I’ve been writing and singing songs since I first picked up a guitar at 14 years of age, and as I’m always telling people I’m not good at the fiddly lead breaks but I’m ok as a strummer. I therefore concentrate my time on song writing and from my first band The Vigilantes with Simon ‘Lew’ Lewis (yep we were called that) where we played Kinks songs at barn dances and scout halls to the last band I played in, the Llandybie influenced The Mock Mayors, I’ve always included my own songs as part of the set lists.
I’m quite melancholic at times so often write reflectively on my past and current relationships and places that have coloured my life, but you’ll notice there are occasional sorties into naughtiness and wit!
I was established on June the 13th 1965 when Phillis Rees the midwife in Llandybie pulled my little legs and caught sight of me blinking in daylight for the first time and years later when slightly six sheets to the wind swaying on my gate she said that a prompt smack on my bum seemed to bother me somewhat!.
The youngest of six children I was used to hand me downs but very happy and sometimes spoilt with a great mum, dad, three sisters and 2 brothers living in a grocery shop next to the park and beneath the park trees.
On leaving school with mostly art as my talent and with a few compositions under my belt I went to art college in Carmarthen having first discovered the joys of booze. Booze it is fair to say turned me into Ray Davies or Jim Morrison depending on my state of mind going into a session. My year in art foundation in Carmarthen it has to be said was a real ‘first time away from home’ eye opener and a bowl of naughtiness with parties and shinanigans.
Next stop East Ham London E6, but living in Plaistow E13 i initially I attended East Ham College on the graphics course. This was certainly a golden period where I met such a diverse range of people all of whom added to the colour box of my life, great nights tending bars and going to late night clubs and hazy nights in Londons West End took a boy from Llandybie West Wales to a different planet. It was great for 2 years but when college was over a supposed brief trip home turned into a new job as a graphic designer and I’m still here!
My first songs were starting to develop and I joined firstly some cover bands namely Fracture and Bleed Easy but I got bored to tears playing rock classics at clubs up and down the South Wales valleys and it’s fair to say that rehearsals are not my favourite pastime but getting boozed up and going on stage was rather enjoyable.
Stage left Jeremy Thomas a rhythm guitarist who took things in the right direction and this resulted in bumping into Eurof Thomas lead guitarist and into the welsh language band Tramad soon to become Y Brwd, this offered me the opportunity to write some welsh songs and feel fulfilled at rehearsals and gigs.
Y Brwd eventually morphed into The Mock Mayors a bilingual 4 piece band, we were all married with families and whilst we dreamed of rock stardom it was never going to be. A fated gig in The Aztec Club in Soho, London in front of A&R men (one of whom was from Oasis who remarked that we had great songs but it wasn’t our night) turned into a disaster. Sadly Jeremy and Eurof are no longer with us but a trail of demos remain, the ones which i wrote have been plundered here along with some new songs. I’m glad to that Y Brwd members Eirian Hopkins and Nigel Armstrong are back playing with me again on a few numbers.
Am I a successful composer, singer and musician? Absolutely not, but do I enjoy it? Absolutely yes! Is the music any good? Well I’ll let you be the judge of that, I hope you enjoy it or at least understand why I do it.
