Pete Haycock

Vocals, Guitars

Peter "Pete" Haycock was born 4th March 1951 in Stafford as son of Ronald and Edith. He went to St. Johns Primary School and King Edwards Grammar School in Stafford before working in a laboratory at the age of 16. Pete learned to play harmonica at the age of 9, then started to play the guitar at the age of 11. Apart from guitars and harmonica Pete is proficient at programming drums and play bass.

He played his first gig aged 12 in a Miner´s club in Rugeley, playing guitar. A couple of years later Pete joined his first band the Mason Dixon Line. In 1967 he met up with Colin Cooper and joined the soul band The Gospel Truth. The following year Pete Haycock helped to form The Climax Chicago Blues Band which later shortened their name into Climax Blues Band. With them, Pete scored several worldwide hits such as "Gotta Have More Love","I Love You" and "Couldn't Get It Right".

When Climax Blues Band disbanded in the mid-eighties he formed Pete Haycock´s Climax and recorded two albums with them. In 1987 he recorded an instrumental solo album "Guitar And Son" for the No Speak label, and toured as a member of the "Night Of The Guitars" project together with many other rock guitarists. Members of the backing band were among others Clive Mayuyu on drums and Livingston Brown on bass, who would later become members of the Pete Haycock Band.

From 1988 onwards Pete recorded more than a dozen soundtracks for Hans Zimmer, the most notable being "One False Move" for which he was nominated for the "Independent Spirit Award" in 1992.

Pete had been well known by Bev from both band's Harvest days when Climax used to play gigs with ELO. Pete was asked to join ELO Part II as lead guitarist, bass player, co-lead singer and co-composer in 1989. He left ELO Part II in 1992 due to contractual problems with the management.

He is currently working for Hans Zimmer on a new Steven Spielberg production for a TV crime series and for the new Robert De Niro movie "The Fan".

Pete was married to his wife Terry and has two daughters, Rebecca born in 1970 and Lucienne born in 1974, and a grand-son Daniel born in 1988. He now lives in Germany.

Information compiled by Marc Haines, Patrik Guttenbacher and Alexander von Petersdorff.
Shortened excerpt taken from their book "Unexpected Messages"
(C) 1996 FACE THE MUSIC GERMANY.


last modified: 26.02.2000