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BiTS: I'm slightly older than you are. I started with a sort of jug band. It wasn't really

a jug band. We certainly didn't call it that back in the 1950s, believe it or not, late
1950s, during what was called the Skiffle craze, which I'm sure you're aware of.

LW: Yeah, yeah.

BiTS: And I learned to love that music. I just think it's absolutely fabulous. All of those
old bands, Memphis bands and just wonderful stuff. Absolutely sensational sounds.
I've always wanted to play in a proper band, so to speak, like that.

LW: Yeah. Well, I mean, we get a lot of people who, at gigs, they talk to us about Skiffle
because that’s their reference point when they
come and see us. And we even have a banjo player

who has a separate show, and his separate show is
a Lonnie Donegan tribute show. So he's a Lonnie
Donegan fanatic, and he sounds quite like Lonnie

Donegan, and he knows the history and knows the
songs like no one else. And so there's definitely that
aspect to what we do. And he'll sing a couple of

songs, and they're 20s and 30s songs, but they're
also songs that Lonnie did. So people tend to tap
into what we do via that route if they’re of a certain

demographic. But interestingly, the younger
audience, I mean younger than me. Tonight we're

at the Old Duke in Bristol, and we get students coming in and they're ten or 15 years
younger than me, and they seem to latch on to it in a way that might be unexpected,
I think just because of the fun and the energy of it. It might to them be like something
from another planet, I don't know, but they seem to enjoy it and get into it, and they

buy the vinyl.

BiTS: Liam, tell me about The Liam Ward band and this new album of yours, “Shine”,
which I have listened to, and I think is absolutely terrific. I shall be playing some tracks

from it on air before very long. I gather this is a tribute to your father?

LW: Yeah, that's right. So The Liam Ward Band is essentially me and whoever I can
con into agreeing to play with me [laughs]. I did used to have a band, a full-time band

when I lived in South Wales, but I've since moved back to England. I live in
Gloucestershire, and it was getting difficult logistically and Giles Robson actually was

one of the inspirations for me. We were doing a joint teaching thing. We were staying
at the hotel having breakfast together and he said yeah, I just use pick-up bands. I just
do scratch bands. Pull the band together wherever I am across Europe, and I thought,

ah, I should do that. So the new album is a different lineup to the old album because
it's kind of the guys I'm using these days, but it's an album that, to me, is really
important, really special and has been a long time coming. I grew up mainly living at

my dad's house. My parents divorced when I was young, and my dad was the main
caregiver. We spent most of our time with him, me and my two sisters. And when we