actually….

CF:Yeah, Gracie Fields was Lancashire

CF (Hannah): Well, you’re old enough to remember!

RH: Yeah, you remember those don’t you!?!

CF: I read also that you were given your first guitar when you were eleven – In hospital after an accident. Was that a lucky gift getting a guitar….

RH: Well, the nurses didn’t think so!

CF: ….Or was it because music played a big part in your life?

RH: Up until then I’d done a lot of singing. I used to enjoy that. I was in talent shows and all that kind of stuff. I was just really bored and they were trying to think of something for me to do while I was in hospital.

CF: Well, it was obviously the right choice wasn’t it!

RH: My mum played the piano a bit and we all had piano lessons, but in those days everyone had piano lessons and everyone played the recorder then.

CF: When you had your piano lessons did you enjoy them or did you feel you were under duress?

RH: I did. I’m the sort of person who’s not very disciplined in my music. I couldn’t do the Jerry Lee Lewis kind of thing up and down the piano and she wanted me to play London’s Burning.

CF: Your biography’s very open and honest and you share problems from your early teens and your faith obviously brought you through that. Did that surprise you at the time? Did you have a strong Christian upbringing?

RH: We actually stopped going to church. When I was about 4, me and my sister would run around the church and the new vicar told my mum not to bring us if we were going to run around the church. So, my mum stopped taking us and that was it. So up until I was 16 I had no kind of Christian upbringing.

CF: But in the early days, the intention was to go to church?

RH: Yeah, we were Sunday Christians sort of people….

CF: So, you just happened to stay with some people….

RH: Well, when I was 16 I ended up homeless for a few months – Fairly desperate and it wasn’t until we came to Northampton – We were wandering around all over the place, me and my friends – We bumped into these guys who were Christians and they offered to feed us and to help us out. At the time it was a cheap bed, a free meal and it was easy. Because I would learn to sponge and con people, that’s what I started doing – Thinking I was being really clever – And I was doing this for a few months and I guess it was my conscience that got the better of me and said, “Look, these people are good! These are the first decent people we’ve met in a long time and these people have got something you haven’t. And they’re showing you something that you need.

CF: Did that surprise you when that came into your head?

RH: I think what surprised me more was that there were people there ready to do that kind of stuff for me even though I was Joe Bloggs off the street. It wasn’t anything superficial – They were showing you what it was about, they weren’t just telling you the stuff.

CF: And all these experiences are inspiration for the songs you are writing?

RH: Yeah, I think from the faith point of view, I don’t preach (I don’t think), but I try and relate to people that are from, I guess, my faith point of view.

On Worthing beach

CF: Which comes easiest, the music or the lyrics?

RH: Er….I think it’s a bit of both. Sometimes it’s the lyrics. Sometimes I get asked to write a song about something, but I can’t think of anything to write if there’s no real subject or anything. I don’t like writing soppy love songs. If there’s a definite something, quite often it’s just a phrase; you can do something with it. So, I guess it’s the lyrics that make the ideas come.

CF: You’re a terrific singer – Have you had training?

RH: (laughs) I used to drive a lorry – One of my first jobs I had. Probably when I was about 20, I started driving and I was driving for 5 years and I used to put on any tape in the car, get in the cab and put it on as loud as I could and sing along to it. I’d put on ridiculous things that I’d never be able to reach (the notes). I suppose that was the self-inflicted training!

CF: I’ve noticed you’ll start a song in one octave and then you’ll lift it and sing it in the octave above – It’s obviously a gift!

RH: Because I’ve been singing for so long now, it’s just something you learn to do over time. If I listen to a tape of me singing 15 years ago it’s awful!

CF: You’ve done some interesting covers, including ‘Babooksha’ by Kate Bush and ‘I’ll Be There For You’ by The Rembrandts. Have you got anymore planned – We’d love to hear them?

