Growing Up

When I was 18 and met Shaun at Leigh Music College we started a working relationship that was allowed to grow, time and life at that point allowed us to, no mortgage, no other financial commitments or family commitments...just song writing and this was so important to us as growing musicians. We used to 'play' with music in a way that we would try and break it, playing odd chords and weaving hooky melodies through them and then getting adventurous with time signatures, dynamics and instrumentation, if you happen to have a copy of Mr. So & So's first album 'Paraphernalia' there is a track on there called 'The Hypnotic', this is the best example of what we were doing at the time, the deceiving rhythm and really odd chords combined with a great vocal melody make it the track that it is. From the age of 18 through to about 22 we did nothing but write music and it's here that I learned, it's more important to be a good musician than it was to just be a good guitarist.

The significant thing that happened during this period was my good fortune knowing people that had great record collections. In this four year period I was introduced to bands such as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Marillion, Weather Report, XTC, Frank Zappa, Gentle Giant.....the list goes on. I have one rule that I pass onto all of my private pupils, it's the single most important thing that I can tell them, 'Listen to every genre and as much of it as you can'.

The great thing about all the bands I listed is that there was a big back catalogue and as a student it was difficult to buy them all on vinyl, it was even difficult as a student to by some TDK D90's to record the albums onto, this meant that I would spend quality time with each album, studying the inner sleeve like it was some kind of homework. I soaked up the song lyrics, the producer and mix engineers names, even the 'thanks to' list was worth reading as I would then find out bands that were connected, an example of this is 'finding' Steve Vai by listening to 'Them or Us' by Frank Zappa. I thought I wouldn't like any country music (I blame Billy Ray Cyrus for that), but after delving into country rock I found some amazing musicians and bands, Lowell George from Little Feat has become a real favourite of mine. But it was Led Zeppelin that ultimately taught me that genres don't matter, 'When the Levee Breaks' is on the same album as 'The Battle of Evermore' and 'The Immigrant Song' is from the same album as 'Tangerine', rich and varied and in my case, very, very inspiring.

Dismiss genres at your peril as there always something good in there and you will miss out if you shy away from them.