Red Butane

A 10yo Red Butane was on holiday on the Isle of Wight when his father took him to a field&he saw Jimi Hendrix, The Free&Rory Gallagher&was bitten by the guitar bug. He started playing professionally at 13yo in his cousins' band Gypsy (guitar & bvs) supporting the Eagles USA tour. Coming back to UK he had a chanced meeting in the Onslow pub (Southampton) when the ledgendary Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac asked if he could jam with the local blues band which Red was a member of. At one point in his life Red stayed in a flat in Darby Road in Southampton where he wrote the song "Anny" the true song of a prostitute&her demise. A song which when he took&played live with only voice&acoustic guitar to Richard Branson at Virgin Records was declared to be discovered as"the new Cat Stevens/ Bob Dylan" but Red did not want to be just an acoustic artist at this point in his life. He came up to London to play in Speakeasy&through his contact Scotty English ("Bend Me, Shape Me") he got to jam with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour&Jimmy Page as well as Ian Carr (trumpet player)&BB King. &at Ronnie Scotts he landed a short 6 week stint with Ella Fitgerald&a few gigs as 2nd guitarist to Chuck Berry. He then went on to play with his own band Bad Habits/Red Butane (late 70s early 80s) producing songs which ended up in Sniff N Rock Magazine&Sounds. He was signed to Don Arden's Jett Records as Red Butane where he met&jammed with Gary Moore&was tipped to be replacement guitarist in Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake&Ozzy Osborne. Then on TowerBell Records he made an album with Snowy White (playing rhythm guitar), Ted McKenna (on drums)&Kumar Harada (on bass). (This album will be re-released at some point in the future). A production deal followed with Tony Clark (producer of Sky) which had classical guitarist John Williams&renowned classical guitarist Jullien Bream. Red toured with Survivor filling in on guitar & backing vocals & also with Brian Connolley's Sweet. Red became a regular appearance at the Marquee&the Marquee Cafe. His prefers his 3 piece Bad Habits, hard rockin' blues with acoustic subtleties band singing hard bitten lyrics of life as he loves to play rhythm&lead at the same time. He states,"Its been a hard life to bear but the guitar has seen me through, my ever constant friend." Awards Red has used the Gypsy/Bad Habits (trademarked) bandnames for over 35 years. Latest EP "Hell On Wheels" on his label Night Breed Limited distributed by Orchard/Sony Actor, Musician, Guitarist, Singer, Songwriter, Director, Writer Red Butane's Page