Our first song was called ‘Lies’, a basic punk thrash with me chanting “Always telling me lies” in the chorus. I’d like to say it was about politicians but it wasn’t that sophisticated. It wasn’t that bad either but still, I’m thankful we had no way of recording ourselves so left no evidence of it’s existence.
We called ourselves ‘Control’ which in retrospect was a pretty inappropriate name as I was well out of control at the time and Graham was no better - in fact it was our younger brothers who were the smarter ones and making better progress musically. ‘Control’ was one of the words ‘The Clash’ stencilled on their clothes, they were the first punk band we really got into, but there was a seemingly endless stream of exciting stuff coming out and any available money we had went on albums and singles: The Damned, The Slits, Buzzcocks, Ultravox, Alternative TV… too many to mention.
We listened to the John Peel show and read the NME and when we could get to a gig we went, but living in the countryside, unable to drive and with no public transport it wasn’t easy. The most memorable gig from that period was The Clash in Birmingham supported by The Specials, Spizz oil and Suicide.
The positive side of being stuck out in the middle of rural England was that with so few distractions we had plenty of time to get together and try things out; Nick with his old Shaftsbury drum kit, Graham with his Hondo Bass, Justin and his Höfner and I had a microphone… I have no idea what I plugged it into, if anything.