Portsmouth's rising rockabilly stars Danny O and The Astrotones get ready to play The Wedgewood Rooms

It is almost a year to the day since The Astrotones’ frontman’s father died, a week after the band were formed.

Born and bred in Portsmouth, Paul Dawkins was a prominent figure in the rockabilly scene as the singer and guitarist of The Kingbeats and The Rough Diamonds.

And it was this love of music that was channelled into his son, Danny, from a young age.

‘I remember really vividly driving around in my dad’s Triumph Herald convertible, when I was about eight and he always had this collection of tapes of rockabilly, garage and surf music, all that stuff, and I would always ask for Strychnine by (cult American garage-rock act) The Sonics, so that was my first musical memory, learning the lyrics to that in the car.

‘And that’s where my musical tastes developed, from my dad’s tapes in that car. And as I grew a bit older I managed to find my own tastes kind of based on that, but grounded in ‘50s/60s garage and rock’n’roll. My favourite band of all time are The White Stripes, who directly link back to all of that, and stuff like The Hives as well.’

Previously guitarist in The Caezars, when that band folded, Danny decided it was time to take the reins for himself. And there was only going to be one name for the band.

‘A lot of people know dad as Paul Owen, which is where the “O” came from. Later on in life he had a band called Paul O and The Wildcards and they just played pubs and did rock’n’roll covers with no grand plans for world domination, it was just a bit of fun.

‘Dad unfortunately had an accident when I was 10 that left him wheelchair bound and unable to play guitar.

‘His own hand-built guitar, which he made himself, it kind of sat on the wall gathering dust for a long time and no-one else was allowed to play it.

‘It became almost like an Excalibur figure in the house – there was reverence to this guitar, a reminder of everything he’d been able to do but was no longer able to do. So it was tinged with greatness but with some sadness there too.

‘And then on my 18th birthday he handed it down to me to play and tour with, and that was a really amazing thing to have, that emotional bond with the instrument I was playing with.

‘That guitar was called The Astrotone.’

The former Admiral Lord Nelson School pupil has since had his own version of the guitar made after a couple of incidents when touring with it.

The first time was when The Caezars were supporting indie-rockers The Vaccines and it received a nasty knock while resting against a wall backstage, which necessitated an emergency dash to a luthier. The second was at another gig where ‘I fell off a drum kit with it which was just me being an idiot really.’

‘That’s when I thought, perhaps I shouldn’t really be playing with this… So my friend, Little Carl, built Astrotone Mark II.

‘I still tour with my dad’s guitar, but now I use that as the spare – it’s like he’s always got my back, having it there as a spare.’

The Astrotones held their first rehearsal last July, and fortunately Paul got to at least see part of that.

‘Our first rehearsal was on the 7th of July and then that evening he went into hospital with the early stages of pneumonia and it just got worse and worse.

‘I think he knew something bad was going to happen, he was really struggling.

‘I’ve got a shed I practice in, and I got the guys in the band to come down early and run through things acoustically before we spent a load of money on a rehearsal room. I thought it might help if we were at least a little bit more organised to have some idea of what we were doing.

‘My dad made a point of coming out to watch us play a song and then he had to go back in to the house, as just doing that exhausted him.

‘So he never saw me play as a frontman, he saw The Caezars play loads of times, but he never got to see me really take the mantle for myself.’

The band released their debut album, Introducing… last month.

Danny was keen to make sure they didn’t come across simply as a revivalist act.

‘When you’ve got an interest in music you always want to be creative and challenge yourself.

‘I do hope that it comes across as something a little bit different – we’re not in 1959 at the end of the day, and there’s issues in society that are different now and you need to be more contemporary and addressing that or otherwise you’re not doing anything or pushing anything forward.

‘Although I wear my influences on my sleeve, I don’t really want to be seen as something that is revivalist as I don’t think that’s going to move people.’

The album was recorded as live, analogue-style, straight on to tape.

‘It was a very conscious decision because it’s the way that music was recorded and if you don’t try and emulate the way it was recorded, you’re not doing the job properly.

‘I know you can go in to a studio with a digital mixing desk and do amazing things and get those huge productions, but they’re not going to be faithful to the way the music I love was recorded. I set those limitations on myself very consciously and very deliberately because I felt that was the way to best capture the sound I wanted and that energy and intensity of a live performance.’

And from the tape, it was cut directly on to the wax master for the the vinyl.

‘There’s only a couple of studios in the UK that can do that.

‘It was done by a guy called Noel Summerville, and he won a Grammy for mastering (The White Stripes’ album) Elephant.

‘I was absolutely floored to meet the guy who mastered one of my favourite albums of all time and here I am talking to him about the music that I’ve made. I was really lucky to have that opportunity, but he’s still one of the only people you can go to in the UK and get the parts you need to press a record without going digital.

‘You can see him put the tapes on the tape deck and he starts playing them and he does all this knob-twiddling. Then the moment he presses play, you see the needle drop on to the lacquer and you see the record being cut live.

‘Being there and seeing how records are made, was incredible. Even talking about it now gives me chills, it was such a rewarding process.’

The band have been busy touring with American rock’n’rollers The Delta Bombers – who are headlining The Wedge gig.

‘Dad passed away on the 14th of July, which is why I’m glad I’m on tour, as it means I can throw myself into the music.

‘That’s what I’ve done since it happened, and having his guitar and still being as close to that and what he enjoyed doing, it makes… it’s bittersweet, but it helps keep me going.

‘There’s so much of my life I owe to him and his investment in me and the music he taught me, so in every band I’ve been in, I’ve always covered one of his songs.

‘On the new album the opening track is an instrumental track he used to do called Machine Gun, and there’s a big dedication to him in the album as I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it wasn’t for him.’

THE DELTA BOMBERS, W/DANNY ‘O’ & THE ASTROTONES, THE VOODOO VAMPS

The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea

Saturday, July 20

wedgewood-rooms.co.uk