Initially it was a hobby. A way
of indulging our mutual musical interests and earning some extra wages but
because we had 'proper jobs', we couldn't travel very far out of the North East
for fear of not getting back in time for work. When we started out we were
really naive. We never realised that there was a minor political system
operating in the Country Music scene. We soon became aware that there were
quite a few different and sometimes opposing opinions of what Country music is
all about.
Though
we tried, we felt that because we were a duo, we were never really accepted as
a pure Country outfit. Although the guitars and vocals were 'live' and the
tracks we played along to i.e. drums and keyboards were constructed by me, the
'not having a drummer' issue would not go away, and rightly so. So after a few years of feeling
like 'Outsiders', not quite being part of the scene (hence the title of my
first original album) we realised that the venues and audiences that we were
having the better and more enjoyable nights with were the dance nights. The
decision to move over to concentrate on that element of the Country scene was
therefore an obvious one. I still maintain the opinion that if there is a good
country dance written to a pop song then i would rather write a new country song and play that instead
of the pop song.
Then the cream of our success for 2006 was to appear on the front cover
of the Linedancer magazine, coinciding with the release of my album 'Closing Time in Cheatingville. Further
involvement of choreographers like Gaye Teather, Alan Haywood, Robert Lindsay,
Jacquie Winchester and Alison Biggs helped elevate our standing on the circuit.
We met a guitarist when we played a gig at which his band were also playing at and later that same
year, when our guitarist broke his elbow, he kindly stood in and helped us out,
enabling us to continue with our touring commitments and our latest album
project. He joined us on another album I wrote called Helter Skelter. We decided that the quality of guitar playing that
he brought to our show was too good an opportunity to miss and invited him to
join us as a 3 piece when his own band stopped touring.
Now to answer the many people
who have contacted me asking why I left here is the reason…
For many years I had wanted to apply to the Police force and eventually
contacted them. I am now an Enforcement Officer and find it incredibly
rewarding and fulfilling and I am looking forward to bumping into some of my
old friends when in uniform. I continued writing material and playing
and have now put a great 'live'band together not using discs like my former act still does.
Touring and sleeping in the back of a van night after night had become
tiring for me: the actual time spent on stage was becoming over-shadowed by the
amount of increasing time taken to get to venues and move onto the next one
sometimes 100’s of miles away, driving when we should have been sleeping.
Musical directions and attitudes were changing, friendships fell apart and the overall show and team
contribution, in my opinion, became stale. I could respond in kind to the lies a certain talentless individual writes about me but audiences that know me know I'm far more professional than that, They still play, I believe, but on a much smaller scale, which is a shame, but c'est la vie.
Best to go, I thought, while we were at the top of our game and form a great modern live country band….. and before a former friend started to believe his own nonsense
