Eastenders baddie Nasty Nick talks about his new band

ANSWER: A penchant for the relatively obscure, but once iconic 1970s cult band Heavy Metal Kids, a glam-rock-metal-ish outfit who rubbed shoulders with the likes of The Stones and The Who, yet unlike them, failed to stand the test of time.

Gaga referenced them saying: “Lady Starlight (a New York DJ and artist) introduced me to them; they’re a glam-metal group who did this great song (Hey Little Girl). Glam became a big influence, it’s a sub-set of all these things I love: cabaret, burlesque, metal, rock.”

And John Altman (Nick Cotton) liked them so much he’s joined the reformed version as lead singer and is in the throes of a micro tour that includes a gig at Champions bar in Westbourne on Sunday, November 7.

When I talk to Altman, who at 58 and like the rest of the line-up is more a kid at heart, he is having teething problems with a new phone, and much of our conversation has that weird, satellite-delay quality about it, but there’s no disguising the fact that Dot Cotton’s satanic son is as excited as a kid in a toy shop with a bag full of cash at living the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

“I love it. I love playing live. And I’m really looking forward to coming to Dorset because I’m very fond of the area,” says the actor who proposed to his fiancée at the Grand Hotel in the Purbecks on Valentine’s day.

“We intend to blow the Champions crowd away. It will definitely be a night of solid, danceable rock, but who knows what will happen?”

Er, hang on a minute, just how exactly did soap’s most notorious cold-hearted character, not to mention killer (including his own nipper, Ashley), end up fronting a band?

Until now, the band has been more about legend than longevity, yet their new single, Uncontrollable, is a big, wildly camp and surprisingly commercial-sounding effort that is receiving more than a fair few nods from those in the know.

“A lot of people just think of me as Nasty Nick, but I’ve always been involved in music as well as acting.”

And, of course, he’s not nasty at all, though he does sound a wee bit fed up with having to explain his musical credentials to half-informed journos, only interested in the EastEnders connection. But I’ve interviewed him before, I know he’s paid his dues in the music as well as the acting business. Still, he carries on anyway.

“I’ve always been in bands – played the drums, guitar, done punk, I had The Hitmen and then later Resurrection.

“But because of the acting, I sometimes get to do both. I played Billy Flynn in Chicago (for which he got rave reviews in the long-running UK tour) and one of the proudest things I did, was playing George Harrison in The Birth of the Beatles.”

He was heavily influenced by the Beatles, but also counts Elvis, Hendrix and The Who among his musical heroes.

As is often the way, it was fate that brought him into contact with Justin McConville, Ronnie Thomas, Cosmo and Keith Boyce, the remaining members of Heavy Metal Kids.

“I bumped into Robin Greatrex, a music agent I’ve known for years, in my local Waitrose and we got talking about music and the Heavy Metal Kids,” he says.

He already knew the band, as his mate, the late Gary Holton (who also played Wayne in 80s TV comedy drama, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet) was the original lead singer, but he sadly died in 1985.

Robin took me to meet Cosmo, the lead guitarist, and the lads; they played some of their stuff, I played some of mine and that was it.”

So does filling the shoes of his late mate feel strange?

“It’s a good feeling and I hope I capture a bit of Gary’s spirit. He was a great bloke. We both had parts in the film Quadrophenia and Franc Roddam the director reckoned we looked like brothers, and when you look at photos of us from back then, when we were younger and skinnier, we did.

“In fact, I’m sure he would still look like me now if he was alive.”

So far HMK’s gigs and Altman’s vocal skills have attracted high praise and there are already murmurings of a wider tour and even an album next spring.

“We have the original covers, but I’ve also got loads of original material myself.”

Brink of rock stardom or not, though, there’s no escaping the fact that Altman, who has a 23-year-old daughter, Rosanna, from a previous marriage, is best-known for his iconic EastEnders character, and it’s a tribute to his acting skills that everyone assumes he’s a right so-and-so in real life. He’s regularly castigated by members of the public and complete strangers are forever telling him to be nicer to his “Ma”, aka Dot Cotton (Branning), his long-suffering, on-screen mother played beautifully by the inimitable June Brown.

And despite the often harrowing on-screen relationship he has with Brown, in reality, he told me he adores the 84-year-old actress.

“June’s wonderful. I call her my second mum. I send her postcards and stuff, I even sent her a Mother’s Day card, but from Nick, so it was all misspelt: ‘Deer Ma, hav my benefiss arrived?’”

And to prove the point, he ends Uncontrollable with an ad-libbed reference to his “Ma”.

For once, Dot would be proud of her boy.

Cotton reels

• John Altman was born in Reading in 1952.

• He made brief appearances in An American Werewolf in London as well as Quadrophenia.

• In 2001 he won Rear of the Year, alongside Claire Sweeney.

• He played an unaccredited rebel pilot in Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi.

• He’s a panto regular and will play Fleshcreep in Jack & The Beanstalk, Kings Lynn this year.