Take five band members, two road-crew, and one battered coach bought for £500 at a dodgy auction. Load with bunk beds, oven and fridge for home-brew. Put all the gear, pa, lights and one small motorbike in the specially engineered (trashed!) back area… and what do you have? A recipe for disaster and fun! Between 1981-84, Black Rose trundled around the country in a variety of clapped-out, diesel hungry, death-defying vehicles that were bought to 'save money'. Our much-maligned manager, Jim Sculley, who believed that saving money was his goal in life, invented this concept! The expression 'Pay peanuts, get monkey's' always springs to mind myself and it seemed like the more Jim tried to save, the flatter his wallet got! Anyway, some of the times on the road were so bizarre, that even the writers of Spinal Tap could not have even got close to the things that happened to Black Rose! Here are a few of them.

The Incredible locking brakes!

Our first vehicle was a Luton 'box-top' that I think Jim swapped for a box of comics, three Action Men and a 'bit of gold' (Jim was a jeweller and would regularly try and pay for stuff with gold until one guy asked him if he thought he was 'a bloody pirate!'). It was parked outside my flat, the notorious 295 Norton Road and I had the keys…it was too much of a temptation and one fine day in 1982, me and Malla decided to take it for a spin and make some filthy lucre by delivering a canoe to a friend of a friend in Darlington. The fact that the van wasn't taxed, MOT'ed or roadworthy didn't seem important at the time…£20 for two hours work was a fair whack in the dole days! I suppose the fact that I hadn't passed my test or ever driven a van could be seen by some as a trifle foolish (!) but 'Needs must when the Devil vomits in your kettle', as Blackadder eloquently put it!
So we set-off and things went well. The canoe was delivered in one piece and we got our cash and came back with the intention of a pint and a curry toastie (fine food in those days!). All was peachy keen and as I turned into the side road next to 295, I said to Malla, 'There you go, back safe and sound". Barely had I got the last word out of my mouth when I put my foot on the brakes and nothing happened. We trundled on and stopped-thanks to a brand new Ford Escort stopping us! The back end was demolished and we stayed to meet the happy owner…things were sorted out and I went to phone Jim. "Good news", Jim started before I could get a word out, "I've just got the insurance through for the van". "That's a relief", I replied, "I've just had an accident!" The words that followed cannot be repeated but I was a figure of ridicule to Jim for a number of weeks, my excuse that the brakes had failed only making him rise up more than ever. This continued until one day the band turned up for rehearsal at the Swan Hotel in Billingham. We had emptied the van of gear and Jim said he would go and park it. He took the opportunity to mock me once again, saying, "I'd better watch out for these brakes, Chris". His sentence had only just finished as he drove straight through a 6-foot high fence bordering the pub and ended up in a big, burly, tattooed bloke's greenhouse!!! Laugh? We nearly died! As he came out, covered in tomato plants, being chased by this guy who had been woken from his slumber (he worked nights), all he could utter were the immortal words, "The brakes failed!" Epic laughter ensued and a change of undergarments were suggested for Jim!

The demise of the Luton

The Luton Boxtop lasted a number of months until a wheel fell off on the way to a gig in London (the band turning up on the back off a huge tow-truck for the final 150 miles.) A guy at the garage next door to the gig said he would fix it. Much banging and hammering ensued and at 4.55pm, he said it was repaired. Jim paid the guy lots of cash and one of our road crew took it for a spin. As he turned into Kensington High Street, the wheel once again fell off and caused chaos as London buses tried desperately to get round us. We were probably on the 'Flying Eye'! Of course, by the time Jim went to see the guy at the garage, he had shut shop and gone home-with Jim's money! As for the van…it could still be there today!

