In all fairness, I didn't have a choice.
I was born on Penny Lane to a mother who plays the oboe in the opera and a father who makes parts for wind instruments. My earliest memory is being given a trumpet by Granddad, who played on 'Strawberry Fields'.
My life in Liverpool was cut short. After only 6 months we moved to the bright (misty, blurred) lights of London town, where my old man was touring with the musical Chess. He was in the band and didn't prance around like a fawn, before you get images of a house full of 'thesp's and 'am dram' types.' It wasn't until I moved to my now adopted home Wales that music was of any interest to me at all.
It's taken me a long long time trying to find a sound, a style that suited me. A place I wanted to stop at creatively. More importantly I hope I never really do. I suppose if I had to give my current sound a name, I would call it Southern blues country rock skiffle hop tronica, whilst cringing at my own pretension. Some days I want and try to write songs. Some days, some instrumental noise with computers. I love traditional Malian folk as much as I love dubstep as much as I love opera. It's my parents fault. Some times my favourite record is 'Graceland'. Sometimes it's 'Blonde on Blonde', sometimes it's Jay-Z's 'The Black Album', sometimes it's 'Guys and Dolls' (yes, the musical), but most days it's 'Ne me quitte pas' - an almost perfect selection of Nina Simone recordings. That is where I found gospel music and the blues - pure melancholic bittersweet joy.
As a child, summers were epic affairs. It was always the south of France and we always drove. The beauty of a long drive and a cassette is that to fast forward was deeply problematic and ironically time consuming. You listened to a whole record whether you liked it or not. The concept of a 'whole' record has since been replaced with today's need for instant gratification and 'new' music. Everything now and all at once. Through cassettes, I learned the virtues of patience, anticipation and excitement. To get to 'Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes' on 'Graceland', you are forced to listen to 'Gumboots'. It only makes the latter better. The cassette player on those long, exhausting, exhilarating, drives was a liberal, democratic music lover's playground. 'Dark Side of the Moon', played in its entirety, would be instantly followed by Elton, or a recording of Vietnam musical 'Miss Saigon' (a favourite of my mother and sisters). Mozart, then The Beatles. Genesis, followed by Stevie Wonder, Al Jarreau and Bobby McFerrin - an early beatbox pioneer. I loved it all. I loved The Commodores as much as Pink Floyd, as much as I loved the weather and the endless days of table tennis and canoeing along the Dordogne, imagining I was deep in the Amazon. As many people romanticize and remember the smell of vinyl, its touch and its smell, I become equally teary at the sight of a dusty, squeaking, doomed cassette. I think the point of all of this is that the weeks and years of trumpet lessons, extra curricular wind bands, jazz groups, guitar lessons, ska punk bands in friends garages and exams; all that pales in significance next to those summers and that tape player. That, in all of its whirring, hissing glory, was my education.
So to now. The last few years have been without doubt the most amazing, eye opening and terrifying, hilarious, devastating, glorious times in my life. Screaming neighbours, evictions, near death experience, bedroom studios, rising damp, drummers living in toilets, broken hearts, broken arms, muggings, many foreign shores, lost luggage, lost friends, fifteen flats, new love, old love, panic attacks, four day benders, festivals, headaches, good times, bad times, sore throats and music. Always music. I have some photos and a few tired anecdotes to pull from the rubble, but more importantly, I have some songs and a few of my best friends still standing. We form a band of sorts. There is no continuous theme, or grand concept to my writing. At least not one I planned for. There is imagery that repeats itself. Lately death and dreams. Friends. Sometimes regret, often hope. Poor man's philosophy and a lot of good times. Words I meant at the time, the sea and a melody somebody might whistle. A tune to hum, something to do.
I truly love music and language and am endlessly grateful I have a job gluing them together.