Anyway, back to November 2010, how come this is the point in time when I decided I would write an album? It's simple.... but complicated.. Simple in the way that for the seven years previous my guitar just sat in my attic untouched. Don't get me wrong, I was well able to play the thing but my heart had gone out of it. I attempted to write my first song when I was nine, I couldn't play any instrument but I tried to come up with a melody and a story, looking back at that I can see what I'm doing now is probably the most natural thing I can possibly do. At 14 or 15 I began to learn to play guitar, a couple of friends of mine were excellent guitarists and they helped me a lot getting started. I took a few lessons with another friend who started playing the same time. I was living on a cloud and every day I'd learn something new, I'd play and play and find ways of making sounds, mainly teaching yourself is probably the best way to learn anything.

This mentality was the key to deciding to finally take on the daunting journey. I hadn't played for seven years, not since I left the band that had been a massive part of my life for Ten years. We began as a garage band, almost certainly the worst band in the world yet right from the start there was a connection, an understanding that we would stick together and we would write music. This would be our hobby that would lead to our passion, that would lead to our obsession. Eventually we got fairly decent, we played gigs, we recorded demo's, we won a band competition. Everything was going our way and it felt effortless, myself and Neil were the songwriters, Neil has been my best friend for 20 years and I still get the same buzz when I hear a new song he's written and I think it's vice-versa for him. A couple of years after we won the band competition we turned our focus to writing and recording a full studio album. I think I wrote four songs for that album but not too long after that I felt a change in me. It was the year after we released the album I decided to leave the band, not to pursue another musical avenue, no way, these were my boys, my team. I left the band because I no longer felt anything, I hated the sound of everything I played, cringed at every line I wrote and felt frustrated because I felt I couldn't communicate. It was like I was speaking a different language so the guitar was put in the attic and I moved on.

Years fly by and there's nothing you can do to stop them, Christmas was approaching and my Wife asked me if I would take my guitar down and play a few songs since we were going to have people over during the holidays. I was very reluctant, I wasn't even sure if I could play anymore. Well I wasn't long finding out, as soon as I felt the guitar in my hand again I knew my journey would pick up where it left off. I'd forgotten how much the tips of your fingers hurt when you play guitar for hours, it took a few weeks for them to toughen up a bit again. I thought I'd be starting from a point way behind where I was seven years ago but in fact the total opposite was true. In the intervening years I'd continued my passion for writing, I did an evening course in writing skills for journalism which was a massive help in learning how to structure a story, how to engage an audience and how to express yourself. This was the one area I'd excelled at in my school days and one of the main reasons why I felt I should be a really good songwriter.

I've realized one very important thing, as people get older, mainly in their 30's, they begin to move away from their passions. I know there's a number of reasons for this but a lot of the time it's because the ambitions and dreams they had earlier in life didn't come to pass so they've found a safe routine which means they don't have to set themselves up for that fall, they don't have to face failure. I think that was me, I was having a great life, no problems, no panic, no stress but I only had all that because I had no challenge, no purpose, no direction. Passion is an addictive thing and it should be embraced wherever possible but be aware that it does bring problems, panic and stress but wow does it make you feel alive. All you really need to follow that passion is courage and confidence and I found it in my 30's. This is why I believe, the older you get the more equipped you are to achieve your goals, your dreams. You have a far greater chance of succeeding on that journey you want to take, dreams don't go away you see, you can put them to the back of your mind and distract yourself but believe me, they never go away!!