Jan/Feb 2008

When I used to work in a pub in 2005/2006, I would have some bands permanently jammed into my CD player for the walk there and back. After a shift once, two guys at the pub were like "what's in your walkman" and I replied "{this} band" and they're like "No way, that's our friend's band"! Nerded out about how much I loved that band and everything, asked how new material was coming along and hung out and had beers, sharing music, good times.

Years later, I'm in Bath, studying, band in Brighton, and would go to London to visit and hangout, and stay at the studio I co-rented out in the summers. I get a call from one of the guys I met in the pub out of the blue, and they're in London, wondering if I want to meet the singer from this band. I did. I was sweaty, and freaking out, but cool guy put me at ease and was just awesome hanging out.

Flash forward to Dec/Jan/Feb and we're working on music together. I was there whenever I could, armed with a macbook pro and keyboard, jotting down riffs, ideas, anything that might catch his attention to make a track with. I was so excited to be working with someone in a band that I idolised, was just unreal.

We had loads of riffs and plenty to work with, but we got stuck into one track and I couldn't get him to finish up on it. It just needed vocals and it would lead so much to what the rest of the production could do. Heck, even take it into a producer to help out at this point.

But I had quickly realise by this point how much work I was doing vs how much work he was doing. I was doing all the heavy lifting, and he couldn't quite get his shit together. Was constantly texting/on social media/chatting to people. His mind was elsewhere. I would say "Tuesday, we record vocals, okay?" "okay". I get there and he's got models, friends, other fucking bands over to freak me out with. Like fuck, man, just sit down and concentrate.

And I think ultimately, that became his downfall professionally, and as much as I tried to help a bro out (even after this, I helped him out many a time, at my expense), I had to put myself first and what I wanted to do artistically and that was more progressive than what he probably had in mind.

… that, and he also became a mega conspiracy theorist guy!

This was one of the riffs I developed there during those sessions, but was thrown out as it was too fluffy, so I took it home, reworked it for my own and it eventually became a track for the other band I was in, a song about Nipples (sorrry). https://sonofrobot.bandcamp.com/album/nipples