Interview: Shameless Star Nicky Evans on Madchester, Acting, and a Possible Music Career

In a rare interview, actor Nicky Evans talks exclusively about finding rave culture, his PC wiping a ‘concept album’ away, how a bout of malaria landed him the Shameless gig, and bumping into his character Shane Maguire at a Rage Against the Machine gig.

CS: Alright Nick. I understand you have always been a keen music fan so if I could start by asking what were you into as a kid? What was the first album you bought and what effect did it have on you? Were you like me starting off with some thing a bit dodgy ‘Shakin Stevens’ Greatest Hits’ or was it some thing a bit more cool?

NE: I didn’t buy much music as a young kid, I would mostly tape stuff off the radio, but I think my first proper interest in music piqued when the ‘Second Summer of Love’ thing was going on, but I was too young to go out and get involved, so I sat at home, collected flyers and listened to mix-tapes in my smiley face t-shirt or paisley hoodie and fantasied about it instead. Any spare money was more likely to go on a Sinclair Spectrum game.

My Dad ran discos at the local pubs and I had to help out and be skivvy pretty often – setting up and dismantling the gear and playing records when he got too pissed. So there were always boxes and boxes of old 7″ singles around the house that he had bought from the car boot, and one of them cheesy twin decks in the back room – which led into some proper dodgy tastes in music, and yes Shakey’s ‘This Old House‘ was definitely one of them. Four Seasons’ ‘Oh! What a Night’, ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree’, Pinky and Perkie, I probably danced like a dick around the room to all of them.

The only purchases I remember are Blondie’s ‘Atomic’, because I fancied her, Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygene’ after getting a bontempi for Christmas, which I think led to a like of instrumental music, and probably my only cool purchase in my early youth The Doors’ ‘Waiting for the Sun’, which I only bought to impress an older step-brother at the time because he was into them and I had no idea what I was buying, but ended up liking it a lot. The track ‘Love Street’ remains a favourite today.

CS: When you were old enough who was the first artist/band you went to go see live?

NE: My introduction to really appreciating music was definitely electronically. Had I been a little older or younger it would have probably been different. When the acid house thing was nearing an end, luckily something else great was emerging with the house music scene over here, so I was determined to be a part of it this time round. I lived in Bradford then and used to hang around a local dance record shop obsessively – in hindsight I probably looked a bit ‘special’ and was the catalyst for a vinyl buying habit.

There weren’t many big labels, artists didn’t need to be signed to be successful (depending how you wanna define that). Most purchases and plays were white labels or small indies and very few acts from memory seemed to be in it for money or fame, just a love of what they were doing and it could be heard. The local pirate radio station was PCR (Paradise City Radio) which influenced quite a few buying decisions. Any of those classic Piano anthems still make the hairs stand on the back of my neck.

So yeah, my first live gig experience was a rave – a Universe/Tollerance gig in Bradford. Stood in line absolutely shitting myself with a really shit fake ID I made. I remember not many danced facing the DJs, and it was definitely less of a ‘superstar’ DJ thing as it is today. I remember they only served water and bumping into some older hard cunts from the estate who would would have usually taxed you or knocked you out, but were being dead friendly. I was later to experience why.

CS: As a late teen what was your look, was there anyone your thought looked cool and tried to emulate?

NE: Hmm, no-one that I can recall. Spent most of my life being a long haired scruffy twat. I remember a journalist at one point observantly described me as looking like the bastard son of Worzel Gummidge and Liam Gallagher but that wasn’t intentional haha.

But I have always had a passion for motorbikes and, after watching Quadrophenia, which got me into The Kinks, Small Faces, The Who etc, I decided to get myself a Lambretta for a brief period. Didn’t do the whole fishtail parka and fashion thing, but went out and purchased about 20 pairs of wing mirrors – bolted them all on and rode to the bottom of my road to turn right at the cross roads, all would have been fine but I couldn’t turn the handle-bars because of the mirrors, so had to get off the bike in rush hour, whilst everyone was shouting “twat” out the window, pick the back-wheel up and aim it in a straight line to take me back up the hill where I would eventually drift into the curb, stop, hold up traffic again and repeat it all again. Yes, I was that wanker.

CS: Going through your twenties and starting out in your acting career, what artists and bands have influenced you, eg like buying ‘Definitely Maybe’ in ’94?

NE: At the end of ’94 I was getting a bit bored of house music. Not many releases were exiting me anymore. Garage seemed to be going from what I knew as being soulful US vocal-led house to some twat shouting down a mic stuff like ‘it’s a London thing’ over a crap rhythm. I just wasn’t enjoying it anymore and was ready for something else. A friend’s brother lent me the ‘Definitely Maybe’ album and I went out and purchased my first guitar not long after, so yeah ‘Definitely Maybe’ marked a point where my musical interest expanded and raves were to be swapped for festivals.

