14 Jul 2008 - 16:56
Once upon a time there was this young boy who didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up. All his friends at primary school wanted to be fighter pilots or firemen or policemen or doctors or footballers or racing car drivers or actors or farmers (well one did anyway) or teachers or ballerinas. This little boy had no idea what he wanted to be.
All the way through his schooling he thought about the future but he never came up with the answer he was looking for. He couldn't think of a profession that he wanted to do for the rest of his working life. It wasn't due to laziness, it was purely that nothing interested him enough to be a suitable choice for a career.
He had two loves however, Music and Film. Music was the best option as he had grown up learning all about music. His father was a music teacher and it ran in the family, his parents had met at the Royal College of Music in London and the house was full of scores, records and instruments. At the age of 5 he was put in front of a piano and by the age of 12 had tried his hand at recorder, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, tuba but none of these had lasted long. Mere flings if truth be told. His real love was singing.
He had sung in a church choir since he was 7 or 8 and was a chorister at boarding school which he was at on a music scholarship between the ages of 9 and 14. Alas, being a boy at the age of 14 his voice broke and by the time it had settled he was no longer in fee paying education but at a state school where singing in a church choir generally gets you beaten up. However, this wasn't too disheartening for the lad as the thought of singing the bass or tenor lines didn't appeal to him that much. And besides he had a new musical foray to get his teeth into.
Having reached the point in his schooling where he had to choose GCSE subjects it was a no brainer that he would choose music as an option. But you need to play an instrument to do this! By this time he had given up all the instruments he had played previously and with his voice not really up to the task of associated board standard (or so he decided) a new instrument needed to be picked. Well, being 14 the choice quickly narrowed to 2 options - namely drums or guitar. There wasn't the room for the former in his parents turn-of-the-century country cottage (or at least that was the excuse they gave him!) so the latter it was to be! He took to the instrument quickly and soon became frustrated with the slow pace of the lessons he was having to endure at the hands of a very camp guitar teacher. He found himself able to play and learn a lot more by himself while listening to his favorite bands at home in his room and would often fall asleep on his bed still in his school uniform strapped to his guitar and with his dinner down stairs in the kitchen stone cold!
This new found obsession quickly had him joining bands with school chums and jamming in front rooms for the sheer enjoyment and buzz you get from making music with others. Soon he found himself writing his own songs with his mates and began to dream of rock and roll super stardom! The next logical step was to be able to record the music they were writing together and after a meeting with his school counselor and head of year about his poor academic performance during his first year of A-levels, he decided to leave school and go to a local college to study popular music and sound recording. This led after 2 years to a place on a university degree course in Greenwich, London studying music technology (and I use the term study lightly). This paid off and after a further 3 years the boy had a BA(Hons) in the subject! still baffled at how he had managed to pull this great feat off, the lad went straight out on tour with his good friends who's band had taken off small time as there guitar tech and roadie! This in turn led to 10 years in total on the road steadily climbing the ladder of fame with the band as guitar tech and production manager and travelled the world with absolutely no income what so ever! Needless to say this meant our fellow still lived with his parents up to the age of 26!
However, this couldn't last for ever and when his long suffering and hard working parents selfishly decided to retire and move to the wilds of Wales it left our young man in a bit of a pickle. He couldn't afford a place of his own earning nothing with the band, He couldn't work for the band if he moved to Wales with his parents, he didn't really want to commit social suicide by moving to Wales so this left only one viable option. He had to quit working for the band and find a real rent paying job (which was just as well as I don't think the option of moving with his parents was an option as far as his parents were concerned!).
He managed at the 11th hour to find work in a fairly local music shop which adequately paid the bills but this lasted just shy of a year before he was made redundant due to the shops poor sales. After a few months of panicked career hunting the young man took a 'filler' job as he would describe it working as a bar man in a local pub to tie him over until he could get a proper job. This is where we find him 9 months later, aged 28 and still with no idea what he wants to be when he grows up.
