THE WITHNAIL & I ACTOR AND FORMER DOCTOR WHO STAR TALKS US THROUGH HIS MUSICAL OBSESSIONS
STEVE O’BRIEN
Did you have any music posters on your wall growing up?
Of course. Mostly the kind you’d get free with magazines, though sometimes it might be the artwork that came with albums. It was a golden era, so there’d be pictures of David Bowie, Mott The Hoople, T. Rex, Alice Cooper...
What’s the first pop song you remember loving?
Puff The Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul And Mary. Don’t judge me.
Do you have a favourite album?
It’s probably an age thing, but these days I seem to have a different one each week which I’ll play, even via an app, in order and all the way through. Right now it’s Hejira by Joni Mitchell.
What about your favourite 80s album?
My wife and I first played Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love over and over on cassette while in the hills of Nepal in 1985. It amazed us then and still does now. And I’ll bet there’s a fair number of players and producers in their 30s and 40s who as children would listen to that second side on headphones in bed.
Are there any bands or artists that you’re a completist about?
Not really, as it would mean my having to love live, or worse, bootlegged live recordings. With a few exceptions, I just can’t.
Have you ever met any of your musical heroes?
Quite a few, and I’m glad to say none has ever disappointed. If I could turn back the clock and change one occasion it would be the night I met George Harrison at a party and he asked me to get up
What’s your favourite gig that you’ve been to?
Sometime in 1966, I was taken as a child by my mum to a packed Empire Theatre in Liverpool to see a revue headlined by Ben E. King which included The Cryin’ Shames, a group my then teenage cousin Ritchie Routledge played guitar with. It was the first of countless gigs that I’d see in my life but perhaps the most unforgettable. We’ve been remembering it again while mourning Ritchie’s death recently, aged 73.
If there was anyone, alive or dead, y