As far as influences – a bit of all sorts to be honest, apart from listening to the usual bands at that time, I was enjoying Motown, 50’s rock and roll, northern brass mining bands and other weird stuff, and started listening to a lot of acoustic artists as well, like Nick Drake, Christy Moore and was getting into soundtracks and instrumental music more and more. So people like Ennio Morricone, Yann Tiersen, Santo and Johnny and Pink Floyd come to mind, but there was loads to be honest.

CS: Same with live music, any memorable gigs and for what reasons?

NE: Stand out gigs – Spiritualized in Bradford springs to mind, not for the music, but because everyone in the front five rows kept fainting – they were dropping like flies. A Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros gig comes to mind as well, someone I knew was a guitarist with him at the time, so got to meet him briefly after – a really sound bloke, with plenty of time for his fans. He seemed to let any one of them into his dressing room and beer fridge.

But the most memorable live gig that springs to mind, I watched on TV as a kid haha, was when Queen absolutely dominated Live Aid. Must have been impressive to me, because I remember sitting glued in front of the box at an age where I really wasn’t that into music and would usually have been out on my BMX.

CS: Moving into the present Nick, is there anything out there today you rate? New artists/bands, and how do you normally find your music? Friends, Internet, magazine reviews, or other cast members?

NE: When I worked on Emmerdale, Jeff Hordley and Dominic Brunt were a great resource for discovering new music, both of whom are very clued up musically. But lately, Spotify has revolutionised the way I find most music. I still do most of my listening on my trusty old Garrard, but for finding other bands and songs, it’s been brilliant. To be honest, my knowledge of modern music over the past 10 years or so is pretty terrible, I much prefer scouring for older stuff.

No particular genre really as long as it’s not soft rock or smooth jazz, nouns and adjectives that should never be mixed in my opinion haha. I’ll catch up with everything that’s going on now in another decade or so when I crawl out from under my rock. Saying that, I was browsing YouTube a few weeks ago and came across Cherry Ghosts’ ‘Kissing Strangers’ video; not heard any of their other stuff yet, but I thought that was fantastic.

CS: Do you play any instrument, and have you ever been in a band, maybe as a kid? Plus, was it always acting that you wanted to follow?

NE: To be honest acting was never on the agenda for me at all. I fell into it at a young age and when I was 15, around a time I probably should have been pondering what I might want do with my life. I started Emmerdale and left school with no exams, did it for seven years and realized I didn’t want to be an actor, but didn’t know what I wanted to do and still don’t. There seems to be a lot of self pressure to work at one thing; “what do you want to BE when you’re older?”, and you kind of forget that it doesn’t have to be one thing. Hats off to people who find a job they love as a kid and stick with it, but at the expense of feeling a little lost at times, I stuck my fingers in a few pies.

I did get asked to join a band once but bottled it and didn’t want anything to do with the limelight. I felt much more comfortable in a back room doing the creative stuff without the bullshit, and still do. I had a little bedroom studio setup which I’d built up over the years at Emmerdale and eventually started doing some producing at a studio in Leeds which a mate of mine owned. I was doing acting jobs and loads of other stuff to pay the bills at the time and studying part-time at music college while putting together some instrumental stuff for a concept album idea I had, which took about two years to complete and God knows how many hours. Then a hard drive array failure and I lost it all. Shit happens, but I was that gutted and fucked off, I donated all of my studio gear to a mate and on a proper downer, tried to work out what I wanted to do with my life again.

To cut a long story short, I ended up doing voluntary work in a jungle in Cameroon rehabilitating chimpanzees, got malaria and not long after by chance and circumstance started Shameless. Maybe I’ll get back into making music one day but the thing is like most people, I enjoy the creative process more than doing something with the end result, so not sure I would like to make a living from it. If my bills depended on it and had deadlines, I’m not sure I would enjoy the process so much. I play guitar as well but I am shit, and not being modest.

CS: Your characters, Roy Glover and Shane Maguire, do you think they would share your musical tastes? I can quite easily picture Shane McGuire at a Kasabian gig with a beer in hand.

NE: Erm, well I think the storyline for when Roy left Emmerdale haha, sorry that name still cracks me up, why did they have to call me Roy? No offence to any Roys out there, just such weird name for a young lad. Anyway, he left to go be a DJ in Ibiza or something, so at that time there probably was some taste in common, and Shane? Hmm, he can be a bit of a weirdo and is into taxidermy and stuff so while I can see him at a Kasabian concert I can just as easily see him listening to some Rage Against The Machine or some of that angry metal music kids shoot down schools to, whilst stuffing his vole.

(Carl Stanley)