now we're drinking...
I wanted to learn to play a musical instrument. I didn’t care which one, so long as it got me out of lessons and into the school play rehearsals. I was handed a trumpet by the music teacher and told to get cracking. I taught myself to read music, and taught myself how to play the trumpet.
I grew up in Leeds and being a professional trumpet player was a bit unlikely. I didn't like the trumpet, anyway.
However, I did like music and I'd decided from quite a young age that I was going to be a famous rock star.
It wasn't until I was about 14, after weaning myself off Abba, that I started listening to Elvis, and then The Beatles.
This was because this is what was in my parents record collection. It went without saying that I had to learn the guitar, too.
My mum and dad bought me an acoustic guitar, but I couldn't make the thing sound any good at all. I nicked a hymn book from school because it came with a load of guitar chords in the back, all set out in a grid - index finger goes here,
next finger goes there. But it still sounded awful, especially the 'D' chord.
Then I worked out that because I was left-handed all the strings were the wrong way around. So, I switched the strings over, tuned it up, and hey presto, the guitar sounded good!
By the time I was 16 I was confident enough to get a band together with three school friends. I was even writing my own songs, by then, but we did attempt to do a few covers. This was in the 1980s,
so we were living at a time when music was pretty awful. We went back in time for our musical inspiration. I listened to The Beatles, and the others listened to 50s rock n
roll, The Kinks and The Who. Also, REM and some other American indie type bands. I'd never really listened to The Who, but I got right into their music.
There was something about the way The Who went about their music that I really enjoyed. I wanted to play in a band like The Who, and I wanted to play guitar like Pete
Townsend. And I had a lot of work to do before that was going to happen.
I played my first gig when I was 17. Oddly, I had a recording of that gig and took it with me wherever I moved. Now, I can't find the thing. It's around somewhere.
It's also as far removed from The Who as you can get. My voice is really weak and crappy, and the band is appalling. Still, at least we had a go. But if we thought we were going to
be the next best thing, we were deluded.
It took years before we sounded anything like a decent band. We just didn't have the time. We had to work, and that involved shitty office jobs in Leeds, working 9 to 5. The Beatles got to play in Hamburg, 14 hours a day, for months. We had a couple of hours rehearsal a week, if we were lucky, and the odd pub gig. We were tenacious, though, and kept on at it.
When I was 21 I got a bank loan for a Mesa Boogie MkIV amp, which set me back £1,600. It cost more than my first old-banger car. It was to be my defining guitar sound for years,
but at first I had no idea what all those valves were for in the back of the thing. I just used it on clean sound for the first couple of years. I had a Rickenbacker at the time and
no matter what I did, as soon as I turned the amp up I'd get a load of feedback. I could do the beginning part of "I Feel Fine" by simply leaning the Rickenbacker against the amp - the thing would
buzz like mad. The result was that I couldn't really use the other, crunchier channels on the Boogie because I'd get feedback straight away. I wasn't about to get rid of my left-handed Rickenbacker, so
I just kept the sound on clean.
It wasn't until after I sold my Rickenbacker to pay back some debts that I tried some different guitars. My next one was a left-handed block of wood called a Fender Telecaster. Now that
was a guitar. Straight away, it wanted to be on the crunchy channels, and finally, I began to push those valves in the Boogie. Wow!
After years of holding back on going into the realms of distorted guitars, preferring the approach to music that The Beatles took, I realised that as a three-piece, we had no choice.
By now, my original band of school mates was well and truly gone. Martin was the only survivor of that, and when we moved to York, Jason was with us. It was with Jason that the
transition from jingly jangly guitars to overdrive central occurred.
York was a good laugh, in general. We had our crappy days, who doesn't, but overall it was a good time for us. We had the time to rehearse and gig a lot, much more than the other bands in York. We got better and better, tighter and tighter. My voice became stronger and my songwriting more prolific. We had a great social life and were well and truly part of the York music scene, which in the early 90s was brilliant.
Our gigs got busier and busier, and we got more and more popular. On one occasion, I went to sign on for my dole and the woman who dealt with my 'claim' stared at me and asked if I was feeling a bit tired. It was about 11am, so early for me. Yes, I was a bit knackered, a bit of a late one last night. I know, she said, I was at your gig. Followed by "and have you been doing any work in the last two weeks?" and a smile. Phew...
We soon had London-based management and were playing the unis around Yorkshire, and we even got into the Barbican Centre, York, for a gig. That was fantastic. We had all the crowd watching us, so we decided not to stop when the main band was due to go on in the main hall. They pulled the plug on us, much to the delight of the crowd. Excellent.
