Introduction to me. Part 2

My first taste of the real world as far as being a professional musician was during my 2nd year at Berklee. My great friend and drummer Alan Brown from Scotland told me there was an audition happening for a pop gig, the band was called Bliss. To be honest I had no real interest and thought I would never be good enough to get the gig anyway but had my arm twisted by Alan to go along and audition with him. I did and I have to say because Alan is such a good showman twirling his sticks and making jokes he made me look way better than I was at the time. We ended up getting the gig which was amazing and a big shock.

The label who put the band together was Terry Ellis who was the co-founder of the label Chrysalis Records and was also the guy who discovered and signed huge artists such as Blondie, Billy Idol, Pat Benatar, Huey Lewis And The News to name a few. I had a decision to make which left my parents worried as I had to drop out of school to commit to this gig. In my mind this was an obvious one because that was the real deal and an opportunity to tour the world and gain valuable experience. I hadn't met Mr. Ellis yet and when I did he was very intimidating, I remember trying to have small talk with him and he just looked at me and said go tanning and come back. I went and came back the next day and he looked at me again and said now you can be a pop star. Not exactly what I was expecting but there you go -  welcome to the vain world of pop.

There were 5 guys in the band and we all went to live together in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We filmed our first music video in New York, all signed up to a gym to get into shape and had some intense rehearsals to prepare us for the road. Filming a music video was a first for me and quite a big production, it was a lot of fun and quite a scary experience. Non of us had had acting experience never mind a bunch of cameras in our face and a director screaming at us to be cute :)

We were there for 3 months and don't really know how we managed not to kill each other. Alan and I were the only non Americans in the band and now as we were not in school our visa's were only valid for 3 months so the label had decided to send us over to Asia before everyone else so they booked us a flight to Singapore. It was all very exciting and surreal. I had never really traveled much before and never had been to the far east. The manager had warned us of all the situations to avoid in Singapore by giving us a huge booklet he had written. Some of the things were, don't eat gum, no graffiti, no drugs, don't make a scene in public and keep your passports and documents in a tidy order.

On the flight over I remember reading this and my excitement turning into fear. I reached into my pocket realizing my passport had been through the wash the night before and basically being a right mess with pages fallen out and the photo all smudged.

I walked up to the customs officer and showed him fearing the worst, luckily he gave me a 24 hour pass to basically get myself to the British embassy and get a new one made immediately. The label guy who picked us up at the airport must have been thinking who are these guys haha.

After getting my passport together Alan and I had decided to go for a wander around Singapore. We went into a food court and Alan who found a Fish and Chips place was trying his hardest to persuade me to join him in eating it, I wanted some Asian food being in Asia but Alan was telling me, come on man, it's like back home it's amazing etc, I stuck to my guns and got some rice dish while he was munching on his fish and chips, telling me man you are missing out, about one hour later he was walking around the streets throwing up in trash cans with the worst case of food poisoning I have ever seen, his face was literally green. What a sight we hadn't even been there a full day and I had to get an emergency passport because mine had been in a washing machine and Alan have being sick all over the streets of Singapore and ending up in a hospital with food poisoning!. Imagine what was to follow :)