An Interview With Dave Pegg Of Fairport Convention & Formerly Of Jethro Tull

Feature Photo by Harry Herd

With Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and Jethro Tull, Dave Pegg, who is affectionately known as “Peggy,” has carved out a tremendous legacy on bass. “I was really cut out to be a bass player,” Pegg tells ClassicRockHistory.com.

“My favorite kind of music is singer/songwriter stuff,” he says. “I just love to accompany songs, and I’ve had a great time doing that. And I’ve played with some great people, so I’ve managed to be on stage and play behind them and do some wonderful things.”

Be it with Fairport or Jethro Tull, Pegg’s outlook on music has been, and remains, simple: “We just went around having a great time,” he says. “We just went out and played music. What can I say? That’s all we did!”

Pegg stuck with Jethro Tull until the mid ‘90s, before leaving to join a reformed Fairport Convention. He’s remained since, picking up session work as he sees fit. Beyond that, Pegg is thankful for the life music has afforded him.

“I don’t really have any regrets,” he says. “I’ve had a really good time playing music. Luckily, I’ve gotten away with it up until now, and still am. It’s been that way since the age of 18! [laughs]”

What are your earliest memories of music in your life?

My earliest memories of music are listening to my daddy play the accordion and sing in the church choir. I got involved in the church choir, and that’s what got me involved in music in the first place.

When did the bass enter the picture?

I started as a guitarist, influenced by Hank Marvin and The Shadows. They were heroes, and then I discovered rhythm and blues. I carried on playing the guitar and played in various R&B bands in Birmingham, and then I switched to bass when I went for an audition with a group called The Uglies.

I didn’t pass your audition because there was a guy there called Roger Hill, Birmingham’s best guitarist, and he got the job. But then, on the way out of the audition, the lead singer said, “Our bass player is gone. Do you play bass, Dave?”

I went, “I’ve never played bass, and I don’t have one…” He said, “Well, our old bassist is selling his…” So, I bought his 1962 Fender Precision bass for £70, which was a lot of money in those days, and I have played it ever since. I love playing the bass.

What was the local Birmingham music scene like, and how did it shape you?

Birmingham was fantastic in the late ‘60s, with loads of bands. My main influences at the time were The Spencer Davis Group, with Steve Winwood, an incredible performer. We had bands like The Moody Blues, and it was a very active club scene, so I got involved.

I got to play with wonderful people, like John Bonham, the drummer, who was one of my best friends. Bless him. We only did about 12 gigs, and we never did the second half of the show because we’d always been told off for being too loud. [laughs]

It was basically Bonzo… the drum kit was so loud. But that’s the kind of scene I grew up in, Birmingham, very friendly. Everybody knew everybody else, and there were loads of great musicians coming through.

How did you end up in Fairport Convention?

I ended up in Fairport Convention because I went to see them on my 21st birthday in Birmingham. And Ashley Hutchings, the original bass player, left the band after that night. And then, Dave Swarbrick, who was a fiddle player in Fairport at the time, asked me to join. But I had to go to an audition, and luckily, I got the gig.

What did you bring to the band on bass?

Well, they were all very serious when I joined them, and I think when we started going to the pub and then, in fact, my major claim with Fairport is that I taught them all to drink. [laughs] Life in Fairport in the ‘60s and ’70s was fantastic.

I mean, we all lived in this place in the country… there were 13 of us living there, only one bathroom, and we all had long hair, and some of us had children. My daughter Steph Pegg was there with us.

And in fact, she’s on the first on the sleeve of the first Fairport album I played with, which is called Full House. That’s her in the garden with the rest of the guys in the band and it was it was it was a very, you know…. it was the ‘60s, so we were all young, full of energy, and free spirited for sure.

Richard Thompson was in the band back then. What was he like?

Richard was an incredible guitarist. Even then, you could tell that he was destined to go solo. He produced such a great body of work, and we always considered him the group leader, although he would never claim to have been at the time.

But we all respected his opinion on stuff in the way that we arrange songs and things like that. He was, in our opinion, the boss of the band. We knew when the time came for him to leave Fairport… there was no resentment.

It was hard for us to lose him for sure, but we knew that he had such an ability to write songs. To contain it all, to contain his ability and what he wanted to do just in the band was too much, really. He had to go and choose his own way. I mean, we loved Richard, and we still love playing with him. He’s a fantastic guitarist up there with the best of them.

What led to your working with Nick Drake?

