The latest band to gain coverage on Mayhem Rockabilly is The Shooting Stars, a band full of different styles, that went down a storm at the 18th Annual Rockabilly Rave in June this year. I was luckily enough to have a catch up with the man that started the band and currently keeps the beat in one of the hottest vintage rocking bands on the circuit, drummer Ricky Lee Brawn.
Ricky was previously in The Space Cadets and when they weren’t continuing the drummer formed The Shooting Stars. As I touched on earlier, they are full of different styles, but played the main stage at The Rockabilly Rave this year. It was actually one of their first gigs but you would never have been able to tell as they were simply incredible as thousands of people enjoyed their show with many of them ending up buying their EP at the weekender.
“The reason The Shooting Stars were formed was due to the fact that The Space Cadets finished but I wasn’t. That gave me the opportunity to form a new band that really rocks in a way that moves me” confirmed Brawn.
“I asked Darren Lince (guitar) and Darren Richards (bass) that were in The Space Cadets after the Harman brothers both left, they are both great musicians. Helen Ingham, who is my wife, had been playing a lot of mandolin in the style of Jethro Burns and Tiny Moore so it was a natural choice to add her to compliment the sound of the band. It was her that suggested seven foot tall ‘Big’ Steve Arlene on vocals who is fantabulosa! At first we had Phil Morgan on steel but that didn’t work out also Darren Richards was too busy with Jack Rabbit Slim so he was replaced by Wayne Harrison on bass, I just love this new line up as it is real tight and now very powerful” said the drummer.
As it’s already been mentioned there are many different styles within the band from rockabilly, country and a little touch of folk, I asked the man behind the beat whether that was always his intention, or whether in fact it was with a stroke of luck.
“When I form a band, my job is to bring together capable people, then sit back and see what happens. Everyone has an equal say with the material, the only rule I made was that we only do our own material, we are lucky in this band to have some great song writers. Naturally each of our individual influences comes out through our material. Haley, country, folk, bluegrass, rockabilly, Latin etc. I think that we have something different, basically we are a rock and roll band in its truest sense, I hope others will agree” states Ricky.
“I believe if you write your own material you gain more respect as a band. I am sick of hearing the same old songs and cover versions and to me it shows a lack of imagination. Surely they (other bands) have the capability of writing some of their own material, to me if you have to do a cover, you have to make it your own. You can never beat the original in its first form”.
Like most of the bands that have been quizzed by Mayhem Rockabilly performed at The Rave during the summer this year and Ricky informs us how he got the band on the main stage and what he believes makes his band unique.
“I went to visit Jerry at his place and I said to him I have a great idea for a band that I would like to launch at The Rave. I also told him that I didn’t have the band at that time, just an idea, and I wanted to see if he would trust me which he did. He gave us a great spot at The Rave, we loved it as did the audience and Del Villarreal said after the show that “You guys took The Rave” who am I to argue? What makes the band unique in my opinion is our sound and energy and dance-ability!”
So after the success of the summer performance things have gone from strength to strength and the interview was summed up by Ricky, who enjoyed chatting to us, as he looks forward to what the future has in store for himself and the band.
“Apart from The Rave we went to The Summer Jamboree in Senigallia, Italy, a crowd of 5,000 people and it was wild! We have also been very busy with our other projects, we have a whole lot of gig action booked for next year as well as recording a new album in my new studio to be built over the next few months. Very exciting times ahead!”.