THE COLORS: A Case of Synesthesia [1981]

Text by Julia Masi / FFanzeen fanzine, 1981

Introduction, live photos © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2018

Images from the Internet, unless indicated

This article was originally printed in FFanzeen, issue #7, dated 1981. It was written by our Managing Editor and current philanthropic goddess, Julia Masi.

I had the chance to see the Colors a few times, mostly at CBGBs, back around the time this article originally came out. Solid hard-edged powerpop sailing among a sea of punk, the Colors never really went anywhere, though on a verge a few times, releasing a couple of records and lasting for about four years. Some of its members did pretty well afterwards, though. For example, Charlie Pipp went on to join the David Johansen Group (pre-Buster Poindexter); Robert Vickers joined the much popular The Go-Betweens, and then Jersey’s own Yo La Tengo, and he now owns his own Public Relations firm called Proxy Media since 2005; Tommy (Tomas) Cookman is the founder/CEO of Cookman International and Nacional Records,which has released over 150 albums and earned at least nine Grammy or Latin Grammy awards from its over 72 nominations, and he is considered an ambassador of Latin alternative music. But while they were together, they were managed for a time by Hilly Kristal. – RBF, 2018

A shot of adrenalin in the fatigued veins of the New York music scene, the Colors explode on stage with a rush of hardcore rock’n’roll that recaptures the spirit of the ‘60s British Invasion. But these guys aren’t stuck in a time warp. Their debut EP, The Colors, produced by Clem Burke [of Blondie – RBF, 2018] for Infinite Records, proves that they have commercial viability for the ‘80s.

Tommy Cookman, Robert Vickers (pic (c) RBF)

Tommy Cookman (vocals), Paul Sass (lead guitar), Elf (drums), Charlie Pip (rhythm guitar), and Robert Vickers (bass) have the G-rated sexy looks that teenage idols are made of. And enough confidence in their talent to know how to use that as an asset.

“People underestimate us from the word go,” says Charlie. “They think we’re a little kid band. We’re really well rehearsed. As soon as we hit the stage, we hit them with this wall of really tight music. It shocks them.”

They may look like a bunch of rowdy kids hamming it up every chance they get, but there is nothing childish in their demeanor. Dressed in the vibrant colors and military style of the Mersey Beat era, they’re as much fun to watch as they are to listen to.

Tommy, who has an affected English accent, jumps around and off the stage to spur audience participation; offstage, he’s surprisingly low-keyed for a  lead singer, with a voice so soft you have to hug him to hear him. He doesn’t care that some people are initially attracted to the band because of their looks. “It’s like Cheap Trick. When they played the Palladium, the front was all twelve-year-old girls. And then there are all these twenty-five-year-old guys from Brooklyn pushing to get to the front because they like the music. The girls like Cheap Trick because of the way Robin (Zander) looks. People make these comparisons because they see a young band instead of what they do on stage.”

“We’re very audacious on stage,” mentions Paul. “We have a career in music cut out for ourselves. It just takes a lot more time than we may have in the past. We’re very serious. We may not be in a very serious business, but we’re very serious about it. And one of the most important things about it is money. It costs money to play. It costs a lot of money to sound good. We rehearse; that’s one of the best things about having a manager. We rehearse in a studio. But a lot of artistic and musical ideas and concepts we want to put across, we just can’t. We’re not conceptual masters. We don’t have studio production on the first record. The engineer, Jay Burnett, is a genius. But to do more than that, it takes not even our earning money, because bands don’t earn money anymore. They get signed to a four-year contract and the record company that sings them figures, ‘Well, they won’t make any money during the first contract, but when we re-sign them and they make it, they’ll pay us back all that money.’ And that happened with one out of a hundred bands. And the other ninety-nine go back to being dishwashers.”

“Now-a-days, you have to build a lot more than you did before,” explains Robert, in his light Australian accent. “You think of a band like The Who, or a lot of bands from the ‘50s or the ‘60s, they didn’t have to build up anything. They just had to arrive, and once they’re there, you can’t get rid of them. Once you have an establishment, you can never disappear. The public will keep buying the records no matter what you do.”

Paul Sass (pic (c) RBF)

The Colors know how to package them-selves so that people will buy their record, which comes in seven different shades of colored vinyl. The disc is wrapped in a sleeve which spouts a full-color picture of the boys, and has its titles in both English and Japanese.

