Hi Sam. You've been involved with CliveAid right from the beginning - what gave you the idea of doing a fundraiser at the Ruskin Arms, and how did you make that first show happen? Dave Shaw and I were walking along and chatting about Clive, and with a bit of wordplay we came up with CliveAid, like LiveAid - the name made us laugh, so we decided to put on a gig. That's it! Simple, but bloody effective! So, having got a name and the idea for a show, the next step was to get a venue. We still hadn't got as far as thinking about which bands to put on! I called the Ruskin Arms in London's East End, which was Iron Maiden's old home ground, and very soon it was a done deal. Next up... bands. Well I had been working with a few bands for a number of years and called on them first, and then we needed a link with Iron Maiden's past, so we bit the bullet and contacted friends who'd played with the band in the early days.

What was the response from those taking part, and from Clive himself, and from the fans? The response from everyone was amazing. As with everything we do it is all about the people not the "rockstars". Making the phone calls was easy - once they knew what the event was for they signed up there and then. You know it was at this show that an embryonic GMT played for the first time. It was a great moment especially as our own Robin Guy was behind the kit. Making things happen is easy, it's making them happen time after time that is hard, and ensuring they are always as good if not better than the last! We made the upstairs of the Ruskin Arms into the band area, with the riders all set out, and the buzz up there was awesome. Clive, well he was shellshocked at the outpouring of feelings from everyone. Funnily enough, after a brandy or two and a few Marlboros he seemed to really get into it! Seriously though, he had a great time. All the fans that came also had a great time - it was a wonderful thing to see and to be part of.

Tell us about how Clive's drumkit found a home in the Hard Rock Cafe. During a visit to Clive's place prior to the renovations which would make his house more suitable for his wheelchair etc, we saw this great pile of cases in his garage... old drum cases full of bits of rock history. We had a chat with him about the memories surrounding the kit, which as Clive put it, was just "cluttering up the garage" - imagine it, the kit that was used on such amazing recordings as Number Of The Beast and Killers was just lying around in a garage! So Robin and I set about working out what we could do to give it the respect it deserved. I called Don Bernstein who is the guy from Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, and the next thing we know, we are holding a party at the Hard Rock Cafe on London's Mayfair to celebrate Clive's drumkit being displayed by the Hard Rock Cafe, and also to launch the Hard Rock dvd about collecting memorabilia. It was a great party, and what a guest list! We got Bruce, Janick and Adrian from Iron Maiden to come along and they were joined by rock legends such as Tony Iommi, Ian Paice and many more. It's great that the kit was then able to travel around the world, and its permanent home is now at the Warsaw Cafe in Poland.

After this, things snowballed very quickly - how soon did you realise that CliveAid was going to run and run?
To be honest I'm not sure it has sunk in even now. It's a strange thing really, for us it was never going to go away, but now it's international and we have an office in Los Angeles and Bergen as well as here in England - it's mad! But it's also fantastic that we can help so many people through doing something we all love, which is simply rocking out and having a great time. Okay there is a message with all we do and it's a very strong one. Our work with Cancer is growing and is offering support to many many people and at the same time we are continuing to support Clive.

CliveAid started out purely to raise money for Clive Burr, but now you include other good causes. Tell us about some of the other charities you're involved with. Yeh, we are working on two other main areas. In the USA we are working to raise awareness for Teen Cancer with the "Teen Impact" programme. This works by giving kids another option as well as medical treatment by taking them to camps or to Outward Bound groups and working on their self confidence. It's really rewarding and great fun. We're also heavily into promotiong awaresness on testicular cancer, yeh... the "Family Jewels"... Now that's a topic most guys will either not talk about or just lie "yeh it's that big". The sad reality is that more and more blokes are getting testicular cancer. It's one of those cancers that we don't talk about. A couple of us at CliveAid have had a brush with this, me included. It's bloody scary when you get told "yes that's a cancerous growth" and we need to address it. So we are working with a testicular cancer chairty to get the message to more people. We won't be in their faces, but we will have the info to hand and will aim to make it available to as many people as we can. We will be at many of the summer festivals and major events promoting awareness. Our own shows will of course carry info about it and there will be some very special events taking place. We need help to get blokes to talk about it. If they ignore it it only gets worse, so the message is simple... check your balls, fellas. It's better than losing them - and a damn site less painful, trust me!

Iron Maiden themselves have shown a lot of support for Clive Aid, raising the profile and encouraging other well-known names to get involved - even tennis champion Pat Cash has done his bit for the cause! Who else has taken part and what did they bring to party? That is so very true - everyone at Iron Maiden has been fantastic. The guys have come along to events and sent signed stuff for us to auction. I must say it has been amazing the response we have had from them all. As for Pat Cash, the story behind that is that Noel, our media guy, met Pat at a school event and in passing asked Pat if he would consider helping out. Noel wasn't expecting to get an answer straight away but Pat modelled the t-shirt right there on the spot. We hope to do more with him this year. We have a list of people from authors to rock stars and it's growing all the time. Actually we are in the process of recording a CliveAid anthem which has been written in LA by Ronny Munroe of Metal Church and Corey Jackson who scores movies and shows for the SciFi chanel. So many people have helped us - the Quireboys, Stray, LA Guns, Iron Maiden, GMT, Saxon, Girlschool, Fun Loving Criminals, Buckcherry etc.

