ALMOST FAMOUS
If the walls of Ohio’s most disreputable rock clubs could talk, they’d tell the legend of Happy Chichester. Going by the numbers, The Black Keys might be the Midwest state’s favourite sons. But Chichester is its most intriguing riddle. To those that know – a circle of trust chaired by Dave Grohl – the man with the eyepatch is a peerless master of melody, a genius multi-instrumentalist and mulcher of genres, responsible for much of modern rock’s sunken treasure.
It doesn’t hurt his mythology, either, that Chichester has never played ball with the music business. Heading into the millennium, this is the man who bought himself out of his Columbia Records contract, and never quite seized an invitation to play guitar for the Foo Fighters. Now independent, operating without a press officer or a proper website, we finally track down this cultest of heroes on Twitter, for an interview granted at the eleventh hour. “I’m just not that interested,” admits Chichester over Zoom, “in promoting my music.”
Even putting aside the mutual artistic respect, you can see why he would click with Grohl. Beaming beneath a beanie and waving his hands to illustrate his war stories, Chichester is a livewire conversationalist who shares much of the Foo-in-chief’s Tiggerish energy. Christened Harold – and credited as such on his three-plus-decade songbook – the