RH: I like doing covers, but I don’t like doing them as they’re done. I have to take them and make them my own. ‘Babooshka’ was a brilliant one to do. I was looking for songs and somebody at work said, as a tongue in cheek, do a Kate Bush song! So, I got a Kate Bush CD and heard it and thought, I could do this! I’m sure I could change that and fit it around my style. I do ‘Message In A Bottle’, which I don’t do anything like the original. So, I like doing anything and I like taking in a huge, broad selection.

CF: Yes, that’s a nice treatment to that song – Given it a new life.

CF: So, how’s the new CD coming along?

RH: I’m really excited about it! A guy called Simon Goodall who’s a singer/songwriter, but he’s also a producer – He produced and wrote Cliff Richard’s Christmas single B-Side. I met up with him last year. There was competition at a radio station in Stoke and the prize was to have Simon Goodall come and sing in your back garden and the winner had been listening on the Internet and lived in Coventry. So, he came to Coventry and it just so happened that the guy who was organising it was a friend of mine and he said, “Do you want to come and play support for Simon Goodall?”. So, he gave me this address and I turned up at the house thinking it was the wrong address, and I ended up doing this gig in a garden for 10 people! But I met up with this guy who’d heard some of the songs I was doing and he said, “I wanna help you!”.

CF: I bet he did!

RH: So, it’s been really good! And from there it’s been amazing! He’s roped in some brilliant session musicians and has been recorded in the studio. I’m buzzing about it! I don’t know what’s going to happen when its finished. We’ll throw it at record companies and hopefully someone will pick it up.

CF: Would you ever do a live acoustic CD – Rob Halligan Unplugged?!

RH: Well, we thought about it actually. We thought about a good way to market the new CD. Because the CD is very much not acoustic – Although I’m playing on it, there’s a full band – It’s very kind of ‘Folk Rock’. Very powerful. It would be good to do a shorter CD, say 6 songs off the new album, but how I would do them live…. We’re probably gonna do that next week.

CF: I think it can just capture a moment can’t it?

RH: Absolutely and I don’t think you need the production so much as there’s the live atmosphere.

CF: I really love that song you did tonight from the new CD – ‘The Birds Are Still Singing’….

RH: Well, on the album that is just an acoustic guitar….

CF: The Goldsmiths, are they a set band or just whoever happens to be available at the time?

RH: No, The Goldsmiths is a band – A rock band, which was set up because of Church was doing a lot of Youth work in the city and we started doing pubs and schools. Since I’ve been doing some solo stuff, some of the guys from the band and me have started jamming around and are perhaps thinking of going out together on the folk circuit. The good thing about Folk Rock is that you’ve got a foot in both doors – Which I try and keep!

And finally, some short silly questions….

CF: What’s your current favourite television programme?

RH: (laughs) Well, believe it or not (people think I’m weird when I say this), but we haven’t got a telly! We’ve got loads of videos and we’re mad on Star Wars and Friends. So…. I guess I’d say Friends because I don’t really know what else is on!

CF: What albums are you currently listening to?

RH: I’m listening to a guy called John Mayer, who’s an American guitarist – Very good – And I’m listening to an old band called Ceili Rain. Interesting enough, the lead singer of Ceili Rain (they’re a Celtic Rock Band), is called Rob Halligan! They’re American and we met up and he’s a really nice bloke!

CF: When you’re not gigging around or recording your new CD, what do you like to do in your spare time?

RH: I do a lot of DIY at the moment!

CF: You describe yourself as having an ‘over active creativity gene’, have you got anything bubbling away at the moment?

RH: I’m always coming up with ideas! At the moment I’m running an acoustic night at the church drop-in centre café. I thought it would be a good idea to run one on a Friday night. It’s in Lamb Street. Er…. Thinking about what I am going to do with the new album is really swamping me because I really want it to happen…. And ideas for my website.

CF: Thank you so much Rob!!

 * Rob was right! Gracie Fields bought a house in Peacehaven in 1935!

All photographs are owned by Rob Halligan

You can visit Rob's Official Website at  www.robhalligan.co.uk