I was no great shakes as a bassist. That was obvious. At least it was to me, Justin, Dan and Ed, who’d be the first to admit he wasn’t exactly a virtuoso himself. And it wasn’t just that no one else seemed to notice. Strangely, though, everyone insisted we were all great musicians. ‘You guys can really play!’ wasn’t just the consensus, it carried a similar approval rating to the Nazis in late-1930s Germany. Not that myself and Ed coerced impressionable music fans into that way of thinking, you understand.
As I mentioned earlier, Justin and Dan were technically very gifted musicians. From an early age they were immersed in classic rock, playing and listening to Queen, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Foreigner (irreverent Justin loved eighties metal while reverential Dan was the seventies man*). On the surface, then, it was inappropriate of them to join forces with myself and Ed, who had more idiosyncratic musical tastes – as well as an inability to play in time with each other.
But ‘inappropriate’ is what makes a band special and unique: the Manics’ Nicky Wire and Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx were, how shall we say, sometimes somewhat inept. You can’t plan chemistry – and don’t let the scientists tell you it’s possible, they’re only protecting their livelihoods. Besides, our music was the antithesis of science in every way. (Once, I overheard a sound engineer talking about photosynthesis backstage. I assumed he wanted a snap of Justin’s synthesizer and told him to go right ahead.) What made it interesting was that we all approached our instruments differently. And in mine and Ed’s case, that invariably meant hammering away, like a monkey at a typewriter.
* Eighties hair metal was sillier and more fun than the more authentic seventies hard rock, but the fact remains that no one could make up their mind if we were an eighties or a seventies throwback – only that we were a throwback. This ongoing ‘Quiche or Fondue’ inquisition grated after a while.