When Heavy Pettin frontman Stephen “Hamie” Hayman joins me on Zoom, he is in Florida, happy to talk and eager to get moving. “It’s great,” he says. “I live in America now, on the Gulf Coast, down on the Panhandle. Beautiful weather. Everything’s great. I fly to the UK all the time to rehearse with the band and get the band going. We signed to a new record label, got new management, the album’s coming out on the 24th of October, and we get to tour all over Europe with Uriah Heep as special guests. We’re highly excited.”
The excitement has a purpose. “From a personal point of view, I wanted people to hear how good Heavy Pettin is now,” Hamie says. “I can still sing, and still do my thing. I’ve been dying for people to hear it and let me know what they think.” He leans into the idea of continuity without repetition. “We wanted to keep that Heavy Pettin vibe. We didn’t want it to change so dramatically that everybody says, that’s good, but they don’t sound like Heavy Pettin. With my voice, you’ll always connect the dots, but we put everything together so it feels like a Heavy Pettin track. We kept the essence and brought it into the future, with a heavier guitar sound.”
A lot of that chemistry starts with guitarist Dave “Davo” Aitken. “Dave and I have been friends for a long time,” Hamie says. “He’s a fantastic songwriter. There are three songs on the album that he wrote and they’re absolutely fantastic. We hit it off and said, we want to keep the feel, keep the melody, and make it heavier where it needs to be.” He grins at how it lands in a room. “In rehearsal, and live with a couple we’ve tried, they sound massive. You’re standing there going, damn, that sounds good.”
The title track opens the record for a reason. “What Rock Generation means to me is rock fans around the world from different generations,” he says. “When you play Europe, Germany, Poland, France, all over, the fans are in their 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s, even their 20s, and the odd one dresses like we used to in the 80s. We noticed the same in South America. So many young people come up after shows. We said, it’s exciting to see a whole new generation of rock fans. Dave said, it’s like a whole new rock generation. I said, that’s a good title for a song.” The music came with a twist of the Deep South. “Dave had this cool piece with a swampy Louisiana kind of vibe. I said, remember that piece, let’s put it together. That’s how we wrote Rock Generation.”
The new record also came out of a hard reset. “When Gordon left, Dave, myself and Gordon had written a whole bunch of songs,” Hamie says. “Dave and I took stock and decided to scratch everything and start from the beginning again. Songs he had by himself, or songs we’d write together. It took about a year. We wrote about 20 we thought were worth exploring.” One of the first to stick was “X-Rated.” “X-Rated was the first we wrote together,” he says. “We didn’t want it to be just the standard singing about rock people. It lent itself to big choruses. It sounded like old Heavy Pettin. I rewrote some lyrics, because at the time it seemed like everybody wanted to be Heavy Pettin. I changed it to everybody wants to be X-Rated, which really means everybody wanted to be Heavy Pettin. That I could get away with.”
The present lineup feels locked. “It’s Davey on guitar, Richie on guitar, Mick on drums, Boyce on bass, and me singing,” Hamie says. “Everybody’s happy. We all know where we want to go and everybody’s part of it. Long may it continue.” The plan stretches beyond one album cycle. “We’ve had a little time off waiting for the record to come out, and we’ve got four really cool songs already for the next one,” he says. “Dave will send ideas from his studio, I’ve got mine, I’ll put my stuff on, send it back, then we gel it together. When promotion for this album is done, we won’t be panicking. We’ll have a bunch ready to go.”
Live, the new songs earn their keep. “When you’re opening, you get about 45 minutes,” Hamie says. “We want to promote the new album, but we need the hits from the previous albums. We’ll likely do four or five old songs and three new ones. Off the new album we’ll likely do Rock Generation, Faith Healer and Mother Earth.” He likes what those choices signal. “Mother Earth is heavy and it sounds cool. It’s different for us, and that’s Dave’s lane. As long as we can make it sound like us, we’re all about it. With songs like Mother Earth and Line in the Sand, the stuff Dave brought to the table just sounds phenomenal. It works great with my voice.”
Part of the spark is simply being back. “Oh God, this was long overdue,” he says. “Things happen for a reason. You couldn’t get the original five of us back in a room. If we had done something, it might never have went well. Now it’s the right guys around me, the songwriting’s great, we love being together, we loved recording the album, and everybody’s happy. The future’s looking bright.”
