Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2013 | Page 108

ENTERTAINMENT

Graham
still a
smash
hit!
Matchbox front man
wowing fans across
the world
Graham Fenton has never forgotten
his first smash hit. He stood on his
dad’s prized vinyl recording of ‘Rock
Around the Clock’ and broke it into
three, writes Peter White.
Thankfully dad forgave him, and
Graham went on to record a string
of smash hits as the lead singer of
Matchbox, a group formed in the
late 1970s and still going strong after
re-forming in 1995.
Graham has lived in the Sandown
area for the past 12 years. And he is
still often packing his bags, waving
his family goodbye and setting off
for another tour to the delight of the
band’s worldwide following of all ages.
Born and raised near Ealing, West
London, Graham reckoned: “I was
a bit of a rocker in those days.” He
recalls how he grew up to the sounds
of Bill Haley and the Comets, simply
because his dad was always playing
his 78rpm record, ‘Rock Around the
Clock’.
He said: “It was the first record I
ever heard, and dad absolutely loved
it. But when he was at work one day I
accidently stood on it and it broke into
three pieces. I knew he would go crazy,
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but somehow he glued it together
and still played it even though there
were a few ‘clicks’ every revolution.
Eventually my elder brother went out
and bought him a replacement.”
Graham recalls how brother Ken got
into music because he wanted a ‘Teddy
Boy’ suit for Christmas, but when he
opened the box it turned out to be an
acoustic guitar. His face dropped, but
eventually he began playing it, and it
went from there.
Graham followed him into the music
industry almost by accident. When
he was 18, and had only done a bit of
‘bathroom singing’, he had a few beers
one night, got up on a pub stage to
sing ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ – and never
looked back.
With his brother playing in a band
that included John Entwistle, later
of The Who, and Rick Wakeman,
Graham soon got into the music
scene, getting up on stage to do the
occasional number alongside his
brother. Eventually he formed his
own group, only to have his musicians
‘nicked