Steve Hawkins

What can I say, I always wanted to be in a band after seeing Slade on Top of the pops, those bands from the early 70’s had a massive effect on me, I think the time musically was magical.

Then a cousin of mine turned up at my parents with some records to play (remember records?)

One of these said platters was Paranoid by black Sabbath, one listen and I was hooked into the sound, the rest followed, Zeppelin, Purple, Quo etc etc.

Then came 1976 and the Punk era, I loved this sound and image. I so wanted to be in a band. I bought a cheap Fender Strat copy and started to learn guitar (Badly) never seemed to matter with punk. I joined a few local lads to make a noise, sadly we never gigged and punk fizzled out as it was meant to.

I then went back to my rock roots with some guys I was at school with; I joined the band named Nightmare (aptly named) lots of rehearsals and one gig at a local St Johns ambulance hall (oh the glamour) The singer we had was pretty poor, so I was cajoled into singing on Whole Lotta Love. Seemed to be the way forward, so I ditched the guitar and carried on as vocalist.

This band came to an end due to apathy. Shortly after a friend was playing in a local band called Mean Arena, I auditioned and got the gig.  This was my first serious band, we even wrote songs and recorded a demo.

After being thrown out due to personality issues with the management (I’m not bitter) I was contacted by a guy called Chris Green, drummer with Chrome Molly.

A demo was sent over which I really liked, dropped into see them as a three piece (Nic on Vox) liked what I saw, auditioned, got the gig, and the rest is in the history pages.

The last 30 years in Molly have given me some great experiences, being still around to record together what I think is our best record ever is a real privilege.

Here’s to many more years, life in the old dog yet!!