And time went on. We came close to getting recording deals, but friends around us such as Chris Helme and Shed Seven were getting recording contracts, and we weren't. Shed Seven played their first gig under a Polydor contract supporting us. It all seemed a bit unfair.
One evening, towards the end of 1995, I went for a pint with Jason at the Punch Bowl. It was in there that he told me he didn't want to be in the band anymore. I was
a bit taken aback because things seemed to be going so well for us, but at the same time, I could see his point. We were both 25 years old and our music careers weren't careers at all. If we
weren't careful, we'd have nothing. His friends in Bradford had decent jobs and were getting mortgages and cars, yet all Jason had was 30 quid until his next dole cheque. We may not
have been making a load of money, but we were a very popular band and it was just a matter of time before we got a break. Jason wasn't convinced.
And that was that.
Justin joined and we got even more rockier due to his heavy-metal background. He was up for moving to London, so we did, in 1996. That was a bit of a mistake, but no regrets.
We worked in Camden Lock Market to make money, and we really did make some decent money. It was surprising how well we did. We were total novices and our stall looked horrible, but we soon
went a bit more professional and got into it. There was something addictive about working the market. We only did Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday was mental at Camden. There were times when I
thought I'd never leave London for anywhere else, it was an amazing city. The odd thing was that I saw more trouble and more fights and agro in York than I ever did in London.
Maybe this was the place we would finally get our recording contract. The song 'Tired', which you can hear on The Crossing page, was picked up by Carlin Music, who offered me a publishing deal on the
back of it. It was a magical moment. The boss sat there, talked to us, listened to the song, liked everything and just said "Right, it's agreed. I'll sign you."
But, it wasn't to be. Justin didn't want a career with The Crossing, so made moves to join an already established band. This got back to Carlin and they pulled out. I couldn't believe a so-called mate
would do such a thing. Did he want to work in Camden Market for the rest of his life? We sacked him from the band and sacked him from the market stall business. He was out of a band and out
of a job within days. Skint, he begged for a few more weeks on the stall. There was no way.
And that was that.
Around this time, I went off to explore London. I jumped on the Underground and went west, I think. Writing this now, I'm not going to look on the internet to find the details, because what I did was never planned.
I was in the area for some other reason, but I can't remember why. I walked around and around looking for the place, but couldn't find it. I remember walking down a road, with trees along the edges, thinking
that this was quite a nice place. Then I noticed graffiti all over a wall with things like "Paul, I love you" and "John, do you remember me?" sort of thing. Where was I?
I'd literally stumbled upon Abbey Road. It didn't take long to find the studios, and the zebra crossing. It seemed smaller than I imagined, but I don't know why it did.
I just stood, looking at the studios thinking "It's only music, but to reach this sort of fame required more than just a few songs. And that extra stuff doesn't seem to be coming my way."
I waited around for a bit, not quite sure what to do next, and half-hoping Paul McCartney would stick his out of the window and ask if I wanted to pop in for a cup of tea.
This music career of mine always seemed to be verging on the slightly ridiculous.
In a nutshell - I needed a total change.
My first trip to Thailand was the result of several linked circumstances, culminating with me working for someone at Camden Market.
That someone was a wonderful man called Dave, and he saw that I was struggling with my music career, and clinging on to some sort of happiness.
He paid for me to go over to Thailand with a friend of his. I'll never forget him doing that for me.
It was the end of 2000 when I flew from a freezing cold London winter to a shockingly hot Bangkok. When the external doors of the airport opened onto the streets of
Bangkok, I was still wearing my jeans, boots and fleece jacket. I was hit by a wave of damp heat that I struggle now to properly describe.
I hated the place. I suddenly felt totally out of my depth and I wanted to go back to London.
My travel partner was called John, and he'd been to Thailand many times before. He had gone to the toilets earlier at the airport and changed into shorts, T-shirt and flipflops. He'd had the heat-blast treatment on his first trip, and
learned a lesson.
We got to the hotel and I just went straight to kip. I was knackered. John woke me up at about 10pm to get me out and about, and to get some food down me.
I had started to feel a bit anxious, so I wasn't up for eating. I picked at a few chips at a restaurant we were at, before finding solace in a few beers.
We went to a bar that seemed to be full of single girls, but I thought nothing of it. And then we went down the street a bit further.
John took me to a place called the Nana Plaza, or something like that, and I couldn't grasp what I was seeing. It was a scene from some dodgy 80s film with Jean Claude Van Damme.
I was there about half an hour before making my excuses and leaving for the hotel. In that half hour I realised why John came to Thailand so much.
The next day, we went to a place called Pattaya. I'd never heard of it before and I thought it was some outskirt of Bangkok. The taxi kept going and going, and out of Bangkok. I had no idea where we were off to.