Tommy, the resident “Jap-o-phile,” takes an active interest in the financial side of the band. He knows how important it is to capture the Japanese market, and he’s aware that the largest record consumers in Japan are teenage girls. “The whole Japanese thing is nice. You see singles that come out in America and especially on the New York scene, they all sort of have the same thing. The Japanese thing just sort of gives it a real distinctive sort of feel when you pick it up. It looks like an import.”

Another unusual feature about The Colors’ EP is that one side is in 45 and the other 33-1/3. Tommy states that, “Peter Crowley was telling me that at Max’s (Kansas City), they have it in the juke box with just one side playing two songs listed, and the other has a sign that reads, ‘Please do not play this side.’ About five times a night someone plays it.” The EP, which has Robert’s “Have You Seen Her” and “West End, “ Paul’s “Rave It Up,” “Growing Up American” and “Jealousy,” proves that the band’s sound cannot be diluted. Paul comments, “The single is a mini-production. It’s almost like a mini-album. Sometimes it seems that our entire set is one song with a lot of parts and a lot of breaks. That’s our business now. We talk about going in and slaying the audience. If they’re not screaming by the end of the set, then it’s a waste of time. If they’re not climbing on the stage, they’re dumb.

“Our instrumentation has a greater range. Not more than other bands, but some bands like to use the same style of playing over and over. Maybe it’s because they think it’s their style. We try to do as many different types of songs as we can. They’re all rock’n’roll-fast.

“Working with Clem has been a really good experience because he’s taken seriously in the industry.” They’re not worried that their association with Clem will have an adverse effect and draw biased criticism to the band. “We already went through that,” Paul notes. “Last Summer, we did about ten gigs with Clem and some of them were billed as ‘The Colors, featuring Clem Burke.’ And if you know the way Clem plays drums, then you know that we couldn’t appear on stage with him and not either get blown away or be really good. I’m sure people didn’t come up to Clem and say, ‘Sure you’re a great drummer, but the band you were with was terrible.’ I think he was a really good drummer for our band. We were right up there with him.”

Last September, Elf joined the band. He received his nickname in Junior High school, where he was always the shortest of his friends. And he likes it because, “When The Colors make it big, then your family doesn’t get a lot of mail, and nobody knows where you live.” On stage, the blond, doe-eyed drummer is almost obscured by his drum kit. “Want to know what kind of equipment I got? My drums were bought by Sears. Right out of the catalog. Sears brand.”

According to Charlie, their rehearsals aren’t much different from their performances. “I always believe that the audience is there for our entertainment only. I think of the audience as being behind the glass. It’s their privilege to watch us doing what we think is cool. We don’t need the audience to make the gig. We sound just as good with nobody there. It’s a treat for them. They’re paying to see us do our professional thing, like you’d pay to see a trapeze artist do a triple somersault. When he’s up there, he doesn’t say, ‘This one is for the crowd.’ He says ‘I’ll do a flip and go downstairs and have a cup of coffee. See you later.’ The audience is just there for him. I can’t say I don’t care about them, because they’re the consumer and the ultimate goal of what I’m trying to do. But I’m not writing songs to make money and to make those people like me. I’m saying, ‘Here, look, this is my statement in musical form. Let’s dance and have a good time’.”

“Being good on the guitar doesn’t mean being like Eric Clapton or something. It’s being able to quickly transmute your ideas and feelings at that moment into musical terms. Just picking up your guitar and saying, ‘I feel sad today,’ and playing all these sad chords. It’s just another way to speak. A lot of people in New York don’t get nothing out of them. They just get noise. But even the volume and the noise are expression. To me, the epitome of rock’n’roll is getting commercial airplay. Most of the bands can’t ‘cause they’re so experimental.”

“The real musicians,” Elf says, “are those Black cats who play in jazz clubs for $18 a night. They’ll play all night long.” He speculates that rock music is “going back to where it came from. Nothing new, but different. We’ve already had classical and psychedelic. And we’ve only had rock’n’roll for 27 years. Nobody has really done anything with it since Chuck Berry. It’s been refined. People can play more guitar notes and runs faster and faster, but then it got more intense, like Cream and Jimi Hendrix. And it got more intricate with lyrics, like ELP and Yes. That isn’t rock’n’roll. It doesn’t have that beat, like Chuck Berry says, on the 2 and the 4.” Elf thinks rock’n’roll will be around “as long as you have people who want to dance to the 2 and the 4, and people who want to get drunk and play.

