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THE BiTS INTERVIEW: Jack J Hutchinson

. Jack J. Hutchinson is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who won ‘Live Act Of The Year 2020’ from Great
Music Stories. Originally from the Midlands who is making a name for himself on the blues-rock scene. Ian
McKenzie spoke to him by telephone.

BiTS: Let's make a start. Tell me something about your upbringing. Was there a lot of music? I
gather you were born in Leicester, is that right?

JH: Yeah, man. I was born in Leicester and
I moved to Burnley in the north-west when
I was about five or six and that's where I
spent most of my childhood. I was there

until the age of about, I guess 19, then I
moved to Lancaster for a little while and
then I was in London. I moved to London
basically just for the arts. I went to
Wimbledon College to do drawing, but
yeah, going back to Burnley, that's where
my roots are and where a lot of friends

still are, so I like to get up to Burnley as
often as possible. Obviously not over the
last 12 months because of lockdown and
everything that's happened with COVID,
but the north-west is still very close to my

heart.

BiTS: When did you start playing music
then?

JH: Well, I had guitar lessons, and like a
lot of kids, have that sort of thing forced upon them by their parents, I guess, and I absolutely

despised it. I used to go for guitar lessons every Monday evening and I actually for two or three
years I absolutely hated guitar lessons. I wanted to be outside playing footie and that was really
what I was interested in at that point. It was interesting because as soon as I stopped having the
lessons, and plucked up the courage to ask my mum and dad to stop the lessons, I always
remember that the tutor that I had, when my mum said Jack doesn't want to continue with this,

and she said do you think he's got to a proficient enough standard to carry on, I remember him
saying, no? [Laughing] I think that was actually a bit of inspiration for me in that I thought well,
I'm going to prove you wrong. After that point, I think the key was I was trying to learn classical
guitar and that's what he was trying to teach me, which I had no interest in at all. My dad was a
massive Rolling Stones fan, Led Zep fan, so once I'd stopped having the lessons, I remember I got
for Christmas this sort of Led Zeppelin box set of tablature to learn how to play the Zep stuff, and
that really was the kick-starter for what I then got into and all the bands I was in as a teenager, it

was getting into Led Zeppelin basically.

BiTS: How long did it take you before you were playing in a band then?