ROCK DOC
Inside Rockfield Studios where Oasis and Black Sabbath binged on drugs and rock stars made iconic albums
KINGSLEY Ward has had to put up with a lot from his guests – dawn police raids, drugs, fights with weapons and all-night parties keeping up the neighbourhood.
But that’s because for six decades he has invited the world’s biggest and wildest rock bands to live on his farm in the Welsh valleys.
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At Rockfield Studios, which was founded by Kingsley, 80, and his brother Charles, 82, in 1965, legends Queen, Oasis, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Coldplay and The Stone Roses, ate, slept and recorded.
From Ozzy Osbourne getting off his head to Noel and Liam Gallagher attacking each other with cricket bats, the Wards brothers have seen it all.
Now the story of how they turned their parent’s farm into hallowed musical land is being told in a BBC documentary called Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm.
Coldplay’s Chris Martin credits the farm with inspiring the band’s first hit Yellow, Jim Kerr from Simple Minds recalls Davie Bowie popping by with a large slice of cheese and The Charlatans tell how their keyboard player died in a car crash.
Rockfield is believed to be the first residential recording studio in the world, a place where musicians could get away from it all.
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Unfortunately, they often disturbed the peace of the countryside during their stays.
The huge amounts of illegal substances being consumed by rockers at the studio became so notorious that Kingsley was once arrested by the drugs squad.
Building a legend
Kingsley, who still runs Rockfield, told The Sun last night: “We didn’t take much notice of it, that’s the way it was in the 70s.
“I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. What goes on in Rockfield stays in Rockfield.”
Until now, that is.
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The brothers knew “nothing” about the music business when they started out as a band called the Charles Kingsley Creation in the 1960s.
So much so that they brought their own reel to reel tape machine to play their demo at EMI because “we never imagined that EMI would have their own tape players” and thought Beatles producer George Martin was a comedian.
They built their own studio in the loft of the barn in 1965 using empty pig feed bags to insulate the walls and started charging other bands a fiver to record demos.
Dave Edmunds, who laid down his 1970 hit I Hear You Knocking there, suggested they called the studio Rockfield after the neighbouring village.
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And they became a residential studio by accident, when a New York band Elephant’s Memory stayed at the brother’s parent’s house because the group had no other digs.
Back then there weren’t any big independent recording studios and Kingsley says “people were saying we would never make it outside of London, but then low and behold Black Sabbath turned up, who I had never heard of, and we started recording these big rock bands.”
'All doing drugs'
From the outside the farmhouse looks like a picture of serenity with its white picket fences, neatly trimmed hedgerows and cows chewing the green grass of the Welsh mountains.
It certainly wasn’t what Birmingham metal act Black Sabbath were expecting from their first experience of recording an album.
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Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne had never been to the countryside before, but loved the chance to build a raft to row on the river and take loads of illegal substances.
Ozzy, who also recorded his first solo album there, said: "We were all drinking or doing some drugs."
The band most associated with Rockfield, though, are Queen, because the studio appears in the hit movie Bohemian Rhapsody.
Both their classic albums Sheer Heart Attack and Night at The Opera were made there.
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Freddie Mercury recorded the piano section of the Bohemian Rhapsody song while the rest of the band played frisbee in the courtyard.
Kingsley said: “After the film came out, we had a lot of Japanese turn up here. They get very emotional.”
Boozy Bowie and Lemmy's stash
Soon all kinds of legends were turning up.
When Iggy Pop was making an album, his friend David Bowie did some back vocals.
The pair decided to pop to see what a then 17-year-old Jim Kerr from Simple Minds was up to in the smaller studio.
Singer Kerr recalled: “Bowie was wearing a red suit, had a huge piece of cheese in his hand a can of Heineken."
Lemmy recorded there with both Hawkwind and Motorhead, asking Kingsley where he could hide his “stash” of weed when he first arrived.
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The reputation of Rockfield’s guests, who would go drinking in nearby Monmouth, soon spread to the local constabulary.
A drug squad car was posted at the end of the driveway to watch what the various long haired rockers were up to.
While Kingsley was cleaning up one day in 1972 officers raided the studios and found marijuana.
Kingsley explained: “We were never into drugs ourselves. But a band from America had been smoking dope all week.”
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He was charged with allowing illegal substances to be consumed on his premises, but the judge threw the case out of court on the grounds that if Kingsley was guilty so would any hotel owner be if their guests left drugs behind.
Britpop Breakthrough
Bands would play football among the cows in the meadow or take rides in the small aeroplanes on the farm’s own airstrip.
Meanwhile Kingsley and Charles drove around in their tractors and tended to the animals.
The brothers grew wealthy, with Kingsley sending his two daughters to private school and buying a BMW.
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But when electronic music arrived in the 1980s, the work dried up and his wife Ann, 80, had to take on several accounting jobs to make ends meet.
Like so many famous duos the brothers split, with Charles setting up his Monnow Valley studio next door, while Kingsley continued with Rockfield in 1987.
They were both to enjoy a revival in the following decade, though, with the arrival of Britpop.
Oasis made their debut Definitely, Maybe at Monnow and their follow-up What’s the Story at Rockfield.
The band’s lead singer Liam Gallagher describes Rockfield as “like the Big Brother house, except with tunes,” although admits he struggles to remember much because the group were “so off our heads.”
Cricket bat bust ups
It was Liam getting drunk and bringing party goers back late at night while his brother Noel was still in work mode that caused one of their biggest ever rows.
Liam laughed: “We got into a fight with cricket bats and air rifles. I remember Noel driving off. I flung a dustbin lid as he drove off.”
Another time Liam claims he took a joy ride in a Combine Harvester.
Kingsley, though, describes Oasis as “lovely lads” and says they were “sheepish” when Ann had to tell them off late at night for waking the neighbourhood up.
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No band resided so long at Rockfield as The Stone Roses, who were spent more than two years there making their two albums.
The Manchester band once turned up covered in paint having thrown it on a record label exec's car and were arrested at the farm the next day.
High-speed horror smash
A heavy drinking culture was to have tragic consequences for The Charlatans when they were staying at Rockfield in 1996.
After a night on the booze in Monmouth, their keyboard player Rob Collins drove at high speeds round the tight country lanes on the way back to the studio.
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Singer Tim Burgess, who was in a car in front, remembered: “He was speeding up, being crazy. Suddenly he disappeared.”
Collins’s car had flipped over on a bend and he was thrown through the sunroof of his BMW. He was dead before he reached hospital.
There is no doubt, though, the Wye valley setting has been an inspiration to the songwriters who have enjoyed its tranquillity.
Musical Hogwarts
Coldplay singer Chris Martin was feeling the pressure to come up with a hit for their debut album.
Having struggled to deliver at a London studio, the band decamped to Rockfield, which Martin describes as a “musical Hogwarts.”
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One night they stepped outside into the “beautiful” night and the producer Ken Nelson said “look at the stars.”
The line stuck in Martin’s head and added the “it was all yellow” line to their famous song Yellow when he saw a copy of the Yellow Pages on the studio shelf.
Charles retired in 2000, but Kingsley still runs Rockfield with his daughters Lisa, 52, and Amanda, 51.
While they were once so busy that they had to turn down Michael Jackson, the family have now had to diversify into holiday lettings to make up for a loss in trade.
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Despite that, the studio is known around the world.
But modest Kingsley doesn’t want to take the credit for its legendary status.
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He concludes: “It was the groups that made Rockfield”.
Rockfield: The Studio On The Farm airs on July 18 on BBC Four, BBC Wales and BBC iPlayer.
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