Every musician will tell you the moment they “knew” it would be their life. For me it was a long-haired older relative’s rock band blasting the wedding guests at high volume and not caring! Musical obsessions soon came thick and fast and my teenage room was full of rock n roll dreams. It never really stopped.

I grew long hair to annoy everyone, picked up a guitar and got into bands. The early ones weren’t great and we had no real idea what we were doing. But they got better and eventually I was gigging all over the place. From local gigs and festivals in Europe to legendary venues like the Bull and Gate in London, where so many awesome bands (Blur, Nirvana, Muse…) had stood on the same stage and paid their dues. Good music, good dudes, lots of fun times.

But one thing was missing – I only wanted to play my music. Every band was always full of writers, so it was a case of only every 5th song being mine. So after a decade I decided to go it alone as Chocolate Rocket. It’s actually easier than it sounds. I had a digital 16 track home studio, that I still use. I had a backlog of music to record. I could play every instrument. Best of all, I could play it exactly as I intended and then release it at will. And that’s exactly what I did. And still do.

Let me backtrack for a second. By far my biggest musical revelation came unexpectedly one New Year’s Eve, when I was still a teenager. The local secondhand record shop owner (a very important person in every town) randomly handed me a video of Zappa’s Baby Snakes concert. It Blew My Mind. Those couple of hours that 31 December night can be measured as life before and life after. I had been struggling to find a compositional path. But this concert unlocked it. Without it I may have got disillusioned with my writing and given up. 

What this concert showed me was that music is art, that art is creativity, and creativity is about doing anything you want, just because. Nothing and one else’s expectations mean a thing. I’ve since heard them all: “have a voice”, “be compositionally consistent”, be “mature”, “stick to one sound”, “you can’t write a song without a middle 8/chorus”, “lyrics must have meaning”, “you must respect tradition”, “you can’t use humour”, “you can’t___”, “you can’t___”, “you can’t___”. Well, actually I can and I did and I do 🙂

When I was finally alone in my own studio, I recorded song after album of whatever random ideas came from my imagination (as ideas naturally do) and did whatever I wanted, just because. I was finally home. I believe this approach to creativity has a greater purpose – it’s the key to your originality and most sincere form of musical expression. What I mean is, follow your own imagination wherever it may go and then you can’t help but be uniquely yourself. These are the bands and musicians I like the best. They are the  innovators. Just make it melodic, have fun and don’t take it too seriously – well, that’s my approach. 

I only make music that I foremost want to hear but it’s also important that YOU, the listener, enjoy it too.

If you’d like to hear my most recent adventure in imagination, click here to listen to my most recent album Far Out.

Thank you for being a listener and helping to make it all matter.