I had always been interested in words and writing, for almost as long as I can remember. As a young child I would very often flick through my parents’ and grandparents’ newspapers, not because I had any great interest in current affairs or World politics – I was probably only 5 or 6 at the time – but because the actual writing, the words, the structure and conveyance of thoughts and ideas appealed to me. I think, if I’m remembering it right, that I wanted to be a journalist back then. As I got a bit older I began writing stories, just short things that were no doubt highly derivative of tales I’d read in books but, I thought, at least I’m writing, and it’s rather good fun!
At school I began reading more ‘adult’ books, and I remember particularly liking The Exorcist, Jaws, James Herbert and biographies about musicians. Music had always been important to me, too. I grew up listening to what could be described as ‘hand-me-downs’, digging through my mother’s quite extensive collection of ‘50s and ‘60s rock and roll singles and, from there, discovering more ‘earthy’ rockers like Gene Vincent before stumbling across the Stray Cats. It had always been that feeling of rawness, the energy and rebelliousness that my favourite bands and singers employed that did it for me. Anything plastic or manufactured, pretty much everything in the charts never held any appeal. For me it was Elvis, not Cliff; Stones, not Beatles; Hendrix, not Clapton; Janis and Aretha, not Crystal or Loretta.
And from there I began my love affair with punk rock.
On holiday in Spain with my parents, my last vacation with them since I think we all accepted I was too old for that sort of thing by then, I was checking out local record stores and found the Ramones’ It’s Alive double album. Remembering they had a couple of songs with ‘Rock n Roll’ in the title I decided that, despite their less-than-rockabilly appearance, they would be a good addition to my fast-growing ‘50s-inspired collection. My friends and I got together upon my return, dropped the needle and… well, that was literally it. Our young, impressionable minds were well and truly blown. To this day, a great many years later, I still feel that rush of excitement, of adrenalin whenever I hear Da Brudders at their blistering peak.
My best friend’s brother was in a reasonably successful local pop-punk band called the Adicts and he not only taught me the rudiments of bass playing, but he also owned a terrific assemblage of John Peel Sessions, recorded onto those cool old reel-to-reel tapes. So, on Friday nights, when our peers were no doubt discovering the pleasures of drinking too much and the quandaries of the opposite sex, we were listening to the Buzzcocks and the Clash, the Pistols and the Stooges, trying to play along (my buddy was a guitarist), drinking tea and eating biscuits. We were, clearly, the pure embodiment of rock and roll.
We formed a band, then another, then another. We went on tour, put out some records and had a pretty cool time of it. Still, despite my serious preoccupation with punk rock (and its associated off-shoots), the interest I had in writing and words remained. Not only did I write the majority of the lyrics for the bands we were in, I also began producing independent music magazines – fanzines, in other words. Eventually I started being sent hundreds of records and CDs to review each month and absolutely loved writing about them, having fun with words and language, trying to find a million different ways to say, ‘this rocks!’ or, ‘this sucks!’ I interviewed almost all of the bands I loved, reviewed live shows, wrote tour diaries, all kinds of stuff. I wrote columns for other magazines, too, and at that time, being in a band and putting out a magazine was as idyllic a life as I could have ever imagined.
As the final few years of my 30s came into view I couldn’t help but remember a photo I’d seen of the Stones when I had been much younger, thinking geez, I never wanna still be playing in a band when I get to that age and so, before the big 4-0 hit, I called it quits. Looking back now, of course, it was a crazy idea, not just because they had probably only been about 35 in that old photo but also, well, I could easily still be doing it now; I still have the energy, the enthusiasm, the love for it all.
Oh well. Better to have rocked out and quit before going deaf, than never to have rocked at all.
I hadn’t written any fiction to speak of for several years until, one sunny afternoon – and this is gonna sound mad, but just goes to show you never know from where inspiration will strike – I was watching an episode of ‘Party of Five’, the one where Julia and Justin are rehearsing for their school play. They were reading from Chekhov’s Three Sisters and those Vershinin lines about life becoming brighter and easier every day had such an effect on me, seemed to be so beautifully written, carrying such meaning, that I immediately sent away for everything he had ever written, bought some A4 writing pads and set my pen to work on them.
Many other things have happened in my life since then, most of them good, some not so good and others sad, but there have been two things that I’ve carried with me and that have carried me through. One is those first few songs on It’s Alive and the huge amount of killer bands I went on to find because of them, and the other is the works of writers like Chekhov and Tolstoy and Marquez and AM Homes and Haruki Murakami and about three trillion others. To me there’s not much difference between the raging storm of punk rock and the quiet power of excellent, emotive writing. Both have the capability to energise, to enthuse, to educate. Both can pick me up from the lowest place, breathe life into me, show me that even if all seems lost, it never really is, reminding me of all the great things I have in my life. And both make me want to try to reach those same levels of greatness.
It'll never happen, of course, I’ll never make it to those heights, but the journey sure is a hell of a lot of fun.
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