When I started putting the album together, I knew I wanted to play these songs with a full band.
I’ve been playing as a solo musician for 9 years now (my first official gig being January 2017). Before that, I’d been in bands pretty consistently since the year 2000.
I absolutely loved playing in bands, but in the last few years before going solo, I’d grown fed up with the logistics that would come with organising the schedules of myself and 3-4 other people.
To give you an example, my last band wrote some utterly incredible songs together, but we could never get our act together enough to rehearse. It was so bad that we’d often go 6 to 8 weeks between rehearsals…you cannot build any momentum that way.
It’s an extreme example, but by no means an isolated one.
So I learned to play guitar enough to accompany myself and set out on my own. And it’s been wild!
But as much fun as I’ve had (and will continue to have) playing as a solo musician, there’s a certain magic that comes with playing together with a group of musicians that you just can’t replicate as a solo artist. These are the moments when everything and everyone comes together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
I never thought that my days of playing with other musicians were gone for good. When I got my band together for the studio, I knew that the countdown clock had started.
This week, for the first time in over a decade, I left my home saying to my wife “Right, I’m off to band practice” (a sentence that feels very odd coming out of my nearly 40-year-old mouth!) and headed to the first rehearsal for my full band show at The Portland Arms in April.
Friends…these boys are on fire!
Considering I’ve only ever played live with one of these guys before (and even that was many years ago now), this rehearsal utterly kicked arse! We’ve got a way to go still to tighten things up and fully lock in, but the chemistry has been undeniable.
Here’s to the legendary lineup I’ve assembled:
Dell Carr-Rickwood - Bass
Chris Benton - Drums
Mark Johns - Guitars
I’ve pulled together a short video of the session as a teaser for the show.
This is just the beginning.
If you want the full whammy, grab yourself a ticket to our show at The Portland Arms in Cambridge on 30th April!
