The songs must be wondering what it is that they did wrong. As they made their way from 1/2 inch tape to vinyl acetate at the hands of the late, great John Dent as part of the mastering process, they must have thought themselves destined for the great ear holes of the world; not a sentence doing hard labour imprisoned in an endless sea of ones and zeros. I spent more hours than you can count writing and recording my first record, and yet here I am 20 years later only just putting it out.  A lot of life has happened in that time, and as much has happened to the things that happened. There’s so many reasons the record didn’t get a real release at the time, and being the kind of person that has to be creating something all the time, I ended up writing, or co writing in a couple of cases – with my musical brothers Matt Deighton and Marti Pellow, or the remarkable Mark E Brydon who I came to revere both as a musician and a human being – several more albums that got in the way. And guess what? None of them are available either, save for Marti’s which we finally had a top 15 album with in the lockdown. More on him I’m sure – he’s so much more than you’d think from what you hear in the music press, and a great friend. 20 years later though, as a dad to two little creative bombshells of 3 and 5, as as the son of parents who supported me enormously with my music enjoying the quieter period of their lives, I felt now was the time to make my peace with who I was, who I am and what I recorded back then.

I’m going to try and tell the stories of each of the songs here as they drop onto the streaming sites. Who knows, if there’s a fanbase out there all these years later than discover it and want it, then maybe we’d do vinyl. For now, there’s no much point but I’d love there to be one day.

A lot of incredible musicians, talented engineers, producers; as well as photographers, designers and so on put all their love into the album with me. I owe it to them to release it at least, and actually, I’ve realised I’m pretty proud that this is what I achieved with songs I wrote from 20-25 in a time long before everyone had full on studios on their laptops and AI making their backing tracks. So first will be Goodbye Cruel Circus (I’m off to join the world) which was produced by my dear friend Dave Anderson, and features my other musical brother Chris Farrell on guitar, Tim Weller on drums, and then bass is shared out between the late Mark Smith, and someone who is arguably my favourite musician out there, Mike Rowe – who also became family. It’s a bit of a theme I suppose, but when you’re a songwriter and artist, and you sit there with a song you’ve just written, wondering if it can wear a pair of trousers without them falling down, and then you hear these guys playing on it and it’s suddenly in a full stormtrooper suit, you’d love them too. I think our world these days  forgets how important the musicians are. Everything is about the artist, but without the musicians doing what they do to magnify the artist’s vision, we’d be nowhere. It’s so hard for them now, when artists can’t afford to take them on tour, and so take stems to trigger: and still, in 2024, PPL pay no royalty to them for that broadcast of their performance in a public place. (I’m encroaching into my other life now…) But let me just say that my passion for advocating for professional musicians, session musicians or ‘band members’ comes from the experience I had of them taking my songs to where they went to, from where they came from. They are the best people in the world, and there’s nothing I miss more than the first hour in the studio before anyone plays a note. Great times that I hope my children will have one day, if the industry remembers to look after this part of the profession in time.

Welcome to the site anyhow. I work these days helping other artists, and I’m sure there’ll be loads about them but for now, I’m going to try and breathe some life into something I sacrificed absolutely everything for for almost 20 years.