Guy Bailey, the co-founder and guitarist of The Quireboys, has passed away. The news of his death was announced by Spike on social media. “My best friend Guy Bailey passed away peacefully in hospital last night in the arms of his beloved Bianca,” Spike wrote. Guy and Spike had been working on new Quireboys material.
In an earlier interview with MetalTalk, Spike spoke with fondness about Guy and the early roots of The Quireboys. “I ended up moving down to London and working on a building site, actually St James army barracks and a few other jobs,” Spike said. “The first person I met was Guy Bailey. I moved into a flat with him right opposite The Oval cricket ground.”
“One day, my dad turned up,” Spike said. “I think I had been there for about six or seven months. He had brought my guitar. You could watch the cricket from Guy Bailey’s flat, by the way. Guy said to me, ‘I never knew you could play the guitar. I play the guitar’. I said, are you kidding me? Then we got talking. Who do you like? And he said ‘Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones’.
“As my dad was watching the cricket, we wrote, I Don’t Love You Anymore and Roses & Rings. We wrote about five or six songs that afternoon. My dad turned around and said, ‘you know what? You should start a band,’ and that’s how it all came about.”
“I moved to London from Gateshead when I was 16,” Spike said. “I met Guy Bailey, Chris Johnstone and Nigel Mogg, and we started The Quireboys. These were the days when we were in the back of a yellow Bedford van, and we played every university, any show we could get. We worked our arses off to build up the whole brand of The Quireboys. Many people forget that when we eventually got a major record deal, we had been touring for a long, long time.”
Following Spike and The Quireboys parting company last year, Spike was excited to work with Guy Bailey again, writing new material for an album.
“It was so wonderful to write with Guy Bailey again, who has always been my best friend. We sat down, and it was like we hadn’t been apart. I thought this is going to be special because even when The Quireboys first started, nobody sounded like us. There wasn’t really an English rock and roll band. When me and Guy sat down again and, I’m not joking, I think it must have been two or three hours, and we wrote the basics of four or five songs. Three chords, three or four chords, you know. It was, come on, let’s just do this, but keep it how we originally wanted.”
“I’ve written with a lot of different people over the years, and me and him always seem to write the best of them. I know people have said a lot of different things about everybody, but he’s on top form. I’ve had Nigel Mogg with me for the past few weeks. Everybody’s so excited about doing this. We have a new album.”
“You gotta remember that me, Chris, Guy and Nigel have been best friends all the way through, all the way through everything.”
In Spike’s statement yesterday, he says, “me and Chris Johnstone, Nigel Mogg and Rudy Richman will fulfil his wishes that these songs are recorded, and a new Quireboys album will be released this year.
“So everyone raise a glass for Guy Bailey, and let’s keep rock ‘n’ roll alive for him.
“I love you, mate.
“I know you’re having a drink with our dads now and looking down and watching us bubble.”
pic.twitter.com/7jaQDsFHEF— The Quireboys Spike Official (@SpikeQuireboys) April 7, 2023
