Chris Talks Music

Sheffield’s renowned house music brand, Love to be… is set to stage an all-day festival on Bank Holiday Sunday, 25th May at FORGE, taking over the warehouse, courtyard, and even bringing the party out onto Effingham Road. Ahead of its return, I spent some time with the co-founder and now brand owner, Tony Walker, alongside Marc Dennis the operations director to find out all about it — plus stay tu...

We’ve met the Reverend and now here’s one of the Makers, Ed Cosens returns to the fray as a solo artist once more with his sophomore album, Somewhere Between Dark and Light , releasing on Friday (24th May, 2024) alongside a gig at the much-loved city venue, The Leadmill. Ahead of his headline show at The Leadmill this Friday, Ed Cosens took a little time out of his hectic schedule to speak to me a...

Sam Lee joins me this time around to discuss his latest album, his upcoming Sheffield show at the Crookes Social Club, and the importance of nature. It's a wide-ranging conversation discussing ecological disaster, respecting, revering and treasuring nature... and also a little about the amazing Right to Roam, an ancient custom that allows anyone to wander in open countryside (read more: https:...

The iconic multi-genre band return to the UK to celebrate the 25th anniversary tour of their classic album ‘100% Colombian’. Brian 'Fast' Leiser joins me once more as we shoot the sh*t and talk all about it, by it we mean the music their adventures over the past 12 months and what kind of bewildering goodness we can expect in this celebration of the white stuff. And we don't mean snow....

Ahead of his Sheffield show on November 26, Billy Lockett caught up with me (Chris Hallam) to discuss his debut album, Abington Grove, and it’s certainly been a long-time coming. Billy Lockett will be performing at Yellow Arch Studios, Sheffield, on Sunday 26 November, 2023. You can buy tickets for the show here: https://www.yellowarch.com/event/billy-lockett/ His debut album Abington Grove, relea...

In this week's episode, Finnish DJ and music producer Darude joins me for a chat about all manner of things music, life and skateboarding. We also spend some time discussing his 1999 hit, 'Sandstorm', but not too long as there are so many other things to chat about, like his new record label and upcoming single, Nobody Listens with the excellent Gid Sedgwick. From the idyllic peace of...

In this episode I spoke with Alex and Elliot from the Liverpool band, Stone. We touched on all sorts of themes from their formation to the excellent EP Punkadonk and their blistering new single I Gotta Feeling, which is a spoken word, punk tour-de-force, attack on 'toxic masculinity' and the lingering faux bravado that often accompanies it. It's been one heck of a crazy year for this S...

In this episode of Chris Talks Music, I speak to the Israeli popstar Noa Kirel about her path to superstardom in her home country of Israel. We also spend some time discussing her musical upbringing and the importance of being authentic. Naturally our conversation also spent some time focussing on her recent performances at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, where the 22-year-old star...

In this episode, Hugh Cornwell came onto the podcast to discuss his Moments of Madness tour, which will see him performing at Sheffield's o2 Academy 2 on Sunday 7th May. As leader of The Stranglers, Hugh Cornwell was the main songwriter of all the band’s most memorable songs across ten stellar albums: from “Golden Brown” to “Strange Little Girl” and from “Always The Sun” to “Peaches”, “No More...

In this episode of Chris Talks Music, Jim Glennie talks about the James Lasted tour in celebration of the band's 40th Anniversary, as well as the upcoming double album Be Opened By The Wonderful.  Featuring a full orchestra and a gospel choir, Jim also gave an insight into what we can expect from this orchestral double album of the band's biggest hits and a brand new song. But that's n...

In this week's episode, Jon McClure comes on to talk about the upcoming seventh album from Sheffield's Reverend and the Makers, 'Heatwave In The Cold North'. Never one to rest on their laurels and a musical collective constantly striving to challenge perceptions of the band, Reverend and the Makers have become one of the enduring and great survivors of the British music scene. From...

In this week's episode of Chris Talks Music, Sean Cooney from The Young'uns - one of UK folk music's best-loved acts - joins me for a chat about maintaining a bit of the North East feel living in the Steel City and how Paige Hunter's handwritten messages of hope tied to the railings of Sunderland's Wearmouth Bridge inspired arguably the most evocative body of work released yet...

