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On May
10th 1985, Stuart Morrow
left
New Model Army.
He was a top bass player in a top band who I liked a lot. It would be
fair to say that I was disappointed, but by a quirk of
fate, I also happened to be
at the Bradford University gig when he decided to do it. My presence turned out to be a good
thing for my future. I wasn't a bass player, but my brother had a bass
which I was able to play with a degree of competence and I had
been presented with a rare opportunity. I went for Stuart's
recently vacated job. I had no
bass with me for the audition, and was a bit drunk when I arrived.
However, fortune favoured the foolish that day, and soon after, against
all odds, I was in the band. Within
a week I began the roller coaster ride from rags to
rags again, failing to stop at riches at any time in my career.
I was 17 years of age when I started. It was immense fun for four years,
creatively fulfilling, sufficiently rewarding and occasionally
frustrating. Year five was somewhat less
fun, leading me to opt out of year six, and indeed any subsequent years,
altogether. Things got a little tense, and something had to give,
so I walked away before it got too much. During my tenure I travelled the world, played lots of gigs, made some
good records and for
the most part had a good time doing it, but at the age of 22, I was
almost back where I started. I forged one of the closest
friendships of my life whilst in New Model Army, which was cut
tragically short, as explained
here.
New Model Army
was a defining time for me, they'll always be my old band,
and something I was really a part of, because I was involved relatively early
on in their long career. I can look back on it all and laugh now, mostly
forgotten by those in and around the situation. Subsequent ventures
never felt the same, it was always someone else's thing. It's funny
looking back on my time with them, because the whole thing seems like
it was a lifetime ago, almost as if happened to
somebody else. Many things that were to come definitely should have...
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