I was trawling through some very old material that would have been on the old version of the musicmuso website, lo and behold, I stumbled across an interview that we did with Boz Boorer (founding member of the Polecats and more recently, Morrissey's guitarist). I managed to catch him whilst he was in LAX Airport waiting to board a plane back to the UK.
So ladies and gentlemen, I give you 10 questions that I posed to Boz and his responses....
You were in your teens when you started with the Polecats. How did you find yourself involved with the rockabilly revival in the first place?
As youngsters we listened to our first drummer's brothers records, they were teddy boys and the records they had were mainly Dutch rockabilly reissues of rare rockabilly records, only we didn't know it was rockabilly then it was all rock n roll, then we started to sing and play the songs ourselves
Who is your favourite rockabilly artist and what is your favourite rockabilly track?
I can only name one? that's cruel! Mac Curtis, Ronnie Dawson, Charlie Feathers
Where is Neil Rooney now?
No idea, he was a photocopy machine repair man the last time I had a report but that was 20 years ago
Which is best, playing huge shows with Morrissey or playing small rocking joints such as the Falcon Plymouth with the Polecats and getting to hang out with the fans?
I prefer smaller shows to festivals, we get to play theatres with Morrissey, the smaller stand up venues are always the best
Do you think there will be another rockabilly revival on the scale of the late 70's early 80's?
I can't see it, the way the whole music industry works now would make it not possible
Imelda May seems to be the big rockabilly name at the moment. Who else do you tip for the big time?
I don't know, there's lots of great singers and players out there
I read about your 'Pink Penguin', have Gretsch ever contacted you in order to discuss making a run of 'replicas' to offer to the masses?
The Pink Penguin was going to be a limited run as a Boz guitar but at the last minute they just made one, making it the first Gretsch custom order, they have made a few since but not the same
With the invention of social networking sites (Facebook/Twitter/YouTube etc) do you think that the fun has been taken out of 'discovering' new bands in the way that we all did back in the 80/90's?
Not taken the fun out of it, just changed things
Do you personally feel that The Smiths will ever reform? After Moz's remark of "I would rather eat my own testicles than reform The Smiths, and that's saying something for a vegetarian." I can't quite see it myself!
Me neither
What's your take on these so called TV 'talent' shows? 100% rigged or some element of truth and honesty?
If they were talent shows only the best would get through, none of the funny or rubbish, so they are geared towards television audiences, they are not talent shows but they are grooming people for short lived TV fame.
SOCIAL MEDIA