38 Facts About Billy Childish

Billy Childish was born on Steven John Hamper; 1 December 1959 and is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer, and guitarist.

Since the late 1970s, Childish has been prolific in creating music, writing, and visual art.

Billy Childish has led and played in bands including Thee Milkshakes, Thee Headcoats, and the Musicians of the British Empire, primarily working in the genres of garage rock, punk, and surf, and releasing more than 100 albums.

Billy Childish is a consistent advocate for amateurism and free emotional expression.

Billy Childish co-founded the Stuckism art movement with Charles Thomson in 1999, which he left in 2001.

Billy Childish is a visiting lecturer at Rochester Independent College.

In July 2014 Billy Childish was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Kent.

From 1981 until 1987, Billy Childish had a relationship with artist Tracey Emin.

Billy Childish was born, lives, and works in Chatham, Kent.

Billy Childish has described his father, John Hamper, as a "complex, sociopathic narcissist": Hamper was jailed during Childish's teenage years for drug smuggling.

Billy Childish left secondary school at 16, an undiagnosed dyslexic.

Billy Childish then lived on the dole for 15 years.

In 2006, Billy Childish turned down the offer to appear on Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother.

Billy Childish has practised yoga and meditation since the early 1990s.

Billy Childish was re-accepted at St Martin's in 1980, but was expelled in 1982 for refusing to paint in the art school and other unruly behaviour.

At Saint Martin's, Billy Childish became friends with Peter Doig, with whom he shared an appreciation of Munch, Van Gogh, and blues music.

Billy Childish has been cited as the influence for Emin's later confessional art.

Billy Childish has exhibited extensively since the 1980s, and was featured in the British Art Show in 2000.

In 2010, a major exhibition of Billy Childish's paintings, writing, and music was held at The ICA London, with a concurrent painting show running at White Columns Gallery in New York City.

In October 2012, alongside Art Below, Billy Childish presented his work at the exhibition Art Below Regents Park in Regent's Park Tube station to coincide with Frieze Art Fair, one of the most important international contemporary art fairs that takes place each October in London.

In 2013, Billy Childish began a painting collaboration with Edgeworth Johnstone, later titled Heckel's Horse.

In 2024, Billy Childish referred to Heckel's Horse as his "favourite work".

In 2008, Billy Childish formed the "non organisation" the British Art Resistance, and held an exhibition under the title Hero of the British Art Resistance at The Aquarium L-13 gallery in London: A collection of paintings, books, records, pamphlets, poems, prints, letters, film, photographs made in 2008.

Billy Childish later formed a garage rock-inspired band called Thee Milkshakes with Micky Hampshire, Thee Mighty Caesars, The Delmonas then Thee Headcoats.

The Buff Medways, or the Buffs, as they were sometimes affectionately known, split in 2006, and Wild Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire were born, recording a song about one of Childish's heroes, George Mallory, titled "Bottomless Pit".

In early 2007, Billy Childish formed The Vermin Poets with former Fire Dept singer and guitarist Neil Palmer and A-Lines guitarist and singer Julie Hamper, his wife.

Billy Childish has since been recording as bass player with The Spartan Dreggs, with Neil Palmer on vocals and guitar and Wolf Howard on drums.

In 2014, Billy Childish produced, played on and co-wrote most of the songs on The Wave Pictures album Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon.

Billy Childish is a confessional poet and has published over 40 collections of his work.

In 1979, Billy Childish was a founder member of The Medway Poets, a poetry performance group, who read at the Kent Literature Festival and the 1981 international Cambridge Poetry Festival.

However, a Television South documentary on the group in 1982 brought them to a wider regional audience, though Billy Childish's poetry was "deemed unbroadcastable".

Billy Childish has twice won commendations in the National Poetry Prize.

Emin and Billy Childish were a couple until 1987, Emin selling his poetry books for his small press Hangman Books.

Billy Childish wrote a number of manifestos with Thomson, the first of which contained the statement:.

British artist Stella Vine, who was a member of the Stuckists for a short time in 2001, first joined the group having developed a "crush" on Billy Childish while attending his music events.

Billy Childish has a Kurt Schwitters poem tattooed on his left buttock and made a short film on Schwitters's life, titled The Man with Wheels,.

In 2002, along with Wolf Howard, Simon Williams and Julie Hamper, Billy Childish formed The Chatham Super 8 Cinema.

In 2004, Billy Childish released a 30-minute documentary titled Brass Monkey, about a march undertaken in Great War uniform commemorating the 90th anniversary of the British retreat from Mons in 1914.