“I’m in rock’n’roll ‘cause I got a scrap book I can put my pictures in. I gotta have something to show my kids.”

Review: L.A.M.F. Live at the Bowery Electric

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2018

Images from the Internet
Note: there are no ads on this page, so no profit is make from use of images

L.A.M.F. Live at the Bowery Electric

Directed by James L. Reid and Margaret Saadi Kramer

Jungle Records / Industrial Amusement Inc. / MVD Visual

47 minutes + 22 minutes extra, 2017 / 2018

www.mvdvisual.com

There are always raging question, such as “Who was the first punk band?”, or “What was the first punk release?” For me, a more important question is “Which is the most influential punk album?” Yeah, there are lots of them, such as The Stooges, The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Ramones, The New York Dolls, and Never Mind the Bollocks. The simple answer is… I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure near the very top of the list is the Heartbreakers’ L.A.M.F., originally released in 1977.

Richard Hell-era Heartbreakers

The Heartbreakers were Johnny Thunders (vox, guitar), Walter Lure (vox, guitar), Billy Rath (bass) and Jerry Nolan (drums). Of them, Walter is the sole survivor. He’s been playing with his own band, the Waldos, for decades now. For the 40th anniversary of L.A.M.F.’s release, he decided to play the album from beginning to end. Of course, it couldn’t be as the Heartbreakers, but he and Jesse Malin put together an all-star group and named it after the album to be played. For this gathering at the Bowery Electric during November 2016, Walter is joined by Clem Burke (drums) of Blondie, Wayne Kramer (guitar) of the MC5 and Gang War (in which he was a member with Thunders), and Tommy Stinson (guitar, vox) of the Replacements and Guns ‘N Roses. In one form or another, I have seen all of them play, including guests Cheetah Chrome (guitar, vox) of the Dead Boys and Jesse Malin (vox, guitar). The sole newbie to me is vocalist rocker Liz Colby.

The new line-up played three shows at this venue, all of which sold out, and this DVD is a compilation of the best of it. They played the album from start to finish. While I wasn’t there, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to view this. Plus, the visuals and sound are crystal clear (with the exception of a few fuzzy images here and there), unlike the muddled original pressing of the album, thanks to Nolan’s tinkering.

Let’s face it, part of the charm and importance of the Heartbreakers isn’t the band’s music al clarity. The playing is sloppy, the vocals are equally so, and the songs range from pretty silly to drugged out bashing. But it was a combination that so incredibly powerful for just those reasons. I loved to go see the Heartbreakers. When they were there, they were a force. That is sort of what I was expecting: sloppy yet stormy. And that’s just what this is, thankfully.

Stinson takes the lead with “Born to Lose,” which has the great lyrics, “Living in a jungle, it ain’t that hard / Living in the city it will tear out your heart.” One of the names often given to this Thunders’ masterwork is “Born Too Loose,” and Stinson plays it just that way, screaming up into his microphone in modified-Lemmy fashion. The man can’t sing to save his life – not that Johnny was a stunning vocalist, but had a discernible and unique sound that was endearing. But Stinson has the energy and heart, matched by Kramer’s excellent guitar riffs. He also covers the next song, “Baby Talk” which doesn’t quite have the chantable chorus of “Born...” Damn, I can’t help but compare it to Johnny’s (both recorded and live), and the melody of the song gets lost here in the way he raspily shouts it.

I have been a fan of Walter’s since the first time I saw the Heartbreakers. Not surprisingly, he seems really at ease with one of my fave songs off the album, “All By Myself” While I always preferred the Live at Max’s version over the L.A.M.F. one, that’s not to say it’s any less great. Here, the retired Pharmacist and Stockbroker is in fine form, even though occasionally his voice sounds a bit scratchy. Shit, I’d still go to see him play at a moment’s notice. I smiled all the way through it, and even mouthed along with the song (well, I did that with most of it, but don’t tell anyone).

For the next two numbers, D Generation’s Jesse Malin (and co-proprietor of the Bowery Electric) hops up on stage, doing well to channel Johnny in the raucous “I Wanna Be Loved,” and the ballad “It’s Not Enough.” Jesse is vocally sloppy in a similar way to Johnny, so it’s a great fit.

