Pop

Music player – requires Flash

My recording career began at Jacobs Studios in rural Surrey where my job description included making the tea, mowing the lawn, teaching French to the owner’s daughter, and cleaning the pool – which got a bit tricky when an inebriated drummer drove a lawnmower into it.

I learnt a huge amount from engineers and producers coming through Jacobs such as Ken Thomas, Ed Buller, Paul Corkett and Steve Brown, and songwriters such as Joe Jackson and Patrick Duff (Strangelove). Other artists I encountered during The Jacobs Years include The Cure, Robert Plant, Primal Scream and Goldie, who used to scream at me regularly. Softly-spoken jovial baton-wielding Brummy? Not in the 90s he wasn’t. Incredible musician though, which is unusual, as he doesn’t play any musical instruments.

With Light Effect at Raezor: Photo by Emma Salisbury

I played bass for a while in a band called Bok in the early 21st century with Geordie drums-and-cymbals-man Richard Young and Batley Boy Matthew Crutchlow plus a few other chaps who came and went when they got bored of us. We were a bit like The Stone Roses, a bit like Oasis and a bit like Blur, but nowhere near as good as any of them. Kerrang thought we were worth three stars and Steve Lamacq played us a bit, but we never sounded as good on record as we did in my head, which was my fault, and we didn’t sell many singles. Post-Bok Richard moved to Canada from where he designed this site and I went on to produce Matt’s first solo album, which contains some of my favourite songs of all time.

After a few years off from this kind of stuff, I produced the debut album by pie-loving Portsmouth guitar-popsters, Light Effect. Their singer has the largest skull you’ll ever see and their guitarist looks like Chewbacca. They’re a hairy bunch but I love ’em.

The band Light Effect: Photo by Emma Salisbury