No Hot Ashes: Interview with Eamon Nancarrow and Steve Strange

In a parallel universe Eamon Nancarrow is sipping Wild Turkey poolside in Bel Air with his pneumatic porn star girlfriend whilst sifting through the megabuck offers to take his legendary rock ’n’ roll crew out on a final continent-straddling stadium tour.

Instead, he’s taken a quick break from his Belfast Infection Control nursing job to tell us about the unexpected return of No Hot Ashes, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-era outfit he fronted – and who went their separate ways 23-years ago after failing to achieve the commercial lift-off that many in the hard rock world had predicted.

“I like your version of events,” Eamon laughs, “but the pneumatic porn star girlfriend bit would get me into a lot of trouble! Yeah, we were selling pretty big gigs out in Belfast; supporting Steve Marriott and Magnum and after I left – it’s a long story! – the lads got signed by Motörhead manager Doug Smith to his GWR Records label. There was talk of Motörhead’s ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke producing the album, but the planets never quite aligned. We had a fantastic fucking time though!”

No Hot Ashes take up a good few chapters in Eamon’s Holywood Star: The Life And Times Of A Rock ’N’ Roll Misadventurer memoir – that’s Holywood, County Down by the way – which also has a great section on Van Morrison.

“My Da played with him in a couple of showbands called The Great Eight and The Monarchs,” he explains, “and whenever Van was back in town he’d invite him to where he was staying or playing for a drink.”

There’s a brilliant line where Eamon describes Van as speaking “like an East Belfast docker pretending to be Roy Rodgers while chewing a brick.”

“Aye, he’d start off all American and then got more and more Belfast as the pints went down!” the singer smiles. “You hear a lot of bad stuff about Van, but he couldn’t have been nicer to my Da or myself and my mate Ken, when we were taken along one day to meet him. It was just two old friends talking about the good old days – with two starstruck kids not quite believing they were in the presence of the genius who’d written ‘Into The Mystic’ and ‘Jackie Wilson Said'.”

There’s an even better story about how Steve Marriott was pulled off his tour bus at Larne harbour and arrested for not paying a £400 bar bill that had actually been racked up by Eamon and his mates.

“Guilty as charged,” he ‘fesses. “He brought his band Packet Of Three to the La Mon House Hotel, which had been really badly bombed a few years before. Even though he’d been in Humble Pie and gone more bluesy, it was all Mods in the crowd who absolutely hated us! As I imagine Steve Marriott did when the police caught up with him. We’d assumed that being the headline act he was getting free booze and we'd used his name to order massive rounds, champagne and ‘whatever the ladies are having’!”

Like the Harp Bar-inspired punk scene that preceded it, the early ‘80s Belfast metal contingent had its own club house.

“Aye, we all used to go to The Rosetta Bar, which was in a Protestant part of South Belfast just off the Ormeau. But once you were inside it wasn’t, ‘Where are you from?’ but ‘Maiden or Whitesnake?’ you were asked. The upstairs venue was always in danger of becoming the downstairs venue because when people were jumping up and down the fl oor jumped with ‘em. You’d be sitting in the bar thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to come down on top of us!’

“The only god talked about in the Rosetta was Rory Gallagher. He was a real hero in Belfast because, even at the height of The Troubles when visiting bands couldn’t get insurance, he’d always come up and play. He was really appreciated by people for doing that and, of course, he was a phenomenal performer. Motörhead were another band who always included a Northern Ireland date on their tours.”

One of the Rosie regulars was a fresh-faced lad by the name of Vivian Campbell.

“He joined Sweet Savage when he was 15, and even then you knew he was a very special guitarist,” Eamon recalls. “We were spoiled having him and Pat McManus from Mama’s Boys around at the same time. We were all really, really proud when Vivian went on to play with Ronnie Dio, Whitesnake, Def Leppard and Lizzy. Funnily enough, he came in last week to see the covers band I’m in, Strictly No Ballroom, do our Saturday night residency in the Empire. He had the big cancer scare last year, but he’s in remission now and looking great. Vivian stays with Steve whenever he’s in Belfast.”

The Steve in question being Steve Strange, No Hot Ashes’ drummer who’s gone on to become one of the biggest booking agents in the world with Coldplay, Eminem, Queens Of The Stone Age and Snow Patrol among his X-ray Touring charges.“Vivian’s in great form at the minute,” Steve confirms. “I manage him as part of Last In Line, which is Vivian and the other guys who used to be in Dio, plus a new singer. They’ve been writing and rehearsing and go into the studio next month to record a new album.

"After the Ashes broke up in London in late ‘89," Steve recalls, "I got a gig with ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke’s band, Fastway. We did a reunion tour in 2007, which included some big European and Japanese festivals. I’ve also done Tim Wheeler and Emmy The Great’s Christmas shows each year, so I wasn’t totally out of practice when the rest of the guys got in contact about getting No Hot Ashes back together for a benefit gig in The Rosetta, which has very sadly closed down now. Chad Smith, who’s a good friend of mine, sent me a snare drum with a note on it saying, ‘Here’s the snare, get the rest of the kit, you lazy bastard!’ so I’d had encouragement. Another person who’s always been very supportive of me getting back playing and my musical career in general is MCD’s Denis Desmond who’s a massive hard rock fan.”

As an unashamed Motörheadbanger – aged 15 I ran away from home and saw them a dozen times on the Ace Of Spades tour – I have to ask Steve more about ‘Fast’ Eddie and Doug Smith, who’d been trying to look after Lemmy since his Hawkwind days.

“Eddie’s a lovely guy who, fair play to him, hasn’t touched a drop of drink for 35-years. As for Doug, I think he needed as much looking after as Lemmy did! He was a real character who was also managing Girlschool at the time, and got money from the old Pye Records company to set GWR up as a specialist rock label. I rang the office and he took my call thinking I was the other Steve Strange from Visage. Doug knew Steve from when him and Lemmy used to hang out at the Camden Palace, which had been the London club of choice for serious hedonists.

"I sent him some demos, and a week later he flew us all over and signed us on the spot. How shall I put this... as the day went on Doug would become more creative but forgetful, as was befitting of somebody who’d been involved with Hawkwind!”

Given the globetrotting nature of his dayjob – Steve’s just off a plane from Australia and spends three months a year in Los Angeles doing deals – what sold Steve on the idea of getting back with the old crew?

“At first, it was definitely going to be this one-off gig for a bit of crack, but as soon as we got into the room together playing we realised, ‘Hey, there’s still something here’,” he enthuses. “We did some demos, which to be honest were even better than the old stuff, so there’s going to be an album. I made a few calls and got us these gigs with Foreigner. They’re honest to god heroes of ours, so we’re really looking forward to it.”

Catch No Hot Ashes live when they play the Dublin Olympia (March 31) and the Belfast Waterfront (April 1) with Foreigner and FM. Holywood Star is available from Amazon.