For the first time at this point in the DVD, it’s easy to spot that there is a visual melding all three shows together as he dressed differently for each of the three shows, even though the sound is continuous from one of them. The cut-and-pasted images would be continued throughout the show.

I was at this show

While DeeDee Ramone wrote the song, and the Ramones also sang it, it was the Heartbreakers that first brought “Chinese Rocks” to the studio, and it’s rare to hear me say it, the Heartbreakers did it better. Again, I’m a fan of the Live at Max’s take, in which Walter adjusts the lyrics (i.e., making it not radio-friendly), and 40 years later, with Walter and Tommy at the vocal forefront, it still kicks ass. For this number, Kramer plugs in Thunders’ actual guitar. I’d like to add that Burke does well matching Jerry Nolan’s stand-out drumming on the song.

“Get Off the Phone” is another Walter classic, and I use that word sincerely. Walter handles it with aplomb – as always – again getting everyone to sing along. More than Thunders, Lure usually wrote songs whose choruses are more enjoyable to sing along with – said with no disrespect to Thunders’ who wrote some great numbers as well, of course.

Picture disc L.A.M.F.; I have it

Malin is thankfully back doing his best Thunders with “Pirate Love,” bringing up Cheetah Chrome to join in. Chrome is an excellent guitarist – always has been – and I’m glad as time has gone by, more people recognize it (and while you’re at it, check out his excellent autobiography, Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boys’ Tale, but I digress…).

“One Track Mind” originally was a Walter Lure/Richard Hell composition, beginning its life as “Love Comes in Spurts.” After Hell – err – left the Heartbreakers, Walter changed the song around a bit and came up with another strong piece that was one of the Heartbreakers’ tunes on heavy rotation in the old Max’s Kansas City days. It definitely holds up (as does “Love Comes…” but I guess this isn’t the time or the place for that). And yes, I sang along. Kramer takes on Thunders’ guitar break, with Walter taking over at the end. This shows something important about what made the Heartbreakers so special. Kramer is a stunning guitarist, but he is quite clinical, without Johnny’s sloppiness. Walter is as loose as ever, and the contrast here puts firmly why Walter and Johnny were so great together as they complemented each other. Here, the sharpness of Kramer and the looseness of Walter sounds a bit strange. Wonderful, but strange.

Wayne Kramer and Liz Colby

I miss Johnny singing with Joy Ryder (d. 2015); usually they did “Great Big Kiss.” I bring this up because Liz Colby brings a dose of feminine rock to Johnny’s “I Love You,” a solid song that blasts, and she is up for the task, giving it an occasionally smoky, bluesy texture. She also made me think, “Wow, Johnny never jumped around the stage as much as she does”; then again, he usually couldn’t. He was more of a stage roamer with his tongue often doing the most movement.

                                                                                                

Cheetah comes back on both guitar and vocals knee deep with “Goin’ Steady.” While it is not as rough as Stinton’s, Chrome’s gritty voice matches the sound and the mood of the song, doing the Heartbreakers proud. Same can be said about Kramer, who takes the lead for “Let Go,” a powerhouse of a number. The rave up has a great chorus, especially when the band sings along.

Appropriately, Burke sings “Can’t Keep My Eyes on You,” which was a contribution to the album by drummer Nolan. Of course the song is about fashion, as that was one of Nolan’s (many) specialities. Burke’s vocals are a bit rough around the edges, buy hey, so was Nolan’s. Still a great song, though, and it gets the respect it deserves. Same with Kramer taking on the Thunders cover of The Contours’ “Do You Love Me,” which is a high-energy song to end the set.

Walter, Cheetah, Tommy, Clem

For the extras, there is a 3:08 minute interview with Clem Burke about how he came to be included, and his fandom of the Heartbreakers, especially Jerry Nolan. Next up is 3:29 of Jesse Malin who also discusses his love of the Heartbreakers and Walter in particular. For 3:10, Stinson fuckin’ talks about how fuckin’ important the fuckin’ record is and how fuckin’ drugs fuckin’ influenced it. In other words, he doesn’t really say that fuckin’ much that the whole fuckin’ world doesn’t already fuckin’ know. Walter’s bit is 4:41, and he discusses the place of the Heartbreakers in the local musical spectrum of its time, and his relationships with other Heartbreaker members. Last up is Wayne Kramer at a full 7:04, who waxes poetic on how Beethoven, Charlie Parker, rappers, etc., were punks, and how ignorant he was about the Heartbreakers’ music, even though he knew some of the songs as he was in a band with Thunders and played some of them live before.

