The nice guys of rock ‘n’ roll

[BrunoBass]

+1 for Billy Bragg. In a previous life when I was working in commercial interiors I visited his partner who was a client of mine and ran her business from their house in Dorset. Billy was there and was a top bloke, so was his son who made me a cup of tea.
Frank Turner is a decent chap who always takes time to talk after a show (if he can, not always possible) and his band mates are cool too. His pianist Matt Nasir gave me and my mate guestlist tickets to a show after we got talking to him, and his drummer Nigel Powell sometimes drinks in my local and is a lovely guy.
Recently I took my teenage daughter to see Black Veil Brides, we stuck around to meet them afterwards because she loves them and they were very nice, chatty and generous with their time.

[iamtheelvy]

The guys from Tera Melos - lovely chaps! Saw them in Brighton a while back at possibly their worst ever show (literally everything breaking and the show cut short in favour of a crappy blues jam). Rather than shooting off, they stayed and hung out in the bar with us for the next couple of hours !

[scalpy]

Sir George Martin made a joke about me. In a very nice way.

[Hobbayne]

Met Brian Bethell bassist of Nine Below Zero while watching a band at the old Red Lion in Brentford many years back. Thoroughly nice bloke. Gave us a lift to the station in his little Renault.

[Bilbo]

Interviewed Ron Carter. He was lovely.

[Telebass]

Lee Sklar is really the only biggie I've met. Such a nice man.

[RhysP]

Pretty much every 'famous' musician I've met has been really nice.
There were a few notables who were total arseholes though....

Edited February 9, 2016 by RhysP

[grandad]

Not this century.

Had a nice chat with Jet Harris once.

[TrevorR]

Can I nominate Gordon Giltrap. I got to know him over the years and he's so self effacing and such a gent.

Also dear old Herbie Flowers. Saw him playing bass in Jeff Wayne's WotW a few years ago in Brighton. The following afternoon my wife and I were wandering the back streets when we saw Herbie and Chris Spedding trundling their overnight bags down the street towards the theatre for that evening's show. I said to Herbie, "Don't want to disturb you or hold you up but just wanted to say how much we enjoyed the show and what a treat it was to hear you and Chris recreating your parts..." We would have just left it there but he insisted on stopping for a proper chat, wanted to know about us, asked about my bass playing, shared a few anecdotes... Just a lovely bloke!

[Rich]

The only famous bassists I've met are Herbie Flowers, Stu Hamm and Mo Foster. All three are lovely guys more than happy to chat. Mo in particular is an absolute gent.
Mr Flowers was even kind enough to roll us a 'jazz Woodbine'. Mind you, that was many many years ago.

[charic]

JJ Burnell
Dream Theater
George Fisher (Corpsegrinder from Cannibal Corpse)
Pythia
Enslaved
Ed Hetherton from Elliot Minor
Herman Li from Dragonforce (didn't even realise who he was, was just chatting away to a stranger at a gig and wondered why there was a crowd watching me...)

All be a great laugh, no rush and no pretensions. Couldn't fault any of them at all

[NancyJohnson]

Me and my wife used to follow The Alarm around and ran into Mike Peters a few times away from music stuff. He tried to get me and a mate into the backstage area when the Sex Pistols played Crystal Palace.

A few years ago we were flying back from New York and he spotted me, said a cheery Hello and we stood up the back of the plane talking about gigs for an hour.

Lovely bloke.

Edited February 11, 2016 by NancyJohnson

[NancyJohnson]

Motley Crue as well, strangely enough. Granted this was early on. They were really nice guys. Tommy Lee bit me on the shoulder for some reason.

[planer]

Another +1 for Mr Flowers. I go to a lot of his Brighton jazz gigs with my Dad, and my little lad mentioned he wanted to go too, right at the last minute.

This particular gig was sold out, so I took a flyer and sent Herbie an email out of the blue, asking if there was any way he could sneak my son in. If I'm honest, I didn't expect a reply.

I got a lovely long email in return, saying yes, we can do it, his name will be on the guest list, and make sure you come and say hi. So we did. A kind, friendly, happy human being, he always has time before and after the shows to wander round and have a natter with the audience, shake some hands and pose for pictures.

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='BottomE' timestamp='1454756727' post='2972627']
BB King was a legend. Young and starry eye'd we waited outside the stage door after a gig he did in Bristol. When he came out with his 9 piece band + wives and girlfriends he stopped and asked what we were doing. When we said we were waiting to meet him he got us onto his tour bus with coffees and teas, sat us down, introduced us to the band and entourage, signed loads of photos, gave us other stuff. We had to make our excuses and leave in the end. He was in no hurry.
[/quote]
Wow! Just wow!

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='grandad' timestamp='1455056853' post='2975599']
Not this century.

Had a nice chat with Jet Harris once.
[/quote]

I've seen the Shads' a couple of times, albeit without Jet. They happily posed for pics and signed things, and Hank actually asked if everyone was happy and had got what they wanted, before the band left. Legend.

