Cockney Rejects – Greatest Hits Vol. 1

I got into this after reading Jeff Turner (Cockney Rejects singer)’s autobiography, which is one of the best music memoirs I’ve ever read. I love the story about the band: formed by a bunch of teenagers barely out of school, who came up out of east London, Newham, which is where I kind of grew up as well.

This record I just think sounds amazing. Similar to Never Mind The Bollocks in a way, the production is just walls of guitars. This really thick guitar sound, which is something I’ve always been into. This is another record that I can put on and my mood will be uplifted instantly. I can leave the house, walk down the road and have this in my headphones and feel like nothing else matters.”

You’re in an Oi! influenced band yourself now, right? Tell me about The Chisel.

It started early last year. I joined the band after they did their first seven inch and then since I’ve joined we’ve done two singles, recorded an LP and we just recorded three other tracks recently as well. So it’s been pretty productive despite not being able to play any gigs or anything like that. We’ve just been writing tunes and trying to record them when we can.

It’s funny because I go through these waves of feeling like I can’t do any more bands, but then an opportunity will come along and you’ll just think ‘why not?’ Then when I start doing it I realise ‘No I really need this outlet, I need to have this in my life.’ I think it will always be like that to be honest. Helm is really important to me – it’s my life’s work - but you do need to be able to have something else that’s a bit more free and easy. I’ve never really been a very good collaborator when it comes to my solo work, but when it comes to playing in bands I love that whole thing of being in the room with a bunch of people and a song coming together within the space of two hours. I don’t think that will ever stop being exciting to me.