Steve Hooker barely needs an introduction. Known for his rockabilly sound, Steve, from Southchurch, is a well-known face on the local music scene.

He’s also renowned on the world stage, having worked with the likes of Wilko Johnson, Chuck Berry, Boz Boorer, Geno Washington, Steve Marriott and the late Johnny Thunders.

In fact, it is because of his friendship with New York Doll and Heartbreaker Thunders, that Steve has appeared in a documentary – Looking for Johnny, the Legend of Johnny Thunders – due to be premiered in London, at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, on Thursday, June 5.

Steve, who describes his role as a cameo, explains: “I knew him slightly, hence my involvement with the film. I am very proud to have been asked to take part in it.”

Since 2004, Steve has fronted his rockabilly Stripped Down Stompin’ Band.

When the band first got together, Steve says they decided to make a statement, only carrying light amps and a small drum kit. With the exception of Steve Hooker, which he says is a “bit of a brand name”, he only ever gives the first names of those in the rest of the group – John on bass, Brian on drums and sometimes Alice on harmonica.

“It makes sense to travel light when you play at a lot of small local venues,” he explained, athough the band has actually toured all over, including in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Finland and Spain.

Steve’s appetite for music was whetted when he was a schoolboy and watched the Rolling Stones on TV playing Around and Around.

He says: “I got my first guitar at 11, but I wasn’t any good for years and years. I just chipped away at it while at home and started writing songs as a teenager, but I didn’t really knock them into shape until I was in my early twenties.”

Incidentally, Steve now owns about 12 or 13 guitars he says, his favourite being a 1959 Les Paul Junior which he uses in the studio, but avoids taking to gigs on account of being too nervous about it getting knocked about.

His first band to speak of was the Heat in 1977, who went on tour with Wilko.

Steve says: “I had been in lots of local bands before, but that was the first professional band.

“People called us punk, but we weren’t really. We were playing a lot of rhythm and blues, Sixties garage, not anything too different to what we play now.”

It was as Steve became professional that more doors opened with regards to playing with big names.

“It’s just like any job really,” Steve says when pushed to do a bit of name dropping (By the way, Steve isn’t particularly comfortable being interviewed. He says he is too “touchy”, although he doesn’t come across at all touchy. In fact, he is easy to talk to and very apologetic about his awkwardness – just not really into selling himself and quite matter-of-fact about his long career).

“I suppose there are some people you forge friendships with as a professional and I always like to honour those friendships, because even though circumstances might mean you can’t always work with each other, I always have it in mind you might be able to again in the future.

“I’d say one of the people who has been a friend is Paul Shuttleworth, from the Kursaal Flyers. We go a long way back and he has always been there to bounce off with songwriting. Wilko has always been a good friend too.”

Steve is as much known for his Fifties rock ‘n’ roll style, and his love of boots, as his music. In fact, he even had a brief fling as a shoe designer in the Eighties.

“Yeah,” he says, “there was a point where I wondered if I was getting too old to have rock ‘n’ roll dreams. I’d been to art college in the Sixties and was always interested.

“Anyway, I had a go at shoe design. It is very exacting, working to a pattern. You have to work to half a millimetre.

“And then a band I was in at the time, the Shakers, started getting offers to tour France, so I had to make a decision. It actually enforced my belief in knowing all I really wanted to do was play music.

“It’s all really just fallen into place, everything I’ve done. I’m a pretty laid-back guy. I’ve never really ever ‘left’ a band in the sense that it has been disbanded. Everything has happened seamlessly and that’s how it was when the Stripped Down Stompin Band was formed.”

The Steve Hooker Stripped Down Stompin Band is currently recording, with a view to possibly putting out another album at the end of the year.

Steve says: “We’ve been in the studio and got about four tunes complete. Two or three of those might find their way on to vinyl as a single.

“I just tend to stack material up until it’s the right time to do it.

“We’ve also got some gigs lined up around the country, and festivals, some in Europe too.

“Our next few will all be local.”

Local gigs take place on Saturday, May 17, at the Railway Hotel, in Clifftown Road, Southend, on Friday, May 23, at Ten Green Bottles, off Rectory Grove, in Leigh, and at the Old Hat, in Alexandra Street, Southend, on Friday, May 30.

For further information, visit stevehooker.co.uk or follow him on Facebook.