The band, yeah “ the band”. It started out after a house party, Al was on holiday and he’d leant me Less Than Jake “Hello Rockview” [great album] And I was listening to that in hang-over mode the next morning while thinking about the previous nights events. “Wow” I thought, “I’ve gotta get in a band again!” So I rang up Al, who was also in my previous “band” Fixt.

Meanwhile, on some Welsh mountain Al was listening to Less Than Jake, “Losing Streak” [great album] with the wind blowing in his face and thinking “Wow, I’ve gotta get in a band again, only this time it’s gotta be better than Fixt.”

So I rang Al up, told him about the previous nights events [namely Adam crying after three hefty Budwieser Bottles] and he said “I’ve been listening to Less Than Jake, it’s ace, we’ve gotta start a band, a proper one this time”

And so it began, I sat next to Norton who wanted to play drums in Science and Adam who had [still has] an acoustic guitar and we decided to form a band, well, Adam didn’t, we told him he was in it. Then we found out Tim had a bass in his room, it was royally buggered and we made him spend in excess of £100 to fix it up; he wasn’t happy, he wanted to play drums. And so the band was formed, well, sort of…

So a couple months pass; Norton and I are writing songs and getting pointlessly moved around the class in science when we’re having “revision time” for our GCSE’s. They were mainly ska-punk ramblings, leaning slightly heavily on the Less Than Jake side of things, though we did come up with some reasonable non-rip-off’s. The problems thus far are that Norton has a long way to go in saving enough money to buy his drum-kit, Adam still only has an acoustic guitar and me and Tim can’t play.

So the GCSE’s finish, we’re talking band talk one day when Adam says, “We’re never going to get any where” this is not the positive band outlook we want, so, obviously we sack him. Not surprisingly he didn’t care. Within about a month he’s reinstated, because he’s still the only one who can play, and a guitarist is a certain vital part, for this band anyway. More time goes by, Adam is annoying, we sack him. This is a shorter redundant period and he is reinstated… it’s not the last time this happens, will happen… you see he does smell kinda funny.

Through all the talk of being in a band we are yet to collectively pick up our instruments, and very soon after Norton finally gets his rather amusing sounding drum kit we have our first practice. This is without Adam who is in some foreign country no less and Al who is ill/tired from the night before (quite a night before it was too). So Tim, Norton and I play Brain Stew, very badly and decide that we’re wasting our time, order pizza and waste the night away; hiding full and smelly bin-bags in alley-ways to cover up our atrocities.

Nothing then happens until the October half-term. Well, I say nothing, that’s not exactly true, kind of amusing jam nights at the Talbot happened… less said the better probably, I was drunk, okay? Okay.

Our first practice resulted in “If You Knew” our first full practice and we’re making number one hit-singles. Okay, not exactly a brilliant song, but it was us, it was, officially Failures Seeking Nothing.



OK, so some time goes past, without anything really happening and it gets to Saturday 16th November, and we're going to a Foo Fighters gig.

At this Foo's gig Al says he doesn't want to do the band anymore. Anyway, the Foo's gig kicks ass, big style. And we leave it till Sunday to discuss the future. "Al says I'll tell you within the week"

Monday comes and, on this dreary, wet day I ask my good friend Al if he’s come to a decision. “Yes I have” he replies, trying to keep up with his new college friends and away from us “Yay or Nay?” I say.

“Nay” he replies. And there you have with that, we waited all of two seconds to get Rob into the band to replace my guitar playing and making me the singer. Al had given us the thumbs up and so we had to move on.

Meanwhile, Adam was having doubts about the whole thing… This is what I told him
“Face it, though; There's no point in pretending it's not over. Al's gone, and with him he's killed whatever it was we had as a band, the hopes and the dream. It's time to look forward, not to what should've been. Yeah, it sucks. I can't get over it still, the guy was my best friend, and it feels like he's stabbed me." And do you feel responsible for his leaving? "No. Well, to a certain degree I guess I could, I don't, I can't allow myself to, I've still got his friendship; after Fixt, I always said that was the most important thing.”

So Rob, who played with me, Tim and Norton in DIG is in our band, he’s a mean guitarist and he skates, which has gotta give us credibility, right chaps?