Of all the instruments likely to lead a young man to rock’n’roll glory, the bagpipes are surely the least probable.

Fine for Glasgow sports stadiums, Highland weddings and English jokes, but surely not much use for firing up the mosh pit. Until now. Welcome to the world of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, run by the “bagrock” enthusiast Stuart Cassells. Since winning the BBC talent show When Will I be Famous? his band have made their name blasting out Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile, Thunderstruck by AC/DC and Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water. Traditionalists are advised to stay well clear.

Cassells, who is based in Glasgow and is a graduate of the city’s Royal College of Music and Drama, explains how the journey began. “The floors in my flat were always covered in CDs so I asked my girlfriend if she could put them in some kind of order of genre.

“One day I found a Red Hot Chili Peppers CD in the middle of my bagpipe music. When I asked my girlfriend why it was there, she said she thought it had said ‘Red Hot Chili Pipers’. That night I phoned up a few guys and said I had a name and an idea and within a week I was getting gigs organised.”

The band grew popular within the corporate market, playing dinners and awards ceremonies before starting public concerts. Cassells also entered the band for the BBC’s When Will I Be Famous? talent show. In the final they saw off such rivals as a boys’ choir, a Transylvanian-born “human slinky” and a Moldavian contortionist.

“We had low expectations of winning,” Cassells says, “but we were very conscious that we were taking the bagpipes to a mainly English audience, so it was a chance to showcase the pipes and widen their appeal – and they were looking for something different.”

After the victory, the group were deluged with offers of gigs and their album, Bagrock for the Masses, went on to sell 60,000 copies – about 57,000 more than the average bagpipe release.

The band are now big in Asia. “Countries like China or South Korea have no real connection to Scotland. They probably haven’t heard bagpipe music before so we thought we were going to die, but they loved it.” He laughs. “I still think they mixed us up with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as our name doesn’t translate properly.”

Cassells began playing the pipes aged 7, progressing rapidly to become BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2005. Success brought contact with some celebrity musicians, including Phil Collins. “A lot of people don’t know that he is a bagpipe player. I told him I was bringing out a CD and he said he would write the sleevenotes. People read the CD and don’t realise that it’s Phil Collins from Genesis.”

Another famous fan is Ewan McGregor, who booked the Chilli Pipers to play his Burns supper. Cassells says: “Ewan McGregor was a snare drummer for his pipe band at school. He got on stage with the band to play a song with us.” The Chilli Pipers have now become accidental ambassadors for the instrument. Since Cassells started teaching at Edinburgh state schools, which had no pipe tuition, he says more than 600 children have started. “Traditional music has been growing at an unprecedented rate,” he says.

But Cassells has some sobering thoughts for nationalistic Scots pipe lovers. “The bagpipes have been played in countries all across the world in their own form. They were popular in England before they even arrived in Scotland. They came quite late here and they didn’t take off until the mid-15th century. People seem to think that there were bagpipes at the Battle of Bannock-burn; their prominence within Scottish society is actually quite new.” Still, Cassells is confident the pipes have a proud future in the new jock’n’roll.

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers play Falkirk Town Hall on June 5 2008 (www.redhotchillipipers.co.uk 01324 506850)

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