WORDS BY DOUGLAS MCPHERSON
© Geoff Barker (courtesy of Gordon Scott) unless otherwise stated
Matchbox’s rhythm guitarist Gordon Scott is thinking about fame. “We didn’t aspire to it,” he says. “You see TV talent shows today where people say, ‘All I’ve ever wanted was to be famous.’ But I think if you speak to any band from our era, we did it because we liked playing. We enjoyed the buzz, it was a good bit of fun and a great social outlet. We didn’t say, ‘I’m going to sell a million records.’” It didn’t matter, for Matchbox hit the big time beyond their dreams when they soared into the British Top 20 with Rockabilly Rebel, a song that was also a hit in Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and New Zealand, where it stayed on the chart for 16 weeks and peaked at No.1. For many teenagers in 1979, the sing-along anthem was their first introduction to the word ‘rockabilly’ and it ignited a craze for the music that, for a few years in the early 80s, made the slap of double-basses as common on the airwaves as the synthesisers of the New Romantics.