Joe Boyden was the manager and was also producing Nick Drake. He asked me to play on Nick’s album, Bryter Layter. Nick came up to this hovel that we lived in, which I was telling you about earlier, and rehearsed. We worked on the album, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. It’s a fantastic album. But while working on it, because he was so introspective, we never knew whether Nick was happy or not.

In the late ‘70s, you joined Jethro Tull.

Fairport had split up, and I’d heard that Jethro Tull were looking for a bass player. And Ian Anderson knew about Fairport Convention, and in fact, in 1970, we played three nights at the Fillmore West in San Francisco together when I was in Fairport Convention. So, I think he was aware of what I’d done with the band, but I think I’ve got away with it as a player in Jethro Tull.

Why is that?

It wasn’t the kind of music I was used to. It was much more complex than the stuff that Fairport were doing. I stayed with Jethro Tull for 15 years because it was an incredible band to play with. Ian was an incredible performer, and I love this songwriting and the musicianship. The fact that everybody in the band was just such fantastic players, like Martin Barre, a fantastic guitarist, and all the musicians that I played with Tull… it was a wonderful period for me.

Ian is known to be difficult. What was it like being in a band with him?

Well, he’s an incredibly professional guy. He takes everything very seriously, and he works so hard at it. It wasn’t hard for me, really, because I just appreciated having a boss, which was something that I’d never had before in the music business.

Everything he did was really thought out, and it was just amazingly put together. He got an awful lot of respect from the musicians who played with him, which is something that’s fantastic for a band leader.

Your time in the band was notable for various shifts in sound throughout the 80s, and an infamous moment where Jethro Tull beat out Metallica for a Grammy.

Yes. We went in all sorts of directions in the ‘80s. [laughs] And yeah… we got the Grammy, beating Metallica, that was a very strange thing! In fact, we thought it was a joke when we were nominated for a Grammy. The record company never bothered to send anybody to the ceremony in Los Angeles.

You have to buy tickets. It’s quite expensive to go to a Grammy dinner. There was nobody there to represent us, so when it was announced that we’d won the hard rock category, Alice Cooper picked up the award on our behalf, something I personally thanked him for recently.

Obviously, classifying Jethro Tull as “hard rock” or “heavy metal” is a stretch. How do you look back on that Grammy?

I’m incredibly proud of it. It’s on my fireplace shelf where I live when I’m in the U.K. It came as a shock, of course. And I don’t think Metallica were too happy because they had an awful lot of T-shirts printed saying they were Grammy award winners. So, all they could do was use them to clean their cars, which I’m sure they had lots of. [laughs]

What led to your leaving Jethro Tull in the ‘90s and eventually rebooting Fairport Convention?

Well, I stayed with Jethro Tull for a long time, but after we did the Under Wraps album, we did a few more, but Ian was losing his voice, and it became very painful. Some of the gigs that we did were not like they used to be. We had to change the set list to incorporate the fact that he was really struggling with his voice.

It was so tragic, really, because it was such an important part of the show, and we’d keep changing the keys and dropping them down a few semitones or a tone; they didn’t sound the same, and it became painful to listen. Ian did his best, but I mean… he really struggled.

Was Ian upset with you leaving?

I don’t think Ian was upset with my leaving because he knew that Fairport Convention was kind of my thing. So, we didn’t part on fighting terms, as it were. I’m still on good terms with Ian.

You’re still at it with Fairport Convention and seem to be busy. What’s next?

I’m very proud of still being able to go out and tour, of everything that Fairport Convention has achieved. And my son, Matthew, has picked up the bass and become an accomplished player. He’s been playing with Procol Harum for many years since the sad loss of Gary Brooker. So, I’m very proud of him, and the fact that Fairport can still go out and make people happy with music, which is what it’s all about.

Check out similar articles on ClassicRockHistory.com Just click on any of the links below……

An Interview With Dave Pegg Of Fairport Convention & Formerly Of Jethro Tull article published on ClassicRockHistory.com© 2026

Classicrockhistory.com claims ownership of all its original content and Intellectual property under United States Copyright laws and those of all other foreign countries. No one person, business, or organization is allowed to republish any of our original content anywhere on the web or in print without our permission. All photos used are either public domain Creative Commons photos or licensed officially from Shutterstock under license with ClassicRockHistory.com. All photo credits have been placed at the end of the article. Album Cover Photos are affiliate links and the property of Amazon and are stored on the Amazon server. Any theft of our content will be met with swift legal action against the infringing websites.