Tim Hughes speaks to Chas and Dave on how they started and why they’re back

Chas Hodges has got only one explanation for those people who don’t like his music. “They haven’t heard it,” he says. “And if they have heard it and still don’t like it, they’ve got a screw loose!”

The pianist, one half of the ‘rockney’ duo Chas & Dave, has got a point. The iconic double act are practically national treasures — their chirpy pub-rock classics are part of the British psyche. Songs like Rabbit, The Sideboard Song, Margate, Aint No Pleasing You and Gertcha! are not only great sing-along tunes, they are London anthems which sound as fresh now as they did when they were first aired at the tail end of the 70s and early 80s.

“We play good honest music and we are good perform-ers,” says Chas, speaking from his home in rural Hertfordshire. “If people don’t get it, they are not on our wavelength.

“We do what we’ve always done, and we pride ourselves on being good musicians. My mum was a great piano player and brought us up with a love of music. My dad died when I was three — so there was lots of sadness around but also lots of happiness through music. That’s what music’s for: putting a smile on people’s faces.”

And, it seems, he can’t stop. Nearly 20 years after their last studio album, the top three hit Street Party, the pair are back with a new long player. Called That’s What Happens, it was recorded in the Beatles Room (Studio 2) at Abbey Road with Grammy-winning bluesman Joe Henry at the helm.

The release saw them return to the charts – reach-ing number 25 – and also returning to their roots in R&B, skiffle and rock & roll with a mix of classics and self-penned songs, with guests spots from guitarists Albert Lee and Martin Taylor, Buddy Holly & The Crickets’ drummer J I Allison, and Jools Holland and Hugh Laurie on piano.

“People always ask what comes first: the music or the lyrics? But for us, it was a phone call from Warner Bros asking us if we wanted to do a new album,” he says.

“It is a few years since our last one but I’m writing all the time, so it wasn’t anything different for me.

“The album is about taking it back to our roots, and it was good to get our old friends down – and pay them.”

The achievement is all the more remarkable seeing as it comes five years after the band split up: Dave Peacock hung up his bass following the death of his wife.

“He needed some time off,” says Chas. “When someone dies you can’t see beyond the end of your nose. But I knew, in time, Dave would fancy doing another gig. And we gradually started to do what we used to do.”

They are now on a national tour, which reaches Oxford on Monday.

“It’s our life,” he says. “Music is like eating and drinking. If I don’t gig I feel there’s something missing. It does get to you. I first got on stage when I was 13, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I remember that first night very well. At the end of the night I was floating in the clouds and someone gave me a one pound note. I realised it was the life for me.” Before forming the duo, Chas had a successful career as a session musician, playing with such greats as Jerry Lee Lewis, Joe Meek, Ritchie Blackmore and Albert Lee, who appears on the new album.

Among his lasting contributions is the hook from rapper Eminem’s number two hit My Name Is – actually a sample of the Labi Siffre tune, I Got The – on which both he and Dave played.

“I knew Dave a good 10 years before we got together,” he says.

The idea behind the duo came from a growing frustration at not being able to perform in his native accent. “London’s in my blood,” he says. “But we were touring America singing in American accents. It didn’t seem so bad in England, but in America it felt like taking the Mickey out of them. So I rang Dave and said ‘I’ve got an idea about singing in my own accent’. We were the first to do it and lots of people say we influenced them — people like Lily Allen say we inspired them to just go out and be themselves. You’ve got to be yourself; you can’t be anything else.”

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Another unlikely artist to cite Chas & Dave as a major influence is Peter Doherty of The Libertines. “We’ve always had a mixed audience,” says Chas. “But when people like Pete Doherty said we influenced them, it brought new fans. Like us, Pete is his own man and does what comes from the heart. It’s so obvious; I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it.

“By singing in a Mid-Atlantic accent you might command a bigger audience but there’s no longevity — and that’s why we’re still here!”

Monday’s show will see the band playing a mix of early tunes, hits and new work. “The theatre show is the Chas & Dave story,” he says. “The first half is Chas & Dave in the ‘70s; stuff we’d sing down the pub. People will hear songs they’ve never heard before, and it’s nice to bring them back.”

And fans can bank on hearing all their favourite hits.

“A lot of acts with hit records don’t want to play them on stage,” he says. “I know why; they were talked into doing them by record companies and have had to live with them. But the audience come to hear those songs.

“Me and Dave were doing alright. We wanted hit records but on our own terms. We knew we’d have to live with them for the rest of our lives, so every record we put out was with our backing. And that’s why we love playing those hits today.”

“If people have heard our music and say ‘I don’t like it’, there’s got to be something wrong with them!”

Chas & Dave
New Theatre, Oxford
Monday
Tickets £28.40- £31.40 + £2.85 transaction fee from atgtickets.com