‘Made In Japan’ was founded, initially, as a Deep Purple cover band by my old mate Steve Brown, an exceptional guitarist and artist in his own right. My own prog-indie-fusion band, ‘Dutch Sugar’, in which I co-wrote the songs, sang, and played 12 string guitar, had split up after only 3 wonderful gigs in Brighton, and I was very upset about it. but Steve swooped in and recruited me for his new outfit. I thought ‘what the hell. Why not?’ I loved Deep Purple, and classic rock in general, so - in for a penny, in for a pound!
We recorded three tracks live at ‘The King’s Head’ in London, of which this is the shortest - a cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Rock ’n Roll’. It went out on a CD to all the venues from Brighton to Croydon and secured us a year’s worth of gigs.
As an aside, it was a rough time for work and ended up being our final year in Brighton. We eventually lost the house there, and had to move back to Derby, where things, at the time, were a lot more affordable. I earned about six thousand pounds in total that year, and it was deeply depressing. But the band gave me a huge outlet for my frustrations and worries, as each Friday we headed out to venