‘You know your Prem Uncle? Him and his family helped me so much when we came to this country. Even my own flesh and blood haven’t helped me like this.’ Dad told me this story a few times a day. The Alzheimers had been diagnosed not long ago. He didn’t understand it. Not sure he cared to. But he told this story over and over, and I wondered if it was because he didn’t want to forget it.
When I got my first big salary, I told him… Cos, I was on minimum wage not long before. The band was going to be my livelihood so a career was unnecessary. Then it was over, and I had to step up. This was that step up. I told dad and I won’t forget his knee-jerk response:
‘Son, well done, but remember, you didn’t get there on your own. Don’t lose sight of the people that got you there.’
So this might read like a love song to my band mates and the people around it. It is. This all reads like a band who have sold millions of records and played to millions and their music has been the backdrop to millions of lives. We haven’t. We aren’t.
We are a few geezers who found each other. Really different people. Who didn’t grow up until we found each other. Then we really grew up. Together. And then became friends. But these geezers helped me to realise myself, and make soul nourishing noises (eventually). They continue to do so.
This became the most important thing in our lives in our twenties and pushed real life, the types of lives we were supposed to live, into the background. Then real life had other plans and it pulled us back and took us over. Then we found each other again and we started again, this time juggling this life and that. Then we tried to make it one life. And that’s challenging.
And we made these songs along the way. And there’s a story behind each of them.
The band… We didn’t make it. It made us.