The late night Chinese dash

We ended up buying a huge coach that had been done out for a stock car team. The back third of the coach had all the seats taken out and ramps and a winch put in which we removed so we could get the gear in. We were very proud of it and it was not allowed to sit outside my flat for obvious reasons! We looked for anybody that could and would drive it for a tenner and beer, and found a guy called Peter who was game for a life on the road with a rock band. After a gig in Chesterfield, Peter and I were called on to go out and look for a chinese takeaway. We headed out in the coach and Pete took a left into darkness. We had ended up on a country road with fields either side and stone walls stopping us turning. The road got narrower and narrower until the inevitable happened-the bus got too wide for the road! The sound of metal being twisted and crushed was enough for us to stop and investigate. The coach had been ripped open like a tin-opener opening a can of sardines on both sides! Pete looked and said the immortal line, "Maybe they won't notice"! We reversed the coach for about 2 miles (this took about an hour) and eventually got back to the gig where Jim certainly did notice! It was repaired but we lost the coach after the South Yorkshire police stopped us one winter's night and had a look around. We were pretty clean living guys (no drugs etc) but what spoilt it was that Jim had only insured it as a motor home (to save money again!) and it needed somebody with a proper licence and insurance. The police impounded it and it was crushed into a small cube. We stopped buying vehicles after this and rented instead!

Dodgy Drivers

A couple of side splitting occasions spring to mind. Peter was ousted after the coach stripping escapade and another guy, Ernie, turned up one cold morning to drive us to London. Jim had hired a 7.5 tonne truck to take us down. (Great thinking…5 band, 2 road-crew, assorted girlfriends and only two passenger seats in the front. Guess where we spent the next 5 hours…in the back with the gear!) Jim parked his Merc in front of the truck and we started up and were just leaving. "How long you been driving, Ernie?" I innocently asked as we started to pull away. "Fifteen years without an accident" said Ernie as he smashed into the back of Jim's Merc! Hilarity prevailed again as Jim surveyed the damage to his pride and joy. Pay peanuts…

Another gig, another driver. These two guys turned up from Hartlepool. The driver had an arm and one leg in plaster! We thought the other guy was there to help him drive. He couldn't drive as he hadn't before and was only there to skin-up joints for the guy who was driving with the arm and leg in plaster! Thank God we broke down in Boroughbridge where, on waiting for Jim to sort out the van, we spent all the fuel and food money in the pub! Jim arrived to take us home to find us legless and on the street-thrown out of the pubs for being 'boisterous'. Sorry Boroughbridge, no harm intended!

The best accommodation we ever had

We were asked to do a 'Live Aid' style charity gig in Skegness for a promoter who was the spitting image of Clint Eastwood (the name Clint was slightly changed to a less friendly one after this gig! Use your imagination) We were told that about 20 bands were on, we would be near the top of the bill, with The Groundhogs actually being the headliners. For our free services, we would be staying in a bed and breakfast and all our meals and fuel expenses would be met. OK so far. We headed off and the first worry was that the road too Skegness was very quiet but the road out of Skegness looked like the M25 on a bad day! Not good. We arrived at a pub and mingled with the rest of the bands. It was very social and, as we all felt we were playing for a good cause, egos were left at the door. Several rounds later and, feeling the worse for wear, we asked the promoter the way to 'the hotel'. He despatched one of his guys to drop us off. We'd been on the road for about ten minutes when we turned left into a graveyard! 'Funny location' I innocently thought. We went for another hundred yards and saw a building in front of us. The guy unlocked the door and was off like a rat up a drainpipe. We pawed our way along the wall until we came to a light-switch. One of us turned it on and we all looked in total bewilderment. The building was a Scout Hut in the middle of a graveyard. The bed? A big trampoline in the middle of the room! So this was the weirdest place we ever stayed…all six of us on this bloody trampoline!
The gig itself was a disaster. Twenty bands. Twenty-seven paying punters! The band members outnumbered the bloody audience! The reason the roads were packed on the road out of Skegness? It was the end of the holiday season and everybody who had holidayed or worked there, left en mass. Nice thinking Clint, nice one…the end of the night saw everybody looking for Clint who had made a hasty retreat. We headed back to Cleveland, looking for hills to put the van in neutral so we could save fuel.