He has receipts from the first run. “Playing with Ozzy Osbourne was amazing,” Hamie says. “He kind of took us under his wing. We’d finished recording Lettin Loose and were in live rehearsals in London because we were going out with Whitesnake. Ozzy came along to rehearsal. It was surreal. We walk outside and there’s this big beautiful blue Rolls-Royce Corniche. We hung out, and he said, when I start the album, you need to come to the studio. Months later we got the invite to Ridge Farm. I met people I grew up listening to, like Don Airey on keyboards and Bob Daisley on bass. Then we found out we were going to tour with them, which blew our minds.” The memories are specific and cheerful. “I remember sitting with Daisley and asking, what the hell are you drinking,” he says. “He said, a White Russian. I said, you’re putting milk in it. We spent that whole tour drinking White Russians. We got absolutely hammered. It was awesome.”
Then there was Kiss. “They were phenomenal,” Hamie says. “Paul and Gene were complete gentlemen. They’d come talk, you could ask advice. We became friends, and we still are, not friend friends, but if we talk they know who I am. When I moved to Los Angeles, I’d bump into Gene all over and he helped me tremendously.”
Heavy Pettin once played the London Astoria for a TV show, and that taping still glows in his mind. “That was a hell of a show,” he says. “So many people we knew were in the audience. It felt like a hometown thing even though it was in London. There was a lot of dry ice and smoke. I was running into things constantly. Oh, it’s a guitar player. You couldn’t see at times, but it was good times.”
If the title track celebrates a community, the community mirrors his listening habits. “I still love Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance and Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast,” he says. “I still love David Bowie, T. Rex, and Mott the Hoople. When I get in the car, I want to listen to what I like. Unless someone plays me something new that hits, I go to my favourites.”
He is clear-eyed about time and luck. “You have dreams and aspirations, then life gets in the way,” Hamie says. “I’m not the young singer who never had a plan B. This was my life and I intended to do it. I’m lucky I survived and it worked out. It doesn’t for a lot of people. Getting this second chance, I’m happy and excited. I’m going to ride this as long as we can, as long as we’re enjoying it and writing songs that are great and people like what they hear.”
That spirit shaped the melodic side of the record too. “When we wrote The Big Bang back then, one of the problems was we left the heavier edge and went more melodic,” he says. “Great songs, but I wish it had been heavier. Living Your Best Life is in that same vein, extremely radio playable, but it has that heavy guitar edge. We’ve meshed both worlds and it worked out right for us. I like the song. I still love Brother Sister, I think it’s awesome. Rock Generation is one of my faves. Mother Earth is definitely one. Line in the Sand is another. This Life reminds me of the 70s. That whole glam thing. We were kind of looking for that with Slade and those types, especially when the riff comes in. There’s something on the album for everyone.”
The road ahead looks busy, and he wants it to include Canada. “I haven’t played Canada in such a long time,” he says. “I’d love to get to Montreal. For whatever reason we always stop there to fly to South America. It’s got so bad we’ve got a favourite pub at the airport and we get the same bar staff.” The touring ambition is wide. “With this album we’re looking at going everywhere,” he says. “Back to South America, over to Asia, Japan, Australia. America is a number one goal. A proper tour, three months, everywhere. If we get there, it’s a skip and a jump to Canada. We are talking about making that happen for 2026. We’ve been waiting for this to drop and do all the Uriah Heep stuff. Who knows, Uriah Heep’s touring America in 26. We might be doing that.”
For now, the set will mix eras with a few surprises. “When it’s our own show and you’ve got an hour and a half, it’s easier,” he says. “On the UK run we just did, we added deep cuts like China Boy and Barmy Army, and they went down a storm. When you’re opening and you’ve got 45 minutes, you squeeze in the hits and a few new ones.” However it shakes out, the mood is unmistakable. “It’s happy days at the moment,” he says. “Everybody’s pointed in the same direction. We’re excited to play the new songs on big stages. I can’t wait to get to America, and I can’t wait to play Canada.”
At the end, I ask a simple one. Is he living his best life? Hamie barely lets me finish. “Yes, I am,” he says. “Heavy Pettin are back. Rock Generation is a celebration for all rock fans around the world. We’re going to keep going as long as we’re happy and the songs are great. At this moment in time, I’m a complete happy camper.”
Watch the full interview with Hamie below:
Rock Generation is out now via Silver Lining Music.
Photo credit: Paul Drozdz
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