Here is a text version of the interview "Chris Norman - Lifelines: The Journey Behind the Music", published on March 3, 2026, on his YouTube channel >>>.
Music has always been a part of me
It's a time of my life. I'm reaching a big number in my years this year (Note: the interview was recorded in the autumn of 2025). So, it's really just about the feelings that I've had all through my life ‘cos music's always been completely a part of me. I grew up with my parents who were in show business. I don't remember a time when I wasn't listening to music. And so it seemed like a nice idea something to do with everything that is a memory for a period for me. Because, you can be anywhere and a record suddenly comes on, you go, oh god that reminds me when I was… whatever. And everybody's the same as that, I'm like that. People are like that with music I've made myself in the past. People say, oh when I hear that song it reminds me when I was first met my girlfriend or whatever. Memories do that and songs bring back those memories quick. So the idea was to try and find songs from my life that inspired me and moved me in some way. So it was a case of going right back to when I was a kid in the 50s and going through all the decades and finding the right songs that did something for me. Myself and Christian Geller, who was producing the album, found between us songs that were great songs for the time, but were something to do with me.
Lifelines: A new take on my music
I think it's just a new take on what I do already. I mean, I've been doing different kinds of music and, you know, right back from when I was a kid, when I first started playing in a group and then when we started recording, we did the same thing for a while. Then I had the Smokie period where we had a kind of a sound for that time what was going on. And I've done that quite often since because I like that, I still like that. But I've tried other things too, you know. I've done things like “Midnight Lady” which were certainly 80s, synthesizers and loads of reverb and that kind of thing which was big in the 80s. This is kind of a condensation of both of those things that I like. Real music with real instruments but with a big wide sound at the same time. Warm, but in your face, you know, at the same time. For the first time, I think, I've done an album that's got this kind of “warm” production, but it's still right up in your face, you know, and which has the two things that I like the best, so it's great to put them together.
The biggest risk: Leaving Smokie
One of the biggest risks I ever did was probably leave Smokie, because, you know, we were together for a long time. I knew those guys since I was a kid, and then we came through a lot of hard times and failures. We had a lot of records out that just bombed and then we started to have success. So, we were running on that success and it was a thing. And everybody knew me from Smokie and that was who I was, the lead singer of Smokie. So, to go away from that and suddenly not have that backup and the camaraderie of people you'd known whole your life was very nerve-wracking. So that was a huge thing for me to do. I'm glad I did because I think for me it was the right time to do it.
Lifelines
The album's full of songs that are personal to me anyway. It's a brand new song. It's the title of the album which is “Lifelines”. So that for me is personal because it's actually explaining the going back, remember when we were there and remember when we did this and all those lifelines we shared together, and these are the songs that were the lifelines. It says that in the song. So that's personal for me. Whether or not later on when I've been listening to the album for a million times, whether or not that will be something else will grab me, I don't know. But at the moment it's the new song, “Lifelines”.
I was born into music
If I go back to when I was a tiny little kid, my grandparents were in show business. They were in concert party during the First World War, going around, entertaining the troops in hospitals and stuff. So, I was born into that, you know. And of course, that was a big support to me because of the fact that it surrounded me with music. It might have been an old fashioned type of music for today but it was music nevertheless. And it was the first thing that got me inspired to want to make music. I remember when I was a little kid at my grandparents’ house in a place called Redcar in Yorkshire, the whole family used to gather there, all my aunts and uncles and cousins and everything. And my grandma played the piano, we had a piano in the corner. And certain times of whatever it was, we'd all be in the main living room and everybody start singing these old songs, “…Shine on, shine on harvest moon…”, which nobody knows anymore. But the main thing about that for me was that in the second part of that song, both my dad and my granddad used to do the harmonies. And then that was like - what's that?! I love that, what's that? And so that was an inspiration for me because I was always into harmonies after that. I mean, with Smokie we did a lot of harmonies and it was always easy to do for me, maybe because of that, because it was there already, you know. So it was always like - that's your part, that's your part, I do one below that, and it was easy. I loved harmony and that's probably that.
