Brian May, Rob Zombie, Biffy Clyro, Francis Rossi, Siouxsie Sioux and more posed with their favourite meals... for a good cause
(Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Ten years ago, photographer Patrice de Villiers published a cookbook. It was not like other cookbooks.
Love Music Love Food: The Rock Star Cookbook wasn't the kind of throwaway, novelty affair you usually get when musicians, food and publishing come together. It was large format. It weighed nearly two kilos. It was filled with glorious, lavishly posed photos of musicians surrounded by (and, occasionally, covered in) their favourite food.
Fat Duck alchemist Heston Blumenthal wrote the foreword. Recipes from Sarah Muir - who's provided on-tour catering for the likes of Bob Dylan, Radiohead and The Prodigy - filled its glossy pages. Journalist Andrew Harrison did the interviews. And proceeds from sales of the book went straight into the ever-grateful coffers of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Love Music Love Food was undeniably a good thing. And, a decade down the line, it's still a good thing, as Patrice explains.
"As it's the tenth anniversary," she says, "we're celebrating in various ways and creating several initiatives in order to raise more funds and awareness for the charity. The main one is print sales. 100% of the proceeds goes to the charity after production costs, and for the tenth anniversary, there are also limited edition black and white polaroid prints which did not appear in the original book."
Below, Patrice reveals the stories behind just some of the photos in the book. If you'd like to order a print, contact her at patrice@patricedevilliers.com.
Roger Daltrey
As the co-founder of Teenage Cancer Trust, Roger was a key shoot. He did at one point own a trout fishing farm as he was keen that less privileged kids in the local area could do an outdoor pursuit at little expense. So, it was an obvious choice & the image concept is indeed based on a particular scene from the film ‘Tommy’ in which he starred. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Francis Rossi
When Francis chose sushi, I imaged his legendary ponytail could be used like the famous Hokusai wave. However, when we arrived at his chosen location, a sushi restaurant in Croydon, he’d just had it cut off and auctioned for charity (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Fairport Convention
The heritage bands make a lot of cash for Teenage Cancer Trust and so it was a great to get them involved. They did a gig at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the annual week that takes place and is one of the charity’s biggest fund raising events, and the bucket collections skyrocketed. A good old Sunday roast was their thing, as many of the artists chose something nostalgic, a point rock'n'roll chef Heston Blumenthal made in the foreword as an observation about how we often associate with food generally. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Noel Gallagher
Noel is of the Teenage Cancer Trust main supporters & when I ask him what his favourite food is, he asked if he could choose a drink instead. Which is Yorkshire Tea. Sarah Muir, who wrote the recipes for the book and used to be Oasis’s personal chef, was not surprised at all as she said he literally travelled round the world touring with industrial quantities of the stuff. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Feeder
This was a shot in a makeshift ‘studio’ tent at V Festival at Weston Park. I wanted to include festivals in some way as they are such a vital part of the music scene. We also covered Oxygen in Ireland with a green background for obvious reasons! Grant and Taka were a hoot, they really took to messing about with a couple of handsome mackerel & an elegantly large crab. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Siouxsie Sioux
It was an honour and real treat to shoot such a legend. As a kid when I was listening to the Banshees she was - and still is - a great role model as a cool, brilliant successful woman in the music biz. In the interview done by Andrew Harrison, she gave the reason for her choice as a comfort food, and when she came back off the tour there was always a tin of beans in the cupboard and rubbish bread and eggs from the corner shop on the way home. So it’s breakfast minus the bacon, being a veggie. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Biffy Clyro
They were in town for the NME awards happening on the evening of the shoot, so we had to be super quick. Simon asked me what they should wear and not wanting to waste time, I said just take your shirts off lads, knowing they are gloriously inked up & and that’s how they often appear on stage. It was a joy to be at the awards later on & see them win best band. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Brian May
When Brian said his fav thing is grapefruit, it was an immediate image that came to mind of orbiting grapefruit ‘planets’, as not only is he part of one of the biggest bands on this planet, he’s also famous for taking the longest time to complete a PHD, in astrophysics! So, I dressed him as a time lord of fruit, the Doctor May, a wonderfully gentle guitar rock god. I did the shoot on my son’s 10th b’day and he generously signed a little acoustic guitar for Dylan to help encourage him to start playing. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Papa Roach
Jakoby and the guys are big foodies and love a Thai. They were doing a gig in Birmingham that night, but the crew hadn’t unloaded the kit so they made a good background scene. Shooting them from a low angle made them a little more intimidating and dynamic, and with the obligatory rock hands holding ingredients associated with Thai cooking, it’s a cool shot. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Bullet For My Valentine
For whatever reason chains got involved! I got a model in mainly because I liked the idea of ladies’ fingers (okra), a staple of Indian cooking, replacing her own fingers. It's for real, with a little touch of blending in post production. The guys were great and Ioved the menacing-looking utensils I used to spear the ingredients. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Kelly Jones
Great voice and a twinkle in his eyes. Stereophonics singer Kelly is another key supporter of the Teenage Cander Trust, so fantastic he got involved. Not sure 10 years hence industrial quantities of wine gums would be approved of but again it was about nostalgia. I liked the idea of a slightly naughty saint and created a backdrop of the sweets to resemble a stained glass window in a church, and he really got that concept. So the end result was capturing that twinkle as he’s holding onto the communion goblet of Maynards wine gums. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
Rob Zombie
Another great but came late lightbulb moment, as I did have to ask several times what his favourite food was. He would just say vegetarian and that’s a pretty wide net, then I just thought 'what he’s famous for outside of his music?' and it’s Halloween. So shooting in LA, Marshall Amps UK kindly lent me an amp and I went to a market to buy all the pumpkins on display plus a chainsaw, you know, the usual daily shop, resulting in the perfect chainsaw Halloween pumpkin massacre. (Image credit: Patrice de Villiers)
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Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazinesince 2014. 38 years in music industry, online for 25. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.
