Like many, my love of music started with me being hooked on prog rock. In the 70’s all I wanted was to play guitar in a prog rock band. Then came the ‘Pistols’ and everything changed. I realised I liked the idea of stripping music down to it’s most basic and playing ‘songs’ rather than 25 minute cosmic ramblings.

Around that time I was introduced to the bass.

The bass players I’d played with in the past never quite got there, never used the bass in the way I could hear it in my head. I wanted to hear more than the plodding rhythm. I wanted to feel the bass pushing the rhythm but also to hear it being melodic. So I ditched the guitar and did it myself. Never looked back.

My first bass was an old Burns short scale, blagged from my old art teacher. Probably a collectors piece by now but long gone. I have an annoying habit of jettisoning anything I think I no longer need.

Since then I’ve played and sang with many bands (The Process and She Said to name two), and many talented and gifted musicians. We always wrote our own stuff but struggled to get the attention we felt we deserved. Interactions with managers who liked the kudos of managing a band, but didn’t really know how to do it, wasted a great deal of my time.

I met Steve and Robin when I was asked to play bass for a band called the Mysterons, a large band put together just to play at benefits. A brilliant experience with a band who seemed to have ADHD. Gigs were unpredictable, impulsive, fun and often frustrating. From there I met up with Nick, who’d been friends with, and played in bands with Steve for a long time. He joined in the organised chaos that was the Mysterons.

The frustration got too much. The four of us pulled some very talented friends in to form Reaction, a band playing our own sometimes idiosyncratic versions of other peoples songs, again just for benefits and charity gigs. Reaction is now more like family and still plays together whenever we can (if we can find a stage big enough to hold us all).

TDL was born from this. The four of us recognising a need to play music, but wanting to stretch ourselves and get back into writing and playing original material.

TDL is a recording project at the moment and has got us back into writing and playing ‘songs’. We like taking the music in strange and unexpected directions and some of the old hippie attitudes have, at times, crept back in, but the emphasis is always on the song, with strong melodies and interesting arrangements.

We hope to take TDL live soon. Should be fun!