With people like that involved there must have been some very rocknroll moments along the way and you must have had a lot of laughs. Tell us some of the funny things that have happened. Hmmm, well there was this one time...

errrm no not that one (talking about that one might get me involved in a court case!!) Okay, yeh there have been some great moments. One was at the Birthday Bash in 2007. We managed to keep a very special appearance top secret. We had invited Bruce Dickinson along to the party and it had been arranged that he would get up and do a song. So Bruce arrives, hangs around a bit then dissapears backstage. As Sacktrick (all dressed in striped bathing costumes) are at the end of their set, Bruce appears in a a striped bathing costume of his own and strikes the old Bruce Forsyth "nice to see you, to see you nice" pose then gets up and sings Delilah! The looks on crowd's faces were awesome! Drunk moments? Too many to get into. When we went to Bergen in Norway in 2007 for the first time, we had been warned how expensive it is, but nothing prepared us for quite how expensive. We had just landed, driven to the hotel and popped out for a snack. Ah, pizza, that won't be too pricey... so we ordered two pizzas and four cokes... sit down, no, really, Sit Down...... £45!!! For the first time ever we were all lost for words at the same time - no wonder the guys in Norway are all thin!

Bring us up to date on how CliveAid has developed over the last four years. It's been a really great ride - a little strange sometimes, but amazing. From the day after the first show we have been in constant touch with people from all over the world and the amazing thing is this, humanity is still doing great things. As for CliveAid itself, we have had to move with the expectations. The purists may say we are too big, but we are helping as many people as we can. We now operate in Norway, the USA, the UK and we are due to be going to Sweden, France, Germany, Holland and even India this year. The team has grown and we have all types of people with us now, from lawyers (very useful!) to rockstars and everybody in between. Our shows are moving up a gear to be real full-production shows, our merchandise is being increased, and we are really very excited about the coming years. It's great.

Which are your own proudest CliveAid moments? This is going to sound very boring but I have to say it's seeing the faces of the people we help and also the faces of the crowds at the shows. That's what makes it all real. It's one thing to be typing away on the laptop doing all the administration but the realisation is at the live shows and also going out to see the people who are being helped as a result of the fundraising. On another note I have to say having Bruce Dickinson perform was an amazingly proud moment, especially as Paul Dianno sang on the same night as well.

What shows are coming up in the CliveAid calendar?
First up we have our February tour of new and upcoming bands. This is something we are getting involved in, giving young hardworking bands a small tour to get out of their comfort zone and to play to new crowds. Then in March we are off to Norway again (no bloody pizza this time), and in May we have a great show on the 31st. We have the live final of our Battle Of The Bands competition - check out the website for more information about that. The winners will open the show for a line up of classic rock and new bands including Tygers Of Pan Tang, Shy and Blaze Bayley. Then it's festival season, so we will be all over the place. In September we're going to Los Angeles and India. So it's a full year - but great fun!

What are your top 5 Desert Island Discs - and why?
You're probably expecting me to have a Maiden track on here... but... sorry! Here's my Top 5...
1. Ride The Lightning by Metallica - it's raw, solid, and very truthful, and it gets the blood going
2. Brave by Marillion - that one got me through cancer so it's a real winner!
3. Start From The Dark by Europe - great new-sounding Europe stuff, full of life and really great tracks
4. Vulgar Display Of Power by Pantera - brutal! Great stuff to wake you up on those wet island days!
5. Escape by Journey - got to have an album to get romantic with, just in case a pretty native happens to walk by...

Which classic bands do you think have contributed most over the years musically to the current music scene, and which of today's bands do you think are contributing most to tomorrow's music?
Wow that's a tough one. With so many genres around it's hard to say who did what and when, but sometimes its the less famous bands who really stuck out for me. Diamond Head, Shy, Tygers Of Pan Tang and Marillion (both the Fish and Steve eras) were all total class in the day they wrote some incredible tracks, hey, good enough for Metallica! It goes without saying that bands like Zepplin, Purple, Hendrix and Sabbath all wrote the rules but band like Rush, Marilllion, Venom and of course Van Halen all played a major part in creating the sounds that today's bands all keeping going back to. You ask about new bands but I must add a middle section, bands like System Of A Down, Slipknot, Pantera and our own Therapy? and the Wildhearts have got to be mentioned - not yet Classic but still a massive influence worldwide. As for today, now this may be where I get the Soap Box out.. so here goes... we have some awesome young/new bands out there, bands many people have not even heard of, for instance Lunapins from Wales, Headrush, Civillian, Hanging Doll, Lethal Fix... the list goes on and on.

What are your thoughts on the current state of the music business?

'Pay to Play' must be stopped. How the hell does a young (often poor) band get out to gig if the venues are charging them to play! Okay it works both ways, because lazy bands - and there are a few out there, you know who you are - cannot and must not expect a venue or promoter to do all the work. We need to encourage our new music not stifle it. We don't pay our bands at CliveAid regardless of their stature, but we do look after all the bands who help us, because we respect what they're doing. If bands want to be taken seriously they have to "play" hard, and not "pay" hard. Check out the bands I mentioned - and if you're in a hardworking band then hey, get in touch, we will help if we can.

What would you like to be doing in five years time? Honestly, I'd love to be still doing this! I'm hoping we can continue to build it, make it a bigger name worldwide so we can get the message out to more people. And in five years I'm hoping our CliveAid festival will be firmly established - Dave and I are planning a festival to be launched in 2010, or even before if it all comes together. And on a personal level I'd love to be playing across Europe in my band Secret Society - go on, check out our website... we're awesome!

© Get Ready To Roll - 25th January 2008