[Marc S]

Back when I was starting out on bass the first time around (early 80's)
Me & a pal found out where Ex Eddie & The Hotrods, and current (then) bassist of the Damned, Paul Gray lived

One sunday morning, a mate & myself just cold-called at his house, and asked him to show us some Damned basslines - cheeky gits that we were! He showed us into his house, and sat us down in his music room, gave me a free bass lesson, let us play on his Rick, which had been on TOTP, OGWT, and several albums. He said it was time for his lunch, gave us his phone number and invited us back

Thing was, next time, instead of phoning well ahead & planning, we didn't give him much notice again (think it was about 2 days),
saying we wanted to learn a couple of Damned songs, and a Hotrods song for a gig next week,and the legend of a guy accommodated us!
Again, free lesson, and got invited back. Shortly afterwards, Paul joined UFO, and offered me tickets to see them live in Cardiff

Now, years later, I bump into him locally from time to time. He's always friendly & chatty, shakes hands, and even remembers my name
He was very ill a few years back, and I was gutted, and told him so. He said he was overwhelmed by the amount of good wishes he'd had from locals, and even facebook friends who he's never even met.

Still as nice a guy as anyone could ever wish to meet, and still one of my main influences years on. Great guy

PS. As someone else said earlier, so is Billy Bragg. I've met him & chatted a couple of times.
As suggested, I think the money secondary for him, he's a man of principles

Good to read similar stories from other BC'ers - Nice thread

Edited February 11, 2016 by Marc S

[neilp]

Snowy White was a lovely bloke, absolutely charming. Had a chat with Mike Rutherford on a plane from Lisbon to Heathrow once, he was charming too. I've met Robert Plant three times, and he actually remembered me - that may not be such a good thing, thinking about it! One of the nicest guys on the planet, but doesn't suffer fools. That's it though, no famous bass players at all!

[rushbo]

Another +1 for the Hot Rods. I depped for a band that supported them a couple of years ago and they were all absolute sweethearts. We had a lengthy table tennis tournament in the green room and they let us have their entire (sizeable) food rider as they'd eaten during the day. They were brilliant, too...Barrie Masters can still belt it out.

[LewisK1975]

Met Billy Sheehan a couple of times and also had some message exchanges with him about gear problems I was having, he's an incredibly nice bloke and more than happy to talk to anyone, and what he doesn't know about Basses / Amps / Effects etc isn't worth knowing..and he's happy to share his knowledge..

[TrevorR]

I met Phil Lynott once, after a gig on the farewell Lizzy tour. After queuing for autographs I phoned dad and had good half hour wait while he drove from Truro to St Austell to fetch me. Bored, I wandered back into the empty hall to watch the roadies break down the set, as was my habit. Suddenly Philo appeared from backstage carrying a half empty Smirnoff bottle and clocked this forlorn teenager in a huge empty hall. He asked "What's up, you OK?" And when I explained I was just waiting for my lift he beckoned me up on stage and said, "Well, you can wait up here if you like." So for the next twenty minutes or so we sat side by side on Brian Downey's drum riser chatting about this or that and shooting the breeze. Talking about music, stuff we liked, Phil's plans post-Lizzy. He really seemed like a genuinely lovely, soft spoken (slightly drunk) guy. Bless him, he was still in full stage apparel and was dangling his legs back and forth. He was mortified when he accidentally kicked my shin with his big cowboy boots and apologised the way only a cheerfully half cut person can. Eventually dad appeared at far end of the hall, wondering where I was. I bade Phil farewell and jumped down off the stage before heading home.

Also when I was putting my Wal history blog together I chatted to or met a few Wal players. All were really nice folks but three stand out in memory as particularly great. Percy Jones, great fellow, Justin Meldal Johnsen who was a laugh and a total bass geek... But loveliest of all was John G Perry of Quatrum Jump, Giltrap Band and Caravan fame. Just such a nice guy.

Edited February 11, 2016 by TrevorR

[peteb]

The late Phil Kennemore of Y&T was a really nice bloke. A couple of us were drinking at the bar after a Y&T show while one of our geekier friends was trying to get autographs when Phil came to get a drink. We ended up chatting and drinking for an hour or so, talking mainly about travel and his love of Britain rather than music or Y&T, whilst he drank the bar dry of dark spirits!

The rest of the band made an appearance later and all seemed nice enough guys but didn't really get the humour (we were taking the mickey a bit by this point) but Kennemore just had a laugh and chatted like we were all old mates!

[spectoremg]

[quote name='neilp' timestamp='1455201349' post='2976981']
Snowy White was a lovely bloke, absolutely charming. Had a chat with Mike Rutherford on a plane from Lisbon to Heathrow once, he was charming too. I've met Robert Plant three times, and he actually remembered me - that may not be such a good thing, thinking about it! One of the nicest guys on the planet, but doesn't suffer fools. That's it though, no famous bass players at all!
[/quote]You spoke actual words and stuff with Mike Rutherford. Envy.

[Big_Stu]

I know or have more than a passing nod with a handful of music world "names". Two are seriously nice guys that very rarely have a hostile word to say about anything.
I suspect that like many folk some of the big names have a public persona that only close friends and family get to see.
"Who says?"
......... bloke down the pub..........

[starman]

Jimmy Page was very nice, took the time to chat with my young son about his guitar playing and to sign some autographs.
Most of the Punks I met were very nice, Siouxsie and Steve Severin, JJB, Hazel O'Connor chatted to me for an hour about life in general while she was having a fag break during the recording of the Sons and Lovers album. Dave Martin from Chelsea (the band not the team) was a very friendly guy as is James Stevenson and Gerry Cott from the Boomtown Rats.