Then, later on, as I was growing up my parents were in show business too. My mom was a dancer and then became a singer, and my dad was in an act called Four Jokers, which was like a Marx Brothers type knockabout comedy act. And they rose quite big in Britain on the variety circuit, did a Royal Variety performance. So I had that as well growing up. And so, when I started playing music when I was a teenager, my parents were fine ‘cos they knew that I could sing, they knew I could do harmonies, they knew I could play the guitar. They knew I could pick tunes out on the piano a bit. So they knew I had that in me, and they encouraged it. Then when I got older and I got married, my wife always supported that. She was never one of those that went, “Where have you been?”, “You can't keep going”, “You're always going away on tour” and stuff. She was fine with it because she knew what it was all about, what it involved. And so, everybody in my life has always been behind everything that I've done.
And now my kids are all musical. All of them play musical instruments. My daughter sings good, and one of my sons is a great guitar player. Another couple of them play drums and bass. They play a bit of everything because they grew up with a studio with instruments lying around, you know. So, of course, they're into music. So, there were always people around me who supported what I was doing in music.
How the music world has changed since the 70s
In the early days of the group we had quite a few records out that completely failed. And, of course, if that keeps happening, you start to think, is there any point in this? And times when we weren't getting enough gigs, enough bookings… And you start to think, well, I can't live on this money, you know, I can't even buy groceries. There were times like that. And then you think, maybe I should stop. But the thing was, every time we thought we should stop, something would come around the corner that you didn't expect. I remember we were going to stop at one time and then we got asked to be on BBC Radio One in England, to do some shows for them. And we thought, oh this could be it, this could be the change. Always something like that. Then there was another time we were getting to stop, we were still nowhere. And then we got asked to back a guy called Peter Noone who was in Herman's Hermits, they were big in the 60s. He was looking for a new backing group and he wanted us to be his backing group. Ah, this is it. He'll take us to where we want to go! (laughs). He didn't. But he always said, “Well, next time I do “Top of the Pops”, I want you to come on with me” and “Oh, great. We're going to be on “Top of the Pops”. He didn't. But nevertheless, these were the moments that gave you the encouragement to keep going. So there were a few times when we felt like stopping but we didn't. And the final time was when we signed the deal with Rak Records, which was Mickey Most label, and we started to have hits, of course, then we were all right.
Well, I miss how it was when I started. There were so many record labels in London alone, small ones, big ones, medium-sized ones, all were signing acts. I mean, when we first started and we got our first record deal in 1968, it was easy to get a record deal. I mean, we were all right, we were a decent group, but we weren't necessarily that great, we were just all right. But we got a record deal, you could then. And then, when that one wasn't working out, we moved to another record company and got another record deal. You can't do that now. And just people are coming up now, they can't do that, it's just not. First of all, there's not enough record labels because they're all owned by a few owners. They're not spending the same money. There's not the same kind of outlet for music as there was in those days. “Top of the Pops” was the big music show in England then. You wouldn't be allowed to be on “Top of the Pops” until your record got into the Top 40 or 30 maybe it was. I think, yes, must have been Top 40 because the first time we went on our record was at 32 in the charts and they booked. But when you did “Top of the Pops”, your record went up like 15 places in a week and then another 5 or so. So, you'd do it again in two weeks and then it would go up and up. So, just every time you got on “Top of the Pops”, your record went up. You can't do that now, that doesn't exist. And the music shows that used to be on TV which everybody watched because we didn't have YouTube or everything else and all the internet stuff we have now. Everybody watched the same programs. So you'd go to school the next day or you'd talk to somebody, did you see so and so on “Top of the Pops” last night? Oh yeah, everybody saw it. So that's gone. Record shops have gone. So everything's down to downloads and streaming, mostly streaming. So for me as an old timer from that days, I miss the times when you put out a plastic single or vinyl single and then you watched it grow. You watch the sales grow every day and then you knew that you were going to have a hit, you could watch that, it was a thing. And then you'd put the album out and you watch that grow. Those kinds of things don't happen so much.
I'm lucky to have been born when I was because I was right in the middle. I mean, I missed the early 60s when the Beatles and all that was happening. I was a teenager then, 12, 13, 14, 15 when all that was happening. But by the time I was like 17, I was in a band myself and it was still the late 60s. So I was part of that. And then the 70s and everything. Very lucky to have been around at that time. I would hate to be the same age having to start now, it’s much more difficult.
