LUKE MORLEY OF THUNDER

“Iwasn’t aware of Hendrix until he died, bizarrely. It was 1970. I was about ten years old. I was watching the news item and there was a film of him playing with his teeth and smashing it up at Monterey. I said: ‘Dad, can I have a guitar, please?’ So it’s no exaggeration to say that the reason I picked up a guitar was because of Hendrix.

“The next few years, I literally wore out my copy of Are You Experienced. I only ever had one guitar lesson at school, and when I told the teacher my favourite guitar player was Hendrix, he said: ‘I don’t think I can help you.’

So I played the records over and over again and tried to copy them.

“The first two albums are still the best for me. Electric Ladyland is great too, but it’s a very undisciplined, psychedelic, rambling kind of album. But it’s got some interesting moments – and possibly the greatest guitar solo of all time in All Along The Watchtower. I still don’t know how he gets those sounds.

“I’d like to read more about the first six months he was in London. That’s the most interesting era. He’d been up and down the chitlin’ circuit in the States, and when he exploded in London, it was like an outpouring of all his frustrations. He basically caused this furore among all the go-to people in the late sixties – Clapton, Townshend, Jeff Beck, McCartney. They all turned up to watch him, and he blew a fuse.

“I’ve never bid on a Hendrix guitar. I’m not that fucking rich… and I’m a clumsy son-ofa-bitch. But a few years ago we were at the Hard Rock Café Museum in London, and they’d got Hendrix’s Flying V in there. The curator was a Thunder fan, and he said: ‘I don’t normally do this,’ and he opened the case and let me play it. Strangely enough, they had music on a loop in there, and Voodoo Child was playing, so I played along, because obviously I knew it backwards. So there I was, playing Voodoo

Child on Hendrix’s guitar. It was mental. But that guitar was fucking priceless. I was just thinking to myself: ‘Don’t fucking drop it.’

“How would Hendrix have evolved if he hadn’t died? I think he’d have been interested in digital technology, synthesisers, all that stuff. Whether or not it would have turned into something fantastic, who knows? The most fascinating thing is that it’s almost fifty years since he died, and still, to this day, every lead guitar player I hear, I’ll go: ‘Oh, bit of Hendrix in there, lovely.’ The fact that he burned so brightly for such a brief time just adds to his legend – dying early is very good for business!”

Thunder’s Stage is out now on CD & DVD. The band play Download in June.