Ahead of their show here at Band on the Wall on 9 May 2025, BBC Radio 6 Music’s Deb Grant spoke to legendary producer, arranger and creator of The RAH Band, Richard Anthony Hewson, and his son Dan, who now leads the live band.
Deb Grant: There’s been a resurgence of interest in that brilliant track of yours, ‘Messages from the Stars’, can you tell me how that’s all come about?
Richard A Hewson: Well it became popular in Los Angeles, two or three years ago. The kids somehow, I think they have what they have called influencers, I don’t know which one it was, but he said, here you go, listen to The RAH Band, and the kids pick up on that sort of thing and they started to play it and put it on TikTok, Spotify, all those premises on social media. And it took off big time. I think at the top we had something like 300 million hits over social media.
And from then, of course, because of that song being popular, the kids started to investigate the rest of the catalogue, which is great because there’s tons of it. And it sort of blew up big time.
DG: You’re a very prolific music producer and arranger, and this song is just one moment in your career. Is it strange to be revisiting this music again with these live shows?
RAH: Yeah, well it is of course because as you said I’ve done loads of other stuff. The RAH Band is now my baby and ever since I was an arranger, I did arranging back in the 70s for loads of people, Americans, all across the world. But I changed to producing because with arrangers you only get a fee and I thought I’m never going to make any money this way. So I wrote a tune called ‘The Crunch’ and it took off, believe it or not. And that was me making the first record in the bedroom. So I was one of the first bedroom bands.
DG: But you have this live set up which you’ve put together, with nine people in the band. Can you talk to me about creating that live set up to replicate something which you’ve put together in the studio?
RAH: Well, this is where my son comes in because he is a brilliant musician. He took all the old records and transcribed them for live performance, substituting what I’ve done with synthesizers and guitar and bass, and turn them into a band, really, basically, and that’s what you hear tonight.
Dan Hewson: So the whole thing’s written out on a score. I’ve been performing for many, many years, so I’ve built up quite a few trusted contacts. I basically got in touch with my favourite musicians and just said, do you want to be in this thing? And I told them about the back story. Most people already knew. So yeah, everyone was really up for getting involved. So basically what it was, send out all the charts to the guys, let them learn it. First rehearsal, it was incredible. And we sort a starting point just to sound like the original, and we kind of gradually putting a little bit of our own identities because every musician plays in a different way. But yeah, it’s been an absolute dream.
RAH: So what happened when the guys and girls worked from Dan’s scores on the stuff that I’d originally done all myself, not singing obviously, but back in the day I used lots of different singers. My first wife was the main singer on the two or three first hits. But then when it’s updated now with new singers and new musicians, it brings a fresh feel to the whole thing, even though it’s the same music, but it’s got a nice live feel, which is something I couldn’t do totally alone.