I’m amazed at how young so much of the audience is in these three sold-out shows, and yet they’re singing along. That shows the power and influence of the Heartbreakers. My only annoyance – and this shows my age more than anything else, is how much of the view is blocked by people taping the show on their cellphones. Either get the pro cameras higher (if that’s possible or even realistic), or have a no taping policy. Yeah, I’m a curmudgeon about this, because I want to see the musicians through the lens of either my own eyes or the camerapeople, not the blue glow of the cells.

Just sayin'...

Now if I had a choice between seeing the capture of this reunion show or something like Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, about the last show of the Band, there is no question in my mind that I would plug in this. The odds are better of my not falling asleep with Uncle Walter and Co. I care more about being told to get off the phone than finding out about the night they driving old Dixie down. Hands down. Now how about a Rent Party show, Walter?

Bonus video (not included on this one):

CHEQUERED PAST: Solid Future

Text by Julia Masi
Images from the Internet
© 1985 FFanzeen

The following article/interview with the band Chequered Past was originally published in FFanzeen magazine, issue #13, in 1985. It was written by Julia Masi.

Their music is their passion. Drumbeats so precise they jumpstart the heart, and aggressive guitar riffs that accelerate the pulse, played by five dynamic personalities that form the mutual admiration society of Chequered Past.

As their name implies, Michael Des Barres (vocals), Clem Burke (drums), Nigel Harrison (bass), Steve Jones and Tony Fox Sales (who share rhythm and lead guitar duties), all come from very diverse cultural and musical backgrounds. Yet they have so much respect for each other that just doing a telephone interview with these guys could induce insulin shock.

“If I wanted to be in a band with my favorite guitar player, I’d want to be in a band with Steve Jones,” comments Nigel. “If I wanted to play the drums, I’d want to play like Clem Burke. Clem is my favorite. And it goes throughout the whole band like that.” Nigel seems like his voice rings with such warmth you can hear him smile. And Michael is too hip to lie.

“Everybody always asks,” offers Michael, “’How can a Blondie, a Sex Pistol, an offspring of Soupy, and a Detective come together and play music?’ And it just occurred to me this morning that the common thread that each guy has is power, energy, excess, strength and drama. All our attitudes are the same. The manifestations of our attitudes may appear to be different, but the core of the group is that we like to deal in power; strength. And the closeness of the group, everyone has been through so much shit that we’re very supportive of one another.

“A common thing with all of us is that we’ve been unique to whatever environment we’ve been in. And we’ve survived this ridiculous pressure that we’ve put on ourselves and that we’ve found ourselves in.”

In the beginning, Chequered Past formed for fun and played mostly top-forty cover songs. Their first gig was, according to Nigel’s calculations, on September 26, 1982, at the Peppermint Lounge, two years before the date of our interview.

“We are primarily a live band,” explains Nigel. “To me, making records is secondary. The main thing is the instant communication you get from clubs, whether there are 28 people in the clu8b or 17,000 people.

“The greatest part of a love affair is the first year, or the first week, or the first night. It’s the same with music and people in bands. Their best music comes out in the first few years.

“To really keep a band together truly as a band, you have to keep playing as much as you can. And not take a year off because someone wants to buy a country home or something, which is what happens in most successful bands, unfortunately.

“This album was just a trial run. I think every day we’re getting more in focus as to what we want to be, as opposed to what people expect us to be.

“This is our idea of what the ideal band, or what we think the ideal band will be. I’m not saying we particularly captured it on this record, but we will.”
Their album, Chequered Past, on EMI, offers their weakest cut, “How Much is Too Much” as the fist single. Most of the songs were written by Michael and Steve, except Waylon Jennings’s “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?”, which they perform with such a verve you’d swear it was written for them. Michael particularly enjoys this song, “because it’s chequered. The lyrics are so appropriate to the band” ‘Lord, it’s the same old tune/Fiddle and guitar – “Michael pauses. Like most professional singers, he can’t remember the words unless he sings them. And after three attempts to recite the words he sings every night, he bursts into song: “’-Where do we take it from here/We’ve got rhinestone suits and new shiny cars/Where will we take it from here?’ The second verse is really cool. I goes, ‘Ten year on the road doin’ one-night stands/Dreaming my young life away/Tell me one more time so I’ll understand/Are you sure Hank a-done it this way?’ And the last verse is, ‘Lord, I’ve seen the world with a five piece band/Looking at the back side of me/Singing my songs/One of his now and then/Are you sure Hank a-done it this way?’” He laughs, “It’s really crazy. And he loves it. Waylon loves it.”

