Before growing up and getting a real job I played in a relatively successful Liverpool-based indie band called The Sometimes. We were an indie rock band arrangement formed along with three other students from a television and theatre workshop we attended together, and when it became clear that our musical talents didn’t really lie in singing covers of Robbie Williams and Take That, we forged ourselves a new direction.

Away from workshop and from the constrains of only being able to sing three songs at a variety show every four pr fove months we were all able to bring all of our own talents to the table, (mine being as a singer and songwriter) and I quickly picked up enough guitar to bang out the rhythm part to Oasis and Rolling Stones covers. We spent the next two years in pubs playing covers to disinterested crowds. Our break came in the form of a surprise support place in the Manchester Academy alongside American surf-rockers Nada Surf, after which we went on to play support slots alongside a number of well-recognised musical names and frequently found ourselves in situations we couldn’t explain nor often even remember the next day.

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We completed a summer-long self funded tour across Europe (performing at the FIB Heineken Festival alongside the Darkness, amongst many other gigs), visited America and Japan, visited Europe again in a much more raucous and vehement fashion, eventually releasing our self-published EP: ‘History Hurts’. It still pops up from time to time on eBay.

At what felt like our peak and with record companies pounding on our door, it all ended.

We said our goodbyes, split out the bank account, fought over the instruments, and went our separate ways: I went back to education, Steve set up a mechanics business, Danny contonues to rock the pub and club scene in Sydney, and James went into music marketing and grew himself a family. We still try to meet up whenever time allows but we’re all a bit old for the antics we used to get up to.

During our time together we sold over 5,000 CDs from the back of our vans and cars, sending out another 500 copies of The Neil Sessions and The Last Stand to fans worldwide when we ended. We played more than 300 concerts in sixteen different countries and raised over £40,000 for various charities along the way. We met hundreds of like-minded individuals and musicians, got involved in three seperate vehicle accidents, got ourselves trapped in the Pyrenees in the snow, got in a lot of trouble with the Andorran and Lisbon police, and later got in even more trouble in front of the Wimbldeon Magistrates.

Things have calmed down since but I’ve still spent time both on stage and in the studio with a number of talented musicians and bands; just never in the life-encompassing way it once was. The studio work I’ve been a part of covers a wide variety of genes from country to metal and back to indie as a singer, a guitarist and a lyricist.

The Sometimes - The Last Stand