Lifelines: The sound of the record
The sound of the record sounds like me as well. Although it's a sort of a new take on the sound, but it sounds like me. I think they'll love it. I think it's a very emotional song. It goes with the theme of lifelines and the idea of going back through the music that influenced you through your life. They'll feel that straight away, I think. And it's a really good song, really good tune. I hope they're going to love it and I think they will. That's the beauty of this album because all the songs are great songs. And if you get a great song, it's a joy to sing them. You know, I've been in the music business for long enough to have sung some really bad songs that I never really was into, you know, and they're hard to sing, it's not a joy. But when you're singing something that you've loved for years, one of your special songs, and you get a chance to sing it yourself, it's a joy to sing. So I think when they hear the album, they'll hear all these great songs one after the other. There's no bad songs on the album. Those who remember them from when they were out, I think, will love the new arrangements, the new way it's been done, and those that don't even know them are going to fall in love with them for the first time. So, that's what my hope is.
Be careful who you trust
Be careful who you trust (laughs), for the first thing, because it's a business. You start off when you're a kid and you're doing it for fun. You're not doing it for anything else. And you have to learn after a while that it's also a business because there are people out there whose job is to give you financial advice or legal advice or whatever. And you've got to be careful with all that. Because it's not too easy to make money, in the first place. You got to work very hard for a very long time before it starts to work financially, but it's so easy to lose it, if you don't have the right idea of how it works. As a band Smokie we went through a period where it was like, "Oo, now what?" We thought that was going to be all right and it isn't, you know, and that makes you then think again and think - well, I'm going to watch that next time, I won't take my eye off that next time. Because you do, when you are young lads, you just want to play music and you leave that to the grown-ups, and the grown-ups don't always do it right. So I would say to my early self, watch that. Try to enjoy what you're doing, so don't do stuff that you don't like because that can be hard. And just good luck really because it's a minefield to get through.
I've got five kids. I did have six and one of them died in a motorbike accident, Brian, back in 2001. So when you're singing songs that have got like talking about missing somebody or letting somebody go or whatever, they're obviously more challenging emotionally to sing. Things like “The Air That I Breathe” or “Crying in the Rain” were great, they are just brilliant songs. People just wrote such great songs in those days. So even if they are emotionally can be a bit challenging, the main thing is the songs are so good that it takes that away. You just want to give a performance. And let's be fair, if something's got an emotional feel about it, it gives you something to work on when you're singing. If you've got a song that's got like “Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe”, you got to be able to sing that, you know.
Live concerts: Unique moments & memories
Well, now you get used to doing different concerts in different venues in different countries over such a long period of time. But I remember back in the mid 70s probably when the first time I was playing in Vienna in a big arena, I don't know the name it was. There was about 12 to 15,000 people there. And we'd been starting to do arenas. We were growing and growing and the more we were growing the bigger the venues were. And the first time I remember any that thing, where everybody lights a flame in the audience, was in Vienna mid 70s. I looked out and the whole of this huge arena was just pin pricks of light, saying that we love this one and that was like wow, look at this, and I'd never seen that before. So that's always going to be one of the ones. I've done arenas many times since then and different venues and I've seen people doing that now a lot, but that was the first time I'd seen it. To look out into a vast sea of blackness and see all these little lights which meant approval gives you chills, you know.
The upcoming tour 2026
I think the production will be bigger, for a start. I mean I've done productions with video walls and stuff and different things, we always try and do something. But I think we're going to make it a bit more quality this time, a bit more special. That's not been arranged yet but I'm hoping that's going to be that. With having this bunch of songs to do as well, we've got extra repertoire to add. I always do new songs as well as old songs, to mix it anyway. So there'll be a load of the older songs still - I'll be singing some of the Smokie songs and things like “Stumblin’In”, people love that stuff. So, we'll be still doing that, we're not going to stop doing that. But we'll be putting in other great songs which I'm going to hopefully try and make my own. So, it will be like instead of just having the 15-16 hits that I do already, with album tracks it will be like 15-16 hits plus another 15 or 16 hits. So I'm hoping there won't be a moment where people can go to the toilet, they'll have to stay and watch every song. It's going to be emotional journey through time and it's going to be great for us all to play those songs and, I think, take the audience through an emotional journey through time, through the songs. They do that now anyway when I play songs that they know from Smokie catalogue or from the 80s bit or the “Stumblin’In” bit. That takes people, you see that, you know. There going to be another load that's going to make them do that too. So the whole set is going to be… people will be joyful and crying and everything.
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