• How did you hit on the name Rudy La Crioux?   Do you ever get mistaken for a Frenchman?

Well, it's funny you should say that.   On several occasions I have been spoken to in French, thinking I would understand what they were saying, which can be a bit embarrassing.   Of course, a quick blast of West Country cider accent and it usually puts ‘em straight.   It’s a fictitious name.

Basically I thought Rudy sounded like a fifties name.   Then I wanted to get a feel for the southern United States, that sort of Louisiana, New Orleans, Tennessee, French Canadian, bayou type thing.   I settled on La Crew, like La Rue, as in Roc, but decided to spell it like the native American Indians, the Sioux.   So it came out as Rudy La Crioux.   There is a French name, LaCroix which many people think is similar and on numerous occasions the two have been mixed up.

• What have been the most memorable gigs of the past ten years?

Well we played on the same bill as Scotty Moore at the Tennessee Club.   You’re all milling around during the sound check, so you get to chat and listen, and that was great.   We also supported The Comets for a mini tour and those guys were real live wires.   Sadly I think it’s only Dick and Marshall from that line up still playing today.   We saw them a couple of moths ago in Belgium at the Rockin’ Around in Turnhout Weekender.   Also there’s the club circuit, little clubs up and down the country that go on every Friday and Saturday.   All of them have been good, some of them have been great.   Then there was the Hot Rod Rumble in Connecticut, playing in a little shack that was hotter than hell.   Also seeing the last show that Ronnie Dawson did at the Rockabilly Rave was exceptional, and just being lucky enough to catch some of the 50s stars that can still kick ass.   In August 2006 we did the Big Chill festival in Ledbury in a massive boxing ring surrounded by semi naked women.

• Which mishaps or hilarious cock-ups would you rather forget?

Believe you me, as far as cock-ups are concerned, there are just too many to mention but recently we did a gig in Leicester at the Music Café and as an encore we decided to do Hank Thompson's One Six Pack To Go.   We hadn’t done this song in a while but, I thought, it was just a verse and a chorus then repeat.   How hard could that be?   Jeez, did I make a hash of it.   'So what?' I hear you say.   But the whole thing was captured in glorious Technicolor on a DVD.   Don’t you hate CNN.

• What's kept the band together in the face of pressures like family, personal and career commitments, which seem to be behind so many other bands breaking up?

Poverty.   We need the money!   But seriously, I think it’s the fun.   You spend all that time in the back of a transit van going up and down the highways and byways.   The whole weekend is shot for a Saturday night gig as you don’t get back to home until 5.30am.   So by the time you work out an hourly rate, we’re on less than minimum wage. It’s the laughs you have on the road and the great enjoyment we get out of playing.   To us, it’s a hobby.   We all have daytime jobs and wives and mortgages, so we try and work the band thing around those commitments. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t!

• How much of a contrast is being a rock'n'roll star to your day job?

Elvis was a rock'n'oll star, I’m just a singer in a Billy band.   Sometimes the day job does get in the way, but without it you wouldn’t have enough greenbacks to the do the band thing.   People often ask, would you like to do this full time and my answer is... hell yeah, but on my terms.   The thing is, the band would have to collectively make at least as much as we all earn now, just to get by.   When it’s a “hobby” we always look forward to the gigs and maybe if it was a full time job, it might lose its appeal.   Having said that, if it were possible for us to make it happen, I’m sure we would jump at the chance.   If we were twenty years younger, no wives, no kids and no mortgages, the answer, would I’m sure, be a resounding 'yes'.

• What changes have you noticed on the rockin' scene over the past ten years?

The biggest thing I’ve noticed in the last ten years is that rockabilly has gone from being a swear word to being more widely accepted.   People think rockabilly is 180mph, and some of it is.   But as with r'n'r you’ve still got jivers, strollers and boppers albeit with a slightly different feel to it.

The scene has had its ups and downs over the last ten years and is still going strong.   Clubs open and clubs close, but one big chance is the emergence of a shed load of weekenders.   Good for some, bad for others.   One of the biggest downers, is you don’t get any gigs to go to for ages then suddenly you’re up to your quiff in great gigs.   Go figure.   Communication is a wonderful thing.

I've noticed how different the scene is in fortress Europa.   One thing that hits you like a bullet is, how many more youngsters are full throttle into it.   In the UK there may be a handful of young’uns here and there but not in the numbers there are in Europe.   At the other end of the spectrum, when we’ve or gone to weekenders or gigged in Europe, I’ve noticed that you can be young, old, rockin’ or square and still enjoy the whole shebang.   Over here we like to put people into categories and say, he’s a ted, or they’re fluffy and dismiss them if they’re not into your thing.   But over there it’s a case of 'everybody, let's get f**kin’ wasted and have a great time together'.

I don’t think we’ll see the heydays of the late seventies and early eighties again, unless it’s in a different guise and frankly I’m an all or nothing type of guy, so unless it’s got a real rockin’ feel to it and not some kind of corporate/commercial/X Factor feel to it, you can shove it when the sun don’t shine.

• What are your pet hates on the scene?

One thing that gets my goat is the continual dredging up of fifties stars that can’t hack it.   I’ve got the utmost respect for these guys cos they’re my heroes, but most of the time it’s best to remember them as they were and not the pale imitations they are now.   I can’t wait to go to a weekender and not see any of the fifties stars, just all the new raw talent.   Wasn’t that what happened in the fifties?   You got to see all the new raw talent like Carl Perkins, Elvis, Little Richard and Jerry Lee!

Also the pigeon holing of the different factions that come under the r’n’r umbrella.   It’s all rock'n'roll whether it’s ted, billy, swing or surf.   I feel that if the scene's gonna do another fifty years, we need to be a bit more open-minded.   I know you like what you like, but there’s no need to think that just because it’s not your cup of tea it’s crap.   People outside the scene see us as retards and yokels (not my words), so let’s at least stick together.

One thing I know everybody bangs on about is, getting the young ‘uns involved and I know we should.   Just spare a thought, someone who’s into the rockin’ stuff, quiff and clothes and all, imagine the amount of stick they have had to take from the mates at school or at work, who are into M&M, Beyonce and the like.   I wouldn’t want to be in that position.   Imagine how hard it must be.   So when they turn up at a place they think is a sanctuary from the bland X Factor world, we shouldn’t be saying to them, “who do you think you are” and “what do you know”.   They most probably know exactly what we knew when we first got into it...   Jack shit.

Lastly, authenticity.   It’s great if you’ve got the money or the knowledge and I respect that but not everybody is that lucky or interested.   They just love the music and ain’t that what it’s all about.   I’ll get down from my soapbox now…

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