We got to the hotel in Pattaya in the afternoon, and I took myself off to bed again. I didn't want to be there at all.
John woke me up again at about 9pm and said I needed to eat. He was off to see someone and would be back at about 10pm to collect me and take me to the Sunday quiz night.
And off he went. There was a massive car park across the road with what looked like a huge casino building next to it. I could see red plastic tables and chairs, and brollies and steam or smoke. Seeing as the hotel restaurant wasn't open, I crossed the road and
plonked meself down at one of the tables. The heat was stifling and the first beer didn't touch the sides as it went down.
Here, I was introduced to the fearsome potency of a Green Papaya Salad, and ladyboys. I had been joined by a load of women, who weren't women, but were men with boobs, though I couldn't tell they were men, even when they took their wigs off and slapped them on the table.
They told me they were transvestites, some at different stages of surgical work, and that wasn't a casino, it was a cabaret, and quite famous, I was told. They all swigged beer and spoke with deep voices, but they looked like women; their faces and bones were gentle, the sort of thing an operation couldn't achieve.
They came to my rescue when I took my first, massive mouthful of the ferocious papaya salad - I thought my head was going to pop off my neck. They made me rub salt on my tongue, and then they got me a few beers in.
We had a good laugh about it, and they told me about their work, and a bit about their lives.
And then off they went, back to work.
This was one of many utterly different encounters that I came across in Thailand that started to chip away at the blinkered, music dominated life I lived back in London.
I made my way back over the road and to the hotel, where John was waiting for me. We jumped in the back of a pick-up truck with seats in it, that the locals called a 'baht-bus'. They were great.
We got to the bar where the quiz night was being held and I was introduced to some of the ex-pats living in Pattaya. One of them, Rob, became a close friend.
My anxiety was starting to subdue as my senses were assaulted by this strange, unrealistic country. After the quiz, which finished around 11.30pm, Rob took me off into Pattaya Proper on a baht-bus.
Now, I thought Nana Plaza was a neon sex-shop, but it was nothing compared to a place called Pattaya Land - a group of
bars and go-go clubs right at the bottom end of the road that runs along the beach front.
Rob was from the West Indies and I can still hear that deep, accented laugh of his when he saw my face as I stood, staring at a street full of neon lights, mobile wok-kitchens, and girls wearing bikinis.
Although I'd never heard of Pattaya, I soon found out that it was famous, but unfortunately, not because it was a family tourist destination, but because it was basically one great big brothel.
And there I was, right in the middle of it, so far out of my depth (and comfort zone) that I was practically another person stood there.
We walked past the lot and went to a little restaurant at the top of the street. Rob had been told I wasn't eating, so he had a plan.
One mouthful of papaya salad wasn't going to do me much good, he told me. We sat down and he got some grub sorted out. The first thing was a bowl of some sort of broth.
"This will get your appetite working again, and then you'll be hungry for the next dish." I wasn't hungry at all.
But, as soon as I had my first mouthful of that broth, I couldn't stop eating it. A few minutes later, I was tucking into some rice, with chicken, and some veg, and other bits. It was stunning.
And at that moment, sat with Rob, in a strange and alien environment, I felt calm again. I really, really, really liked Thailand.
I'd been dreaming of being a successful rock musician since I was 14 years old. I'd been playing in a semi-professional band since I was 16 and I had come close to recording and publishing contracts. I was 31
when I first went to Thailand and I hadn't given up on my music, but I knew I needed a break from it. There was nowhere for me to go back in London, I was stuck in a rut. But all of a sudden, thanks to Thailand, I could see a way out of the unhealthy circle
that was my life chasing a recording contract. I had a cunning plan - and it involved Thailand.
Within a few months I was living there and I stayed a year. It was an incredible time, in an incredible country.
Grand...
After about a year in Thailand, I started to miss my family, and Europe. I wasn't too bothered about living in the UK, I liked the Lake District and the Dales, and the beer, but other than that, I
had no desire to go back there.
I'd once tried to spend a self-sufficient summer in Mallorca, in 1999, but that failed. However, I liked Mallorca. I'd never been there before I arrived in 1999. A friend of mine told me he'd been going there
for many years and that I should give it a go. So I did.
Whilst sat eating my dinner at a street-side bar in Chonburi, I wondered if I could live in Mallorca - if I had the courage to leave my life in Thailand, that is. Maybe I could make some decent money there, and at least I could eventually buy my
own house, something that was illegal in Thailand as a foreigner.
The thought of getting back to Europe nibbled away at me. I had romantic notions of going to Rome, going to the Alps and seeing it snow, and then getting a car and driving along the French Riviera. In Mallorca I'd have a house and a great job, maybe even
do some music again.