It's finally arrived! My debut solo album is now out of my laptops clutches and in the hands of the public. My friends have joked about it being the next 'Smile', 'Black Album' or 'Chinese Democracy' (hmmm) but as much as I'd like it to be, it's not. It's not because I've taken too much acid, changed my name to a symbol (OK that was after) or disappeared up my own posterior but that life caught up with me. The five years it's taken for the album to come out has seen me change career, get married, get a mortgage and have a child; music was sacrificed in order to make some more room for these things happen. I miss music so much and all the wonderful people it introduced me to.

Superflat Generation is a very personal album, with lyrics that primarily cover the loss of loved ones and friends, sugar coated in Spectoresque production and containing subversive musical elements. I lost my mother to cancer, broke up a long-term relationship and lost some good friends in a rather tough mid-twenties. Rather than go too crazy I channeled my thoughts into songs that would later form this album. Many of the songs refer to multiple situations and don't follow a narrative structure; looking back at this it does seem indicative of my frame of mind at that time. So beneath the radio 2 / 6music exterior there are lots of darker more interesting things lurking. I'm a big Bowie fan and loved the way he could make Hunky Dory a musical pleasure while quoting Nietzsche, Crowley and dealing with deeply personal issues. Music helped me deal with complex emotions and was much cheaper than a psychiatrist!

To prove to you that the music does contain subversive musical elements, only one song on the album is in 4/4 throughout. The title track is in 5/4, resolving in 6/8. There are diminished, half-diminished and lots of maj7 chords to help create a dream-like quality; it's not every day you see F m(maj7) b 5/C b in a song! Some tracks have mid song tempo changes, which drummers love : (, and Fibonacci has no two bars the same length! 1, 1, 2, 3 beats etc I would like to think the album is not too 'geeky' or going too much into prog territory, as there is still some stigma attached to the prog genre, but offers at least some more interesting dissection than say recent made for insurance and banking ads commercial music. I love progressive music in any genre; if you don't push against something, why bother? Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius and Joni Mitchell are personal favorites and came from a wonderful, innovative era of music making. People often ask me what the album sounds like and although the classic musician line is to say, 'well it's a huge mixture of.....', I could probably sum it up by saying, 'mature singer-songwriter style evoking Elvis Costello, Neil Hannon and Rufus Wainwright'. I'm not singing in a cod American accent, or slapping Autotune on everything, which probably means my chances of a David Guetta remix are very low but, hey! Is the album a little portentous? Probably and why is that a bad thing?

I would like to think I have a certain 'sound' and not borrowed too heavily from other influences. I'm primarily a bass player and have what other band members call 'frustrated bass player syndrome'. My core sound would be 12 string, fretless bass, mandolin and backing vocal harmonies. There are no guitar or bass solos on the album, even though part of me would have loved to. Half of the album was written on 12 string, the other half on piano. If you hear songwriters saying they write songs on the bass they are probably fibbing; it is a fantastic solo instrument though. Any listen to Richard Bona or Jaco Pastorius will confirm that. Bowie, The Beatles and The Beach Boys are strong influences and hard to ignore when I start playing. I really liked the Elvis Costello album 'Imperial Bedroom' and that is the album I've taken my production influence from. I also like Brian Eno's ideas of turning mistakes into significant parts of the song; I used this technique on many of the vocal tracks. I didn't have a strong voice when I recorded the album and made all sorts of errors. Instead of auto-tuning or re-doing the vocals I built up effects around those parts and tried to make them interesting. When I listen to the album now, I'm quite proud that my weakest asset turned out to be one of the more interesting musical elements on the album.

I must thank Mile High Music for their patience and impeccable music background. They support music with real soul and provide a platform for emerging artists to be heard. I hope I can make you some money! : )

My break from music is partly due to lack of financial prospect. Everybody, even musicians, need to live and pay bills.I recorded the album almost entirely with home equipment to save money and tried to support local music studios by getting them to record things like drums and pianos. This age of the internet has allowed aspiring artists to have a huge platform to launch from but has made making money for 'middle' musicians very difficult. Unless you are a brand and can sell tickets and merchandise you’re not going to break even. It's no coincidence that the last ten years have seen so many reformed bands--they already did the hard work establishing their brand and target audience. I worked for a record distributor and saw that great music often got overlooked and that a sizable budget is needed to promote the album to get any chance of it catching. Faced with overwhelming odds I bailed out. I'm now a graphic/web designer, which has its own similar challenges but is more solid a career foundation for me. The saying 'once a drummer, always a drummer' is applicable to musicians also. Musicians will always be able to draw on a rich emotional palette when times get tough and that is why during times of recession and hardship people need music and arts more than ever.