29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
"We fixed everything and they made one of the biggest albums of the 1990s"
KINGSLEY Ward is leaning against a post in the courtyard. Behind him is the old pig shed where Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded.
'I remember standing in the yard and hearing the guitar solo and thinking, 'That's a bloody good guitar solo',' he says.
Welcome to Rockfield in rural south Wales. The studio on the farm. Home to cattle, sheep, horses and some of the biggest bands in the world.
This is where The Stone Roses had their Second Coming, where Coldplay went Yellow and where Queen asked the world to do the Fandango.
Thirty years ago, Oasis arrived here to make their second album (What's The Story) Morning Glory? From the outset, Rockfield owner Kingsley Ward knew it was something special.
'I told Noel it would sell millions,' says Kingsley. 'He said, 'Do you think so?' and I said, 'Yeah, because you've got four hit singles there.'
'Noel was back here two weeks ago and he said, 'Kingsley got it right.' He remembered it.'
Kingsley and his late brother Charles started the studios in the early 1960s after buying some recording equipment and using empty pig feed bags to soundproof the farmhouse loft.
Rockfield was born.
Over the years, a granary, stable block and pig shed were all converted into acoustic spaces filled with microphones, mixing consoles and moveable walls.
It has become one of the most successful studios in the world and is still run by Kingsley and his wife Ann and their daughters Amanda and Lisa.
'Whenever anyone asks, I always say the summer The Pogues were here was the best one. It was just a really special time,' says Lisa.
'They were such a great band, the weather was perfect, the World Cup was on and they befriended everybody in town. Even the poachers.'
The Pogues travelled to Rockfield in June 1990 to record Hell's Ditch with The Clash's Joe Strummer as producer and Glasgow roadie Charlie MacLennan tasked with looking after their increasingly wayward singer.
'He stayed up there,' says Kingsley, pointing at a room overlooking a field. 'I went up there one morning about 12 o'clock and it was all dark and like an idiot I opened the curtains.
'This figure rose up off the settee and said, 'Can you close the curtains?'
'It was Shane.'
Hell's Ditch would turn out to be Shane MacGowan's last album with the band as fault lines widened between him and the other members, but for the most part it was a happy time with Strummer conducting affairs in a cowboy hat.
'We had The Pogues and Joe Strummer and another band called The Connells and they all got on so well,' says Lisa.
'One of the guys from The Connells loved fishing. He went fishing one afternoon and came back with a tiny trout and he was so proud of this tiny trout.
'And then, I remember Big Charlie [MacLennan] appearing the next day with this enormous salmon and the guy from The Connells was gutted.
'Of course, The Pogues had bought the salmon off one of the local poachers in Monmouth.'
Two horses, Hugo and Shamrock, are grazing in the paddock. Staff are cleaning out accommodation, getting ready for the next band.
Lisa opens the door of the Quadrangle studio and flicks on the lights.
A vintage tape machine is standing in one room. An organ is behind a partition.
Microphones, cables and amplifiers are scattered around. Kingsley sits down behind the mixing desk.
Irish artists have decamped here for decades with everyone from The Undertones and Ash to NewDad recording at Rockfield.
'Ward is an Irish name,' says Kingsley. 'My great-grandfather came over in the 1800s. We've had all the Irish bands. Everyone but U2.'
There follows a mini dispute between father and daughter about whether U2 came to Rockfield to visit Robert Plant or Clannad sometime in the 1980s. Or maybe both.
'They've all been to Rockfield. Paul Brady. The Saw Doctors. Cry Before Dawn. That Petrol Emotion,' says Kingsley.
'Horslips… Bloody hell, great guys. Michael Deeny, their manager, I remember him alright.
'The Hothouse Flowers… one of them got drunk in town and left his boots in the pub. We had to go into Monmouth the next morning looking for the boots.
'We've had the whole contingent. Oasis, of course, they're Irish too.'
Oasis had history with this part of the world.
The band held initial sessions for Definitely Maybe at nearby Monnow Valley Studios – a former Rockfield rehearsal space that Kingsley's brother Charles turned into a separate business.
While there, they visited The Stone Roses at Rockfield during the recording of their Second Coming album with Liam Gallagher and Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs taking a combine harvester for a spin across the fields one night.
That set the tone for the Morning Glory sessions in May 1995.
'Men behaving badly,' says Lisa, smiling. 'That's why all the accommodation here is comfortable, it's not boutique. Because things happen in high jinks.'
Famously, the Gallagher brothers had a huge bust-up at the end of the first week with a cricket bat, fire extinguisher and dust bin involved in the carnage before the band fled.
Lisa opens the door of the Coach House studio where they were working on Morning Glory. The control room looks almost the same as it did in 1995, although the sofas are new.
'We never talked about the fight for years. The press would ask us about it, but we never spoke about it,' says Lisa.
'It happened, it was all fine, it all got sorted. We fixed everything and they came back and recorded one of the biggest albums of the 1990s.
'They're fabulous, we love them. And 30 years later we still have a great relationship with them because they know they can trust us and we know we can trust them.
'That's why Noel was back here doing random stuff for the 30th anniversary of the album. That's why they're welcome back any time.'
The grand piano Noel played on Don't Look Back In Anger is in the corner of the studio. Lisa takes the cover off and pulls out a wooden stool held together by black tape.
'That probably sums up Rockfield,' she says, laughing.
Don't Look Back In Anger was one of four hit singles on Morning Glory, along with Some Might Say, Roll With It and Wonderwall.
The album sold 22 million copies worldwide. Kingsley got it right.
'We've got a wall outside we call our Wonderwall,' says Lisa. 'Noel set up microphones there to record the guitar part of the song. He originally wanted to record it on the wall.'
You can hear a snippet of the recording before the opening track on the album, complete with bird song.
Last year, The Cure made their comeback album Songs of a Lost World at Rockfield and the studio's legacy keeps inspiring new generations.
Even Noel has been to see where Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded in 1975.
'It's the unusual circumstances of where it is, the farm, and it's the bands. Those two things. That's why it's special,' says Kingsley.
Lisa points towards her office at the end of the courtyard.
'If I stand outside my office, I can hear guitars in one room and drums in another, the hair still stands up on the back of my neck. And I can wear my wellies all day.
'We've got the best job in the world.'
Some might say she's right.
