-Guest post by Tiffany Murray, author of My Family and Other Rock Stars.
‘Rockfield Studios is a farm with rock ’n’ roll and my mother is the cordon bleu chef. In the Quadrangle’s blue kitchen, she plays ‘That Ain’t the Way to Behave’ by Dr Feelgood, and ‘How Long’ by Ace, because she fed these songs. In our chalet (which she calls a converted stable) she keeps live shellfish in the bath, and they spit at me when I’m on the loo. Rockfield Studios is a kingdom of fields all the way to Monmouth. There are horses and cows and sheep, echo chambers and control rooms at Rockfield. Managers and record labels call the two studios ‘the Quadrangle’ and ‘the Coach House’, but we say, ‘Studio One’ and ‘Studio Two’. Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds walk the tracks as big trucks filled with instruments and amps turn in the yard, and even though the Old Mill is a drive away, when the wind blows, I’m sure I can hear Black Sabbath rehearse. At Rockfield my night sounds are back: the dof-da—da, doof-da-da of drums, the high whine of electric guitar.
Mum and I are safe here; even if Hawkwind throw open the double doors of the studio in the middle of the night and wake me with ‘The Wizard Blew His Horn’.
It’s my lullaby.’
-Tiffany Murray, My Family and Other Rock Stars (Fleet, 2024)
Is the cliché true? Does childhood memory make a place bigger, fantastical? When I returned (at first on the page) to the Rockfield Studios of my childhood I re-remembered the Wye Valley, Monmouthshire, but also the stink of denim and leather, the drip of damp farm buildings and the ear-itching pitch of Queen, Black Sabbath, Motorhead on my very young ears. After my first draft (no, let’s be honest about the writing process, my 6th draft) Lisa Ward of Rockfield Studios said, ‘come and stay, Tiff, you haven’t been back for over forty years.’ She was right, I hadn’t seen this childhood place since I danced with Lisa’s cousins in the Lodge living room to Teardrop Explodes ‘Reward’ (while Julian Cope was speeding along the tracks in an army jeep).
More than forty years later I’m standing in the bedroom of the Rockfield chalet I shared with my mother in 1975. There are no shellfish in the bath, but there is the familiar the dof-da—da, doof-da-da of drums outside. The Charlatans are recording (so there’s no high whine of electric guitar.) I stick my head out of the Velux window and stare at the Rockfield courtyard. I’m not six years old but there are the stables (the same terracotta tiles, though the horses are different), there is Freddie Mercury’s weathervane (the same creaking turn), there’s Studio One (the same), and nestled in the corner is my mother’s kitchen where once upon a time she fed anthems, classics, and one-hit wonders. Her kitchen may not be blue anymore, but there’s her huge pan on the gas burner, black bottomed and on the slant.
My Rockfield on the pages of My Family and Other Rock Stars isn’t bigger, more fantastical. How can it be? This is Rockfield Studios. Its reality is fantastical enough.
My Family and Other Rock Stars is available now for £22
Tiffany Murray will be discussing My Family and Other Rock Stars with Travis Elborough as part of our Table Talks series, on Thursday October 17th 2024 at 1900 at Stanfords, London.
