Well on to the 1st band I got to experience my 1st gigs with. I got into joining this band through girl I knew, who's boyfriend knew a guy in a band , who were looking for a new lead singer. This guy knew I had sung and played bass with a band (Phaze 4), and thought I might fit in with this metal band he knew. When I say metal, I mean the type of band that was influenced heavily at the time by Priest,Maiden and Saxon. I went for an audition almost immediatley except for a short meeting with a couple of the guys from the band briefly before, in our local rock boozer/hangout The Dive. I was given a three track demo to listen to and a book of lyrics to learn at the time. That demo is available to listen to in the music section .
They really were a step up the ladder for me at the time and I can remember thinkin this is it... They were all about a year older than me and had the experience of gigging and recording. They all seemed to look the part and found when I got to the audition that they seemed to have all the equipment too. Un -beknown to me at the time also they were changing the bass player too. This guy turned out to be Paul, who is now the guitarist for reggae band Kifaru.(Check out the Kifaru site). No offence meant here as he is a good friend of mine, but it was quite unusual to have a coloured guy into playing rock music, remember this was about 1979/1980. But the rest of the band was made up of the oldest guy colin, a bit of a Schenker clone with his blonde straight locks and flying V guitar, drummer John with his double bass drum kit and Anthony Lowe (The Lowe we called him) with his strange shaped guitar (like a squashed square). I actually kinda knew Anthony from school as he had been a year above me. The thing that made me nervous around them though was the fact they were all older and more experienced.
Now there was one strange set up also and that wasthe fact that the band had sacked their prevoius singer / songwritter just before taking me on. But the old singer had become the band manager, along with his brother who was a roadie. The guy let the band carry on using a room in his flat for rehearsals. Which was great as everything was left set up all the time, the drums Marshall cabs etc, We just had to turn up. Oh and the band logo had been paited on the wall also. You can see that in the pics section also. The only other thing was the flat was in what was quite rough down and out area at the time. Youths were always having running clashes with the police up there in the precinct as it was then. No longer there now as they flatened it and re built it. My point though here was that the flatwe rehearsed in was right next door to the cop shop. On one occassion the cops came round and told us to cool it. They were half way up the stairs into the flat mind, almost a raid it seemed like. lol. My audition was there one Saturday afternoon and I'm not sure now if I went up there on the bus or my mate gave me a backy on his motorbike. Anyway, We ran through about 3 songs and then they told me I'd got the gig, that following evening down The Dive pub. To be continued......
