Family: Randy Bachman

Is it hard to balance family life with musician life?

Yes. For a while it’s good. And when you’re married and you go away from home, and then you come home, you have a ‘honeymoon’ for a while, so it keeps the love alive. But you learn to live without each other.

You had your first six children pretty young, within just over a decade.

The result of the ongoing honeymoon. Every kid’s birth was nine months after the end of a tour.

Did it make you grow up fast?

I’ve always said that until you have a child, you’re still a child. The minute you have children you become selfless.

You became a Mormon when you met your first wife.

About four months before I converted I got very drunk at a party. My father says: “You’re a drunk and I’m ashamed to call you my son.” And when I met this girl she said: “I’m a Mormon… It’s like any church, but we don’t drink or smoke or do drugs or anything.” And I said: “I’m in.” To this day I’ve never done any drugs. I get my highs from music and really great sex and delicious food once in a while. And having a really great family is such a huge part of that. I have eight children and twenty-five grandkids. The kids can’t believe grandpa goes on stage and rocks out like a lunatic.

Polly Glass
Deputy Editor, Classic Rock

Polly is deputy editor at Classic Rock magazine, where she writes and commissions regular pieces and longer reads (including new band coverage), and has interviewed rock's biggest and newest names. She also contributes to Louder, Prog and Metal Hammer and talks about songs on the 20 Minute Club podcast. Elsewhere she's had work published in The Musician, delicious. magazine and others, and written biographies for various album campaigns. In a previous life as a women's magazine junior she interviewed Tracey Emin and Lily James – and wangled Rival Sons into the arts pages. In her spare time she writes fiction and cooks.