They’ve been considering this song as a possible single and video. “We’ve spoken to both Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams, Jr. about the possibilities of being in the video, or getting involved. And they were so overjoyed at the fact that we’d even do a Waylon song, let alone call them up,” recalls Nigel. “It’s one of my favorite tracks. I like anything that’s against the grain, with a slant. I think a Blondie and a Sex Pistol doing a Waylon Jennings song about Hank Williams is interesting. I’d like to do more of that. Also, on stage, that song has taken on a whole different light. We allow for a certain spontaneity that comes from playing live.”

On stage, they are a lot more powerful than any band could be on vinyl, but their record does allow you to appreciate Michael’s lyrics. His songs are very structured and one of his goals is to tell the truth to his audience. His song, “Underworld,” is a short biography of the band.

“’Underworld’ is just an expression of rebelliousness, I think. Each guy sings a verse. Tony’s verse is, “Temptation in the City of Lights/Growing up in the glare of the spotlight/Daddy’s throwing pies on TV/Now I’m a prodigal celebrity.” And Steve’s is, “Always sound better on a stolen guitar/Could always go faster in a stolen car,’ about his experiences. And mine is, “Daddy was an aristocrat.’ I was raised by a very rich family. And just how all these ridiculous backgrounds all end up in the same area. We are all outside of our own environment. We all find ourselves together and we are all underworld, underworld being a euphemism for the other side.”

If anyone ever had an unusual background, it is Michael. While his father’s position offered many privileges, his mother “was so ridiculously eccentric. She was the main influence in terms of bohemia. She turned me on to Billie Holiday when I was nine. We used to sit around drinking red wine.

“I was educated by the most decadent institutional system in the world, which is the British Public School System, which trains you to be the leader of men – and play cricket.”

Leadership training should prove useful to the lead singer of a band, but Michael doesn’t see his position as that of a dictator. “One thing I’ve learned about leadership is that you’ve got to be humble. You’ve got to be kind. You’ve got to care about each other. To get fame is such a silly thing. My main desire is being sensitive to the needs of others. Because I’ve spent so long wanting it for myself; my needs were always so callous.

“I don’t believe in rock’n’roll stars. It’s an outmoded concept. I believe in the arts. And I believe in communication. To be a good, true artist you have to communicate. That’s what art is all about: if I’m communicating me, that’s important. It doesn’t matter who the me is. If they’re true to themselves and they communicate to one other person, then an artistic act has taken place. The whole idea of the benevolent superstar bestowing his thoughts on El Salvador to a 15-year-old audience sucks.”

For years, Michael wrote and performed as the androgynous fantasy character he created. The character was based on Turner in performance, and was an outlet for Michael’s obsession with the destructive superstar mythology. He grew up idolizing men like James Dean, Lord Byron, Errol Flynn, and John Barrymore, and the rock’n’roll stage seemed like a viable way to turn himself into a strange creature of his imagination. “It was at least two years before I could sing and I’d been in a band already.”

During that period, he claims to have been more interested in “finding the definitive earring” than in perfecting his music. He became lost in his alter ego and became a victim of the nasty clichés of rock’n’roll.

Eventually, he realized what was happening to him and decided to abandon this character. “When I finally came down to earth I had to talk about what was happening to me.

"I believe one creates one’s own experience. I live my life through principles and for the first time in my life I have some moralistic view of how I should behave. And it’s quite simple. I guess when I started to love myself a little, I started to get a handle on how to treat other people.

“Our little lot is sort of unique because we really do care for another; we support one another.”

Both he and Nigel enjoy being on the stage because it fosters their creativity. “Just the five guys being on the road, you get more of an identity,” says Nigel. “The songs come out of nowhere. We’ve already got about four new songs. And we’re really looking forward to making another album.”

Hopefully, the Chequered Past will have a long, bright future.