‘You can be a better front man.’ He’s matter of fact about it. I’ve just given everything on stage. Euphoric. And he’s put a pin it. Not sure what to do with this information, I smile and stifle any kind of emotion.
I had a weird relationship with Little Nav. I called him Little Nav to annoy him. He was only a few inches shorter than me, but that was enough. He was always brutally honest with me. It was never nice. He wanted us to be the best, I never quite saw that at the time.
Years later I send him Richer.
‘It’s OK man.’
Previously, I’d never thought to ask ‘How? Why? What can we do to make it better?’ I was older now. I knew the importance of feedback. He was right about Richer. This time I knew it wasn’t quite right and I needed to hear why.
‘It just doesn’t go anywhere, becomes monotonous after a while’. Spot on. I was being lazy. I had said to the others in the band that the song needed a change, but I hadn’t bought anything to the table.
…
Sarb bought the riff to the table when the band had broken up. I was a little underwhelmed by his request to write something to it. I had my eye on the riff that became Serpentine at the time. It was a sexy little riff. Richer, on the other hand, did nothing for me.
Striving to impress, I took the riff away. The song became a melting pot of a bunch of scrawlings on envelopes on my desk.
The riots in 2011 were raging. London was seemingly falling apart. My favourite film at the time was a French one called ‘The beat my heart skipped’. My new wife was getting used to me grinding my teeth in my sleep which she attributed to anxiety. And the receipt and guarantee for our new tele, my biggest purchase to date, floated dangerously around my desk. Purchased from a shop called Richer Sounds.
Sarb sat in front of the drums and had me dancing in front of the Mac. I saw what he loved about the song for the first time. There was a euphoria about the song I had missed. The drums weren’t apocalyptic. They weren’t dramatic. They grooved with a huge unrelenting smile.
After layering the guitars with Sarb, I spent the rest of the night mixing the track. The next day me and Sarb marvelled at the song. It made us happy.
The song stayed on the Mac untouched for years.
…
‘We need a protest song.’ Zaki was incensed by what was going on over the pandemic. ‘I’m not gonna write a protest song’. Being angry didn’t appeal to me. ‘There is so much bullshit going on, how can we ignore it?’ He was right obviously.
After Little Nav had barged open the door to changing things up, the second verse was re-written, inspired by ‘The Wire’, and specifically, flawed systems. Tom said ‘I just don’t know how you’re gonna fit all those words into a verse.’ I didn’t know either. I did.
The outro lyrics fell out of the seduction and infamy of gang culture growing up in Southall for kids that didn’t have the luxury of ambition.
…
Coming off the stage in early 2023, Little Nav approached me. ‘6/10 man. You can do much better than that. It was good, and everyone else will tell you, you were amazing, but I know you have more’.
I kiss him.
‘Let me buy you a drink, Nav.’
‘Fuck off, I’m buying you a drink you sexy bastard.’
