'...I underestimate THE TIME IT TAKES TO REALLY FEEL ALIVE...'

Aug 20

Fireplace as a song, has been around for a while and it always feels like a bit of a palate cleanser when I play it live. I'm aware quite a lot of my songs are a little, shall we say...introspective...so this tends to go down well.  I've recorded it before but lockdown was a good opportunity to get a full band sound. Jimmy and Steve supplied drums and bass from their respective homes during lockdown and I roped my friend Andy into added some additional guitar parts with Nic adding the icing on the cake with some extra vocals. It's a happy upbeat song, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  For the video I enlisted friends and family who all did their part in miming, dancing and just having some fun with it. I always smile when I watch it which is not easy to do these days...!

'All We Could See Were The Storms'

March 20

There's no coincidence that I wrote and released this song leading up to my 40th year on the planet. I thought turning 30 was challenging enough but 40 - dear god - this was a strange age to get my head around.  But not necessarily for the reasons you might think.  I actually feel like my life has got clearer and less complicated the older I have got. My thirties were all about change, I relocated to Brighton, changed jobs, got a little bit of counselling/therapy, took my songwriting a little more seriously and also got a dog.  

These past few years I've been able to start reflecting on my life so far, what has made me into the person I see today, working out what I got right and the many things I got wrong! A lot of the time I haven't helped myself and I've often felt like there is a black cloud following me around, maybe that's a bit of depression, anxiety from past experiences or just what we all feel sometimes.  When all you can see is that black cloud it makes it really hard to move on, but that's the plan, because these days that black cloud if it did exist has disappeared for a bit.

My friend Tim laid down the amazing string part on this recording, Nic joined me on vocal duties and Adam from Home From Home Studies mixed and mastered it whilst adding some subtle piano parts to the final version which finish the song off nicely. 

"scratching at the surface now"

March 20

I'm not a massive fan of covering songs. For years I said it was because I wanted to just play original music and that was in the most part true, but the other part was that I struggled to find cover songs that I could connect with, this song by Glen Hansard is impossible not to connect with, and so I jumped in and I'm quite happy with the result.

We can talk this all through in the morning

EP RELEASE

MAY 19

This three track EP kind of came out of nowhere, I had the songs and I was really keen to get them recorded. The title track was new but Tiger was another song that had been around for a while, and we were playing it live a fair bit.  Fireplace was another pretty new song and this is more like the demo version of it as you'll find the final version (which I think sounds so much richer) on my album 'Hello Called My Friends' .

This is the first EP that Steve plays bass on, and also features some extra guitar parts by Adam House.

'I BOUGHT A TORCH THAT I COULD WIND UP IN AN EMERGENCY - SEE I WAS TAUGHT TO BE PREPARED'

Nov 18

This song came quickly and became a favourite to play live after the 'Somewhere New' EP launch.  We had an opportunity to record it with Home from Home Studios in Nov, when we were, albeit briefly, known as Mister Jones and The Living.  Steve plays bass and melodica and pretends (shh) to play the cajon.  Fun fact....Steve couldn't play drums back then but he's learnt since. 

   'SOMEWHERE NEW' 

EP LAUNCH

March 18

In the summer of 2016, I quit my job and me and Nic relocated to Brighton, somewhere we'd been considering moving to for a  while.  Soon after I began work on a new EP, and once it was finished I decided to put on a launch. Steve joined me on bass and Jimmy on Drums, along with Hailey who joined us on trumpet for a couple of songs on the night.  

We had a great turnout and my friend Jamie managed to catch a bit of footage featuring a strong singalong at the end.  

I loved this gig, so many people I love came along and supporting us.  It meant a lot that so many people came along and if you were there and I didn't thank you - THANK YOU FOR COMING! 

"You SAID: THE SEA CALLS MAKE SOME WAVES "

Oct 17

This was I think the first song I wrote when I moved to Brighton. It just appeared and was a very easy write from memory, here's me playing it live in Islington at Oxjam - kindly provided by my friend Stu who was in the audience. It was actually a bookshop  and I fondly recall finishing my set and a guy coming up to me at the end and saying he heard my voice as he was walking by the shop and just had to come in and watch. That felt nice. 

"IF THIS IS THE SOUND OF THE PEOPLE..."

DEBUT ALBUM

March 2016

Recorded from home and learning while I went along, this was my first attempt at an album. I was still called Mister Jones and His Guitar at that point* and honestly in hindsight...I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I'd bought a microphone and had GarageBand on my Mac and I just kind of played around. The result was better on some songs than others,  I'm still really happy with how  Good Good Heart, In Plain Sight and Muscle Memory turned out and I THINK they still hold up.

*I dropped the second part as it was a bit of. a mouthful on stage

 'LOOKS LIKE ITS TIME FOR A CHANGE IN DESIGN'

Sometime in 2013

My Metal Friend was written at a pretty tough time in my life, looking back I was in a transitionary period, working in a job that didn't fulfil me, struggling with a yet to be diagnosed auto-immune condition, and living in a town where nothing really happened. This song was an early warning sign as well as a realisation that things needed to change and change them I did.

 The video  is by the Animation Workshop in Denmark and I think  it fits so well with the song.

It took a while for this song to get recorded - but you can find it on my 'Somewhere New' EP. Its stuck with me and lots of people seem to connect with it - playing it with a band brings it to life more than I could ever had hoped and I have Steve and Jimmy to thank for that!  But they don't turn up until later in this story (dependent on which way round you're reading).