I was born at home in 1969, literally ten yards from where my great, great Granddad had run his first pub. Why he came from Ireland to South Yorkshire is still unknown. We were very poor back then and even though my father worked all hours, there were no luxuries in our two-up, two-down. Eventually, we moved to a slightly better area and I can remember a fair few years of childhood contentment. Since being a nipper, I've had a love of music and bed-time would see me singing myself to sleep with renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody and Space Oddity.
My first school was St. Mary's, as we were raised Catholic by my Ma. I disliked school and apart from football and home time, I didn't enjoy any of it. As kids, we weren't much trouble. Sure, there was the odd hole blown in the ceiling from Chemistry attempts and the odd arrow shot astray, but by and large, our folks raised my brother and I with a strong sense of pride and fair play.
My Pa was the toughest man I've ever known and when he wasn't at the steelworks, he was a devoted husband who made sure my Ma wanted for nothing. He once played for three different football teams under false names, such was his popularity at the game and he even got to play at Wembley stadium. Apart from Leeds United, music was another powerful force in our house and we were always listening to Billy Fury, Roy Orbison and The Beatles.
Speaking of The Beatles, I remember when the BBC showed all their movies and my Pa wanted to tape the songs. We all had to sit perfectly still while John and Co. finished their act, but on listening back to the tape recorder, all we could hear was hiss! Sunday mornings would see the mono record player brought out and we were treated to all the greats of rock and roll.
When I reached ten years of age, my father bought me my first guitar from a ‘swop-shop’. It was really nothing more than a toy with steel strings, but to me it was a '57 ‘Strat’. It took me two years to even learn a proper chord. No one told me that you had to press the strings down onto the frets to make a tune and although I played Cricket right-handed, I found that playing the guitar was more comfortable as Southpaw.
St. Bernard's Secondary school was even more like prison for me. Five years of being surrounded by violent imbeciles who I shared nothing in common with... and that was just the teachers. I made friends easy, always have done, but the best part of the day was home time so I could grab my guitar and write another song.
My teens were spent in various bands, writing, gigging, recording and dreaming of being rock-stars. All these bands soon split, but just before I turned twenty, I attained my first record deal and Rough Trade helped as distributors. I recorded a couple of singles and the first sold a few thousand copies. It's still available on the net and Ebay today. Although it was dance based, I preferred writing more complex songs with plenty of jazz chords in to bend the melody line over.
In 1993, I formed one of the first U2 tribute bands (the original U2 tribute band) and we were called Achtung Baby. During the '90's, we became the world's greatest tribute to U2, although we had to use three different singers along the way. The highlight of this time was playing alongside U2 at Feyenoord Stadium and with Wayne Taylor on vocals; we were led into U2's own changing room by the security. Later in the day, we saw Bono, The Edge and Gavin Friday and after a few hours of milling around, we settled in front of the giant Pop stage and watched the roadies finishing off their duties. Dallas Shoo also made an appearance and he played Until The End of The World, whilst checking Edge's effects. I never really like the dressing up thing and I've never felt comfortable pretending to be somebody else, but I suppose we're lucky in that we resemble U2 without the need for makeup and big heads. So I let it go and concentrated on the music.
In my thirties, I wanted to be James Bond again, so after some heavy courses and training, I became a survival instructor on the Brecon Beacons. We used to put the victims through their paces, teaching people everything from building shelters to how to skin a worm. All good fun, but afterwards I became part of a security team. Things got a little heavy and I found myself working in numerous places, the worst of which was Iraq. I saw quite a bit a horror there for those eleven days and I lost my faith in humanity. After another period teaching survival, I checked out and found my religion again. I sold all I had, apart from my guitar and slept on a floor for two years.
My father died of Cancer and during that painful time, I had to think back to when I was happy, or at least had some laughs. Strangely enough, it was when I was in Ireland and gigging. After eight years, I called Steve to see whether he wanted to put The Original Achtung Baby back together. We did and after a couple of changes, we've settled on our present line up. We're happy. No ego maniacs, no drug dealers.
Most of the other U2 tribute's have been good to us, apart from one who keep trying to throw stones on our path. As a Buddhist, I have to feel pity for these people who are inviting bad Karma into their future. It's certainly not the behaviour that U2 would approve of.
In 2009 we've decided to change our name to U2-2. Since 1993, nobody actually liked the name Achtung Baby, including U2 themselves, so we've become U2 the second. Our game plan is a simple one and something that will pan out over the next two years. We hope the real U2 fans will appreciate the Eventide Harmoniser, the Brady snare drum, the home made sequencers and the harp in D flat. We will also be working with Amnesty International, One and Red and trying to give back a little of all the good things we've received.
