Diary Of A Musician

We are in a positive mood about our team as well; we’ve brought along a good friend to sell merchandise, paying him with a percentage of the gross of the merch take, as well as a daily allowance. He’s happy to be on tour, and we’re happy to have him with us.

Our one point of contention is with the van. We usually use our drummer’s van and hire it off him for a very cheap rate, but he hasn’t had time to look after it when it isn’t on tour. The engine has been making sickening crunching sounds and something has gone wrong with the transmission. There is a slow flat tyre in the front right, and the slide-door opens with the sound of shaving metal if not opened exactly right, which our drummer goes nuts about each time it happens. On top of all of this, the van only has no breakdown cover for Europe! We decide to hire a cheap splitter from a van hire company, and get a basic eight-seater with right-angle chairs and a washdown floor. It is not comfy, and our drummer feels slighted, but it will get us around safely.

The gig goes sweet. The monitors are crisp and weighty, the sound of the room is awesome, and the in-house lighting engineer is in perfect beat with us. We sit around in the night heat, toasting Europe.

The next morning, everyone is late, and we have a long drive to Zurich. It doesn’t start well. “The van’s s**t!” complains our guitarist. “It’s f**king s**t!” chimes in our drummer. I stare out of the window.

Eleven hours later, we arrive, aching and a little late. There is no soundcheck and we have an hour until stage time. “Would you like some weed?” asks the promoter. “Yes, please,” I reply, and we get a small bag of organic alpine mindf**k, which makes everyone a little happier. We set up as the doors open and start the gig immediately. We pull out an incredible gig, and the tight-packed crowd lose their inhibitions and start dancing. We have a blast.

The next day, we roll up what remains of the weed and smoke it down in a Swiss service station car park. Ten minutes later, we are all zoned out and approaching a military German border. Twenty minutes later, we are driving through Germany without being touched. Excellent!

Our headline gig in Cologne the next day has been morphed into a support slot for an up-and-coming American band, the promoter not wanting to split crowds, and the gig is in a 3000-capacity hanger, which, when we get on stage, is packed. We play 35 minutes of our guaranteed crowd pleasers and they respond in kind, chanting our name as we walk off. We feel quite stoked and watch the main band play. The crowd go mental. “Thanks. This is our first gig in Germany,” says their singer.

“Three thousand people at their first German gig?” I exclaim to our bassist. “Well, one song on Grey’s Anatomy and it’ll happen for us,” he replies. We stand outside, looking at their luxury double-decker tour bus with envy. “We still get free beers,” he adds, and we drink to our own minor success. ‘You don’t get free beer on a holiday,’ I think to myself, and swig the sweet nectar down.

Having decided that lack of people meant lack of votes, which would seriously affect our chances of getting through to the next round, I contacted the promoter to see if we could change the date. He came back with another night for us four weeks later, and seeing as the bassist would be on holiday for two weeks, it seemed a better opportunity to regroup and focus on at least one of the new songs we’d written.

With new dates arranged and a practice booked for two weeks’ time, I turned to finishing up the chorus of the new song and maybe starting the magic process of creating some new ones too. So, on a gloriously sunny Saturday morning, all on my own and with nothing to do, the ingredients were complete. All songwriters, I’m sure, have their most inspired of times, and this was (supposedly) one of mine. Picking up my guitar, I found my fingers had been put on autopilot and could only muster to play the songs I’d learnt 10 years ago. Getting out my notepad, I looked at the four lines of the chorus and started to run through the new song we’d played at the last practice. Using all the words and ways to use language in the world, I rhymed ‘suspicious’ with ‘ostentatious’ (has anyone used that in a song?), and winced when I threw in phrases like ‘contracting lovesick’ (which I used) followed by ‘being stuck in road traffic’ (which didn’t get used).

If I was a rapper or an MC, I think I’d get away with it, but if you slow it down, sing it and try to give it some meaning, it sounds, quite frankly, dumb. The thing is, the rest of the song was done; all it was waiting on was four lines that fitted the song, sounded good, had a semblance of meaning and, more importantly, were lyrics I could remember when I was on stage. There’s nothing more embarrassing than forgetting the words to your own songs as you’re about to head into the chorus.

Slightly frustrated, I headed into town and listened to some songs on my iPod, in the hope it would give me some inspiration. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and the shuffle setting only yielded some reggae and the less sparkling moments of Chas & Dave.

When I got back from town, I started to try and write a new song, but apart from a few scattered chords desperately trying to be sewn together, nothing was coming to fruition, so I figured there was no point trying to push it.

A week later, we all headed into the practice room, ran through the set without a hitch and worked on the new song. During a fag break, I turned to my notebook on top of the amplifier stack and scribbled down some words. Then the drummer looked up to the roof and noticed an old pinball machine called ‘Lucky Lady’. Avoiding the temptation to write another arcade-inspired Who classic that Elton John would one day star in, it gave me the one line that stirred my creativity and finished off the whole chorus. Now, is that pennies from heaven or what?