My best mate Vik put me on to Sarb. The three of us worked at WHSmiths at Heathrow Terminal 4 but I never met Sarb cos he worked Saturdays. I didn’t.
Sarb could play drums. As soon as I was aware of him, he was in the band. As soon as Vik had mentioned he knew a guy that could play drums there wasn’t a doubt. The fact that he hadn’t bought a drum kit yet was just a detail. We would wait.
He rocked up at my brother’s house with his guitar. He was tall, good looking, with small piercing eyes. He had a woolly voice that was warm but that he tried to counter balance with a forced directness that was put on but did the trick. He had a really odd swagger. But a swagger is a swagger. And when he started playing the guitar I could tell he had the shit to back it up.
He played me various riffs. He had a beautiful strumming style and his finger picking… well he could finger pick. And I wasn’t close to being able to do that.
There was an element of cock jostling from him. I didn’t cock jostle well. My instinct was to crawl inside myself and my inner narrative went into overdrive.
I pulled out my 4 track and played him two songs I’d recently recorded. Whoresong and Ghost story. He couldn’t hide that he was impressed, but quickly stepped back into cock jostling position.
Sarb came into the band late, but he was quickly an integral member. Him and Tom struck up an instant mutual appreciation for each others musical talents.
The three of us evolved into quite a songwriting trio. The love and conflict between us producing stuff we thought beyond us. Sarb and I had a difficult relationship to start with but it evolved into a strong friendship. But there was years of cock jostling to be had before we got there.
