Bad news in my shoes

Here goes . . . .

After my departure from the Sneaker Pimps, in 1998 , no one called to see what had happened or how I was doing for a while. A few people were interested in what I would do next but at the time, I was in a strange place, I was wary of anyone on the record company side of the fence and felt like I'd been used by everyone. I felt that they had all wanted a little dolly to sing their words and sell their records but didn't know what to do when the little dolly suddenly came to life and spat in their faces.

I felt totally alone, which was sometimes scary but mostly wonderful, after spending so much time on a tour bus for so long, where privacy is not an option. I was excited about having time to write and I bought a big Midi Piano and hooked my QY70 sequencer up to it and would record my ideas into a ghetto box recorder. I had hardly any cash and was selling anything I could sell, mostly records (including rare Sneaker Pimps records) to stay in London. If I had had to go back to Birmingham, I felt my soul would have suffered too much, so I fought hard to stay in London.

I signed on the dole (unemployment benefit) and it was quite interesting to be back in a Job Centre again. Trying to convince the bored office workers that I was a musician and didn't much fancy working in a chip shop, (but I'd bear it in mind of course : ) , was like banging my head against a brick wall and I signed off the dole in the end, they wouldn't stop hassling me to go to stupid job club meetings or interviews for slave labour and all that shit, they weren't paying me anyway, I was still in debt and I decided to let things slip out of my hands for a while. I became a devout disciple of red wine and got to writing some songs.

Day after day and Night after night, I would work out string parts and beats and melodies and words and I must have written over a hundred songs in that time but if they didn't move me enough after a time, then I'd trash them and move on.

It was a precious time for me, I learned about sequencing and programming, albeit very basic but to me, it meant that I could now give people an idea of what I had in mind.

I felt as though I was quite weak after giving so much out on the long tours and after all that had happened, felt that I needed to get stronger, spiritually and physically.

Bruce Lee has always been one of my heroes, my dad had been a huge fan of his films and had loved watching them on video. I never understood the story lines when I was a kid but just loved to watch Bruce Lee. He was the embodiment of strength and cool to me and handsome as hell of course ! I reflect on Bruce Lee because it was his poster on the kitchen wall that made me think of going to Kung Fu classes.

I started looking for classes and eventually, found a really cool teacher. It wasn't too long before I was going every day to meditate or do Tai Chi or the fighting exercises. It was very good for me, for the first time ever, I was thinking about the flow of the world and questioning energy and learning about philosophies and ideas that totally captured my attention and imagination.

So I was a kung fu fighter by day and boozy writer by night ! I like to try and stay balanced ; )

I enjoyed the peace of those times and the feeling that I was free to do what ever I wanted and be with who ever I wanted to be with. No more arguments, no more loneliness or paranoia, just peace and a little heart ache at times. London felt fresh to me and I felt like I was home again and it was so good to meet with friends and my family, whom I had missed a great deal.

Whilst I was writing, received a call from Satoshi Tomiie, he wanted to send me a track to write to. When I received the music, I was inspired. I wondered if I could make this very free and meandering piece of music into a song. I played the music over and over and it really put me in the mind of a voodoo rituals and masquerade balls and New York clubs and the streets of New York. So I wrote a song called 'Up In Flames', actually, I called it Full Lick at first but Satoshi liked that name so much he decided to call his album 'Full Lick'.

Satoshi loved the song, he asked me to write another one with him, he played me this other track that I also really liked and although I was kind of focusing on my own stuff, I was too inspired to say no.

I wanted the vocals and melody for 'Love in Traffic' to have a really nonchalant, tranquilizer vibe but for the lyrics to be a parody of a drug smuggler. But in this song, the smuggler is smuggling love through a loveless, technological concrete jungle.

We recorded the vocals in a little studio in the West End, The Matrix, I think it was called. It was cool and I enjoyed working with Satoshi, he is very open and thoughtful.

After that, I began working on a very rough demo. I saw a few record companies but never met anyone who could see past mySneaker Pimps past. They saw dollar signs for sure, if I was willing to join another band and make another Becoming X. But how dull and uninteresting, the minds of so many people (usually men), who sit at the wheel of the majority of big record labels in the U.K. Nothing but w/bankers in suave suits and a large record collection man.

Derek Birkett, however, the owner of One Little Indian records, offered me a new deal around that time. Derek is cool and is a true believer in music. I am always impressed by his ability to let the people he signs, to make their own music, that may sound like no big deal but believe me, so many record companies try and play a big hand in the vibe of their artists music. That would drive me to distraction and one of the reasons I'm so happy that I signed with One Little Indian records, is that it's a label that refuses to conform to trends and refrains from messing with the purity of what the artists are making.

Once a deal is done for a record, the next step is finding people who you want to work with.

I met and worked with a few people on my demos but I wasn't feeling confident that I was working with the right people.

I wanted to make songs and a lot of producers I was meeting were into drum and bass at that time. I would play them a demo and we'd have a day in a studio and by the end of the day, the melodies I had taken so long to write would be lost under bleeps and ear splitting beats. Where I had taken pains to make subtle nuances in a part of a song, they would rail road it into a cacophony of unintelligible noise and I would have to take my songs back and gingerly smile goodbye.

Time waits for no one and I was beginning to think that all producers working in London were more concerned about putting their own re-mix stamp on the songs, rather than trying to develop the music and create something beautiful.

Luckily, Derek was in contact with a producer called Marius De Vries and arranged for us to meet. (see Cat's Tales - recording Tiger Mouth in London)

Not long after that, I met with Rick Nowels. Rick has been writing and producing pop music for decades. He was in London at that time, working in Howie B's studio and asked if we could meet up. Within an hour or so, we were working on a song I had been writing called Lucifer Rising.

I could feel instantly that Rick cared deeply about songs and that he had the ability to see the potential of a song whether it's been recorded on a cassette on a ghetto box or a sequencer or whatever, just so long as the song is alive. Melody is important to me, if the melody doesn't sound fresh or strong, if it doesn't stir something in me or sounds usual to me, I lose interest.

I am constantly striving to make melodies that speak all by themselves, even before I sing the words of the song, that way, I know that the message of the song will come naturally, through the emotion that the melody provokes in me. Rick instantly understood this and wasn't trying to change chords every where to make them fit into musical stereo types. He was into what I'd written and went with it and I knew that I was working with someone who would understand and help me to achieve what I was aiming to achieve. See Cat's Tales - Recording Tigermouth in L.A.