CHAS & DAVE PLAY MK THEATRE THIS SUNDAY. CHAS HODGES HAD A CHINWAG WITH SAMMY JONES

Think about it.  How many bands do you know who could just as confidently hit the stage with a piano and play to a metal crowd, as they could wow the Royal Variety Performance with a right old sing-song also featuring Robbie Williams and Mary J Blige on the track London Girls.

Yup, there's only one Chas & Dave.

Picking up the point, Chas explains: "When we walk out, I feel confident everywhere.  Someone said years ago, when Pavarotti was around, that we could walk out during the interval of a Pavarotti concert and we'd raise a cheer.

"I suppose we could.  What we have created is the ability to walk out in front of anyone and be able to say 'You're in for a good time.'

Listening to Chas share stories from his colourful past is like a Jackanory for music obsessed adults. In 2014, the duo put out their first new studio album in 27 years, That's What Happens.

But Chas began his musical career in a skiffle group, age 13: "I remember doing a gig, and I just floated through it.  It was so fantastic.  Then someone gave me a pound note at the end and I thought, 'right, this is the life for me.'  I'm still doing the same thing now and enjoying it.

Switching to bass guitar, he went out on tour with Mike Berrry, as one of The Outlaws.

Things went well...until the arrival of four Liverpudlians onto the scene.

"We used to do a gig in Stourbridge and it was always packed out.  There were always queues around the corner when we did it, but this particular night there were only about eight people.

We thought it probably hadn't been advertised.  We asked the hardy fans 'Where's the rest?' and they said 'That new band The Beatles are on down the road,' I remember thinking 'We've got competition here...'

The two bands went on to tour together - The Beatles as the support band.  Later, while Chas was with Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, they supported The Beatles on a tour of Germany.

And there was a very special gig before a very special audience....

"In the early 80s me and Dave got invited to Eric Clapton's wedding where he lived, held in this big marquee with gear in it.  I jumped up on the piano and was doing a bit of rock n roll, with one of the little kids playing the drums...the next minute Ringo jumped on the drums and winked at me, then started playing.  Then Paul plugged in, then George...I remember thinking 'Oh 'eck...I'm the fourth Beatle here...

"Ringo's wife Maureen took a load of pictures...they are around somewhere..."

Chas - who learned the art of the piano when he toured with Jerry Lee Lewis in '63 - never gets tired of playing ('When I finish talking to you, I'll have a cup of tea and go and play something...') and never gets nervous, no matter who is on stage alongside him.

"I enjoy playing and I can fit in with anybody," he realises, "It's great when I start playing and whoever it is, whether it be Jerry Lewis or Paul McCartney look at me with a smile, and I think 'Yeah, they've got it...they like what I'm doing.  So that has given me confidence over the years."

As a youngster, Chas learned from pioneering record producer Joe Meek too, the man behind Telstar, the first record by a UK group to hit the top spot Stateside.

MPMG Chas & Dave 2

"He was not a rules man.  I learned lots from Joe - like editing, and I still love editing today.

"Joe experimented, and if you suggested something he would never say 'No'.  He would always try it.  That's always been my philosophy, get out there and try it.  It doesn't matter how silly it sounds, and only takes 30 seconds to try."

Everyone knows - and is capable of blasting out - a Chas & Dave song. There have been plenty of them since the duo first came into consciousness in the early 70s.

Gercha, Ain't No Pleasin' You, Rabbit, London Girls, Margate, The Sideboard Song...

All classic, knees-up numbers, but actually the playability behind them is pretty special. 

The hard bit is doing it without making it look hard.

"My mum's favourite piano player was Fats Waller, and he was fantastic, but he would b**** about and shout over the top of his solos.  Anyone half listening would have said he sounded like a rough pub piano player.  But you listen to what he is playing and it is immaculate.

"All the best ones have humour - whether they be musicians or sportsman.  They make it look easy."

Addressing their own abilities, Chas says: "Me and Dave pride ourselves on being good musicians and we love entertaining.  Music is made to put a smile on your face, to make you feel good, and go away feeling better than you did when you came in.  If we do that to you, we are doing it right." And those who don't get it?

"I've always said if people don't get what we're up to, they either haven't listened to us, or there has got to be something wrong with them somewhere along the line.  So, if they don't get it, it doesn't annoy me, but I feel a little bit sorry for them."

And 50 years in to his musical career, Chas is still looking for the next track, the next special one: "I'm always writing songs and songs are like having babies.  You always think 'I wonder what the next one is going to turn out like,'" he says.

And dare we say that it's the music that has kept you young?

"You are dead right.  My mum always used to say 'music keeps you young,' and I don't feel any different in my head than I did 40 years ago," he promises.

"I can't run as fast as I used to," he says with a giggle, "... but everything else is the same.  As you say, as long as my fingers are working, and they are.  I keep making sure they are, because I keep playing..."

But who is capable of picking up - and running with - that C&D mantle?  Are the next generation  out there? "I get a lot of tweets and a lot of people saying 'We're influenced by...' so I'm hoping that in the next 19 years, maybe before, that someone is going to pop up and say Chas & Dave got us started.  I ain't found them yet, but I think we've put enough of our feeling out there to inspire.

"I think they are out there somewhere..."

Our Christmas 2014 included a retro Christmas with Chas & Dave on Channel 5.  A proper knees up from 1982. It was a roar, and featured the aforementioned Clapton in guest spot.

Proper traditional television with your tinsel.  And there might be more on the way, fingers-crossed.

"There is talk about us doing another one," he reveals. 

"We might have Status Quo in there doing a number, we might get Bill Bailey on doing a spot, a bit of music, a bit of comedy.  I got so many tweets about that Christmas one, and we've got a meeting in a couple of weeks..."

When the cockney rock n rollers - aka Mr Hodges and Mr Peacock - walk onto the stage of Milton Keynes Theatre this Sunday evening, as part of the On the Road tour, they promise ticket-holders all the hits. 

"It's the Chas & Dave story, if you like.  The first half is Chas & Dave in the 70s, and that's good because every now and then we will think of something we used to do then that we ain't done before and sling that in.

"In the second half we do all the hits, even though we don't work to an actual list. 

"Sometimes we come off and we've forgotten things - we actually played in Margate and thought we'd save the song 'til the end...and forgot to do it!"  To book tickets for a cracking night out call 0844 871 7652 or visit www.atgtickets.com/miltonkeynes