Hartlepool Town Hall

Every band has a gig that sticks in the mind for good or bad reasons. This one took the biscuit as the most hilarious 'Tap-esque type gig we ever did. It was quite a big gig and we'd been looking forward to it but it was a disaster from start to finish. Firstly, Jim was being the Master of Ceremonies and introducing all the bands. The lighting guy decided to put a huge pyro (smoke bomb) in front of the lead vocal mic so that when we came on, Steve, the singer, could press a small button on the stage and set this thing off. Nobody told Jim. He came on, shouted, "Please welcome Black Rose" and stepped on the switch! It nearly tore his trousers off and the crowd howled! We came on, howling ourselves. Malla fell backwards off his drum riser and pulled the backdrop down, Steve put his foot on the monitor (as you did) and it, and him, fell off the stage into the baying crowd, and I got my lead tangled up in my feet and fell over. This left the bass player, Mick, playing by himself! Embarrassed? I wanted to curl up into a ball and die. The problem with doing macho style heavy metal is that it's all front and attitude. If you look stupid (just look in the gallery for how stupid you can look!), the image goes out of the window! Very funny now but at the time I wanted the Earth to open up and swallow me!

Ghosts?

This is a true story but I have no idea what happened…my first time in a studio was recording three tracks at Guardian Studios in County Durham. The house was actually built in an old miners cottage and we Terry, the owner gave us stories of 'ghostly happenings'. All I knew was that it was very cold in the drum/vocal booth and it had a very eerie feeling. This could have been down to the fact that the band was winding each other up all the time. We were staying at the studio and every night as we were going to bed, someone would start with 'did you hear that?' or whatever. We were there three days and we recorded 'No point Runnin', Sucker For Your Love' and 'Ridin' Higher'. These tracks would eventually be released as singles and also on Guardian's Roxcalibur album (they should never have been released-they should have been locked up for life!).
Anyway, eventually we forgot about the 'ghost' thing and buckled down to trying to get the best recording we could. On the final day, we were mixing the tracks in the control room. All the band was sitting on a sofa, intently listening to the mix to make sure everything was there. Our Road Manager, Barry Clapp, was sat opposite, and him and me were looking at each other intently and making notes about the mix. I was also sat a few feet away from the band (I like my own space when I'm concentrating!) All of a sudden, my hair was pulled violently (I had very long hair) and, I mean, violently. The rest of the band was too wrapped up to notice (they were also sitting on the same side as me which would have made it difficult) but Barry did. His eyes nearly popped out of his head and he looked very frightened. I knew instantly that it wasn't anybody in the room as it had been more than a friendly tug and there was absolutely no sign of a reaction or giggling or anything. The rest of the guys were in another world listening to that track. Barry made a quick gesture as if to say, 'don't say anything-keep on with the mix'. We didn't mention it to the other guys once the track finished or until we'd left and were on our way back to Cleveland. That confirmed for me that it wasn't a prank-there was no catch-line. We told them afterwards but nobody believed us. Barry said he was watching my face for reaction to the recording and that my hair just went up in the air and was pulled hard enough to make my head go wildly to the left. This guy was an ex-marine who had seen a lot of things but this was a new one for him.
We headed back and went straight to Radio Tees where we were going to do an interview on a local Rock Show that was waiting to hear this newly recorded stuff. I was being asked by the presenter, Brian Anderson,what my thoughts were when my mouth decided to stop working! My mouth started to go to one side and I gave a little shriek, as I didn't know what was wrong. My speech became a bit strange and I tried my best to carry on. I went to the Doctor a few days later and he told me I had 'bell's palsy' which had almost certainly come as a result of a shock to my system. I was off work for 3 weeks as I couldn't close or open my eye and, as a welder, I would have got a 'flash', which is pretty painful. I still have no idea what happened but I'm certain something wasn't very impressed with our demo! Like I said at the beginning, true…but who's going to believe you?