Global folk band Mishra have formed a new collaboration with international fusion-vocalist Deepa Sri Shakthi and are touring venues in the UK this April. Ahead of their return to Sheffield's The Greystones for their penultimate show, I spent some time speaking to Kate Griffin (also of The Magpies) and Ford Collier (also of The Drystones) about this delightful project, justified the spending a...

They were the 90s Sheffield band that should have made it, headlining The Leadmill and with record companies fawning for their attentions, Freezer recorded “Syd Barrett’s Icelandic Girlfriend” as a single in 1996 for Divine Records. But Divine Records went straight to heaven and the single fell into an aural vortex. 26-years later and Freezer are back! After wowing their invited audience at The Do...

In this week's episode, I spend a little time talking to the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winner Lucy Farrell.  The incredibly talented and renowned, multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and songwriter takes us on a journey through her creative process, how motherhood impacted her music and outlook on life, and so much more.  Lucy will be performing a sold-out show at Bishop's House, Sheffi...

Babybird has announced a new ‘The Bad Old Man’ UK tour for this Winter, beginning later this month and coming to the Steel City on 2nd December. The Sheffield-formed band will be bringing a wealth of music to UK audiences and ahead of the tour starting, writer and singer Stephen Jones sat down for a chat about how that Johnny Depp opportunity came about, being heckled with his own song lyrics and...

On this week's episode, Chris talks to Cork-native and electro-pop queen LYRA ahead of her supporting slot with Westlife at Sheffield's Utilita Arena. We discuss all manner of things like how lockdown put a pause on her leap to superstardom, why she is a fashion icon in waiting, the important message behind her recent single 29 Box, her surprise at hearing her music featured on Grey's Anatomy and...

The first time I ever saw Millie Manders and The Shutup was on a bitterly cold Friday evening back in November 2021 at the O2 Academy2 in Sheffield. What followed was an emotional Punk-Pop musical powerhouse of a performance from a spectacular band. Almost a year later I sat down once more to speak to Millie Manders about their musical journey to date, artistic growth, accountability and so much m...

Legendary Dutch DJ and producer Ferry Corsten has been consistently at the top of his game since his sophomore album under the System F alias 'Out of The Blue' charted in the UK Top 20 singles chart in 1999, with remix credits for acts such as U2, Moby, Faithless, Duran Duran and Public Enemy soon after. On November 26, 2022, Ferry is bringing...

Blancmange mark their return to London Records with the upcoming album Private View, almost 40 years since the label released the band’s debut. Chris sat down for a chat with Neil Arthur about dogs, the importance of looking inward as well as forward, and how the past is used as a trigger to create new ideas. Amongst other things, enjoy!

In this episode of Chris Talks Music, I spent some time talking to Chris and Lawrence from the Sheffield band SHEAFS, who released their debut album in July this year, A Happy Medium. Described as 'Coming in Hot' by BBC Radio 1 and 'a rallying call to arms' by Gigwise...

In this episode, The Wombats bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen talks to Chris about his Scandi-Scouse accent, how The Wombats created their chart-topping album Fix Yourself, Not The World in the midst of a pandemic, and shares the smelliest gig they've ever done — ahead of their upcoming show at the O2 Academy in Sheffield on 21st October, 2022.

In this episode, Chris spends a fair amount of time speaking to the exceptional Delilah Bon. The femme-de la bomb alter ego of Lauren Tate from Hands Off Gretel. Crafted by the no-nonsense foundations of female empowerment this unapologetic, lyrically frenetic maestro is being unleashed... and Chris had the pleasure of her company ahead of her Sheffield show at The Leadmill on 29 September, 2022.

On this episode of Chris Talks Music, Midlands-based band The Silver Lines. The band recently released a cracking EP called Sleaze and followed this up with the excellent track 'Hotel Room'. The band performed in Sheffield earlier this month, so we took a little time to talk about their music, politics  and the importance of taking a stand in music and life. Enjoy.

In this episode the esteemed singer-songwriter Annie Keating dials in from Brooklyn, New York, to talk about her upcoming UK and Ireland tour, and discusses the unique opportunity to preview as-yet unreleased material for the first time, with a limited edition new release, the ‘Twenty 22 Tour EP’, exclusively available to purchase at these shows. Enjoy.