Recalling 22 years with Les McKeown’s Legendary Bay City Rollers

Russell offers a 168-page photo record of his time touring with the Rollers’ frontman to places including Japan, the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe and the UK. Among the anecdotes are photos of Les, Suzi Q, David Cassidy and many more.

Russell, currently co-lead singer and keys player with Dave Hill in Slade, is delighted to be in print with memories of such happy times. Sadly Les himself passed away in London in 2021, aged 65.

“I started with Les in 1989,” Russell recalls. “There is a video of us in New York in 1992 and I was in the band before that. It must have been 89 or 90. It was just after the wall came down and we did a TV show in Potsdam.

“There was a guy who was called Terry Munday who I was in bands with for years and years. Terry was playing with his band in Hackney, and Les needed a band so Terry went off with him. I didn't but they needed a keyboard player a few months later and I got asked. That's how it happened and I just continued with them from there.

“Les was a lovely guy. He had a lot of demons, and maybe we shouldn't go into them. I think people know that he had his troubles, but he was lovely. He was great. He was a troubled individual in a lot of ways but we got on very well and I did more than 20 years with him.”

McKeown revealed in 2009 that he was sexually assaulted when he was seventeen.

“Les loved music and he hated it. Because of what happened he associated the abuse with the music but he also loved playing. He went all over the world with it and I think that was when he was at his happiest. He was a very good singer. He sang in tune for a start! He had a really lovely voice. He had quite a Scottish voice. It was a great voice.

“I did 22 years with him until 2010 and then we fell out, as you do. I think it was money or something like that. It was coming to a head. There was a bit of a power struggle in the band, and we fell out but luckily I was doing a Slade show in Butlins about six months before he died and he was on the same bill as us. I got to see him and give him a hug and everything was fine between us… and then six months later he was dead.”

Russell added: “I'd always wanted to do this book for years. I've had the photos forever. I just got them down from the loft one day. I've got hundreds and hundreds. I'm a bit of a hoarder for photos. I'm not a writer. I was just looking at the photos and trying to remember who they were of and what was happening when they were taken. So really the book is just telling the stories around the photos. It's literally a photo book with a bit of writing. It was great to do.”

The book can be ordered from https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rollersbook