Music map

I lived in Hereford, I think, for the first eight years of my life.

After that I moved to Ross, and it was around that time when I really got interested in music.

It was Terry Griffin (Buffin) from Mott The Hoople who lent me his drum kit for the first gig I ever did – it was at St Mary's Church Hall.

My father, Peter Chambers, played at Wormelow a lot of the time, in the Russ Allen band.

I never really did learn to play the drums… I kind of knew how to make the noise.

I sat on the arm of a chair with some knitting needles, and played along to Shadows records, when I was about eight or nine, and annoyed the hell out of my parents.

London and The Pretenders

I went to the Labour Exchange because I didn't have any money.

I thought 'I'll get a job with a car.' - 'What is there? Oh – driving instructor'.

Chrissie Hynde

So I did it just purely to get transport, to get back to Hereford on the weekends.

When I sat in the first time with Chrissie, Jimmy and Pete, it was easy.

Chrissie doesn't seem to have a great deal of an attachment to any music profile at all.

She's very free – and you've got to be like that.

I think if you learn music properly – learn the dots and everything else – it tends to throw you into more of a formatted area than a free area.

I think, in rock'n'roll especially, you've got to be completely free.

Making it

I remember getting the call from the publisher, Clive Banks, saying 'Congratulations – you've got the first number one of the new year – and first number one album'.

It's an extraordinary feeling, and being with Warner Brothers – an international company – they want you everywhere.

What you have is a terrific feeling of euphoria when you're out on the road, and what happens is you come back and there's a big hole.

So it's not necessarily when you're on the road doing drugs and stuff, it's when you're not on the road.

Losing friends

(James Honeyman-Scott, the original guitarist from The Pretenders, died in 1982. Pete Farndon, the orginal bassist, died in 1983. Both deaths were drug related.)

I miss those guys so much - they were very, very close friends of mine.

It's amazing how we've managed to keep the thing going really… to lose 50% of the group within a year was horrible. It's very, very difficult.

I think it became easier once we rehearsed and rehearsed (the new band) and did a tour.

Live Aid

We were at the JFK stadium, which they bulldozed a couple of years ago.

There were about 100,000 people in there, but of course, it was one of the first major satellite link-ups.

The crowds at Live Aid, Wembley 1985

I think it was 2.5 billion people were watching us.

It is extraordinary to think there was a significant proportion of the planet looking at you – it was a pretty extraordinary thing, Live Aid.