Just when I was beginning to wonder how long I could hold this band together, as we had recently lost our very new singer, out of the blue I get an e mail from a guy about seven miles from me asking if we are still looking for a singer. Well, of course I e mailed back and said yes, with my telephone number. I am careful about giving my phone number away on the internet, you don't know who is taking it down with some nefarious thought process going on in their heads.

So, I spoke with the guy, who is called Chris, and we had a good chat. By now I am straight to the point, although always well mannered and pleasant. I explained that we had recently had a singer who was told exactly what was required and then when it came to the crunch had just wasted a lot of our time. Chris explained that he was singing in a band but there were alcohol issues with the drummer and other band members and that he was fed up with them, and was looking to get involved with a decent set of guys. I explained that we were not professional players, but that we have a professional attitude and we take practices very seriously and do not mess about and weedle away on our guitars, because we do that at home. I also made it very clear about the situation with him needing to buy a pa if he was to join us, and if he wasn't then there was no point going beyond the phone call. "Not a problem" he said, so we arranged an audition for the coming Wednesday, which was this last week.

Peter, our other guitarist of the yellow telecaster fame, has been away at his house in France and only contactable by letter, so communication has been slow and I did not want to audition a singer without him there. For two reasons really, one was respect for him, and secondly he is a very wise individual when it comes to sussing people out, but as Alan,our drummer said, we need to strike while the iron is hot as there are a lot of bands out there looking for singers. So, Shaun (bass) Alan (drums) and myself decided to hold the audition ourselves as three of us would have to be in agreement anyway.

Chris turned up on time, which is always a good sign, and had made an effort to at l;east try and get some of the songs he had not heard in his head and have a go at any of the fourteen songs we sent him. A very nice individual of 53 years old, he has been fronting a band for the last six years. We kicked off with my favourite Bad Company song 'I can't get enough' and he did well, we also did Alright Now, whiskey in the Jar and a fair few others. Chris did struggle with some of the keys we played in, which were actually geared up to myself, but on those songs he was comfortable with he was ok. He wasn't the best and not the worst, but definitely a guy we felt we could work with, so after the audition was through, (I had already informed him that we would not be telling him on the night) Alan, Shaun and myself stayed behind for twenty minutes and talked about it. The upshot was that we decided to go with him and that I would contact Pete and let him know of our decision.

It has surprised me just how hard it has been to find singers, so we didn't want to pass up on a guy who could take on the role.

The next day I got a call from Pete, just back from France and getting in touch. I explained what we had done and he was very supportive and said that we had done the right thing. I have known Pete for a long time now and I have a lot of respect for him, and explained that I was concerned about going ahead without him being there, but I needn't have worried. A true gent, he was just thrilled that we had a singer on board.

So now all we have to do is get things going, and hopefully I will be soon telling you all about playing some live gigs.

Thanks for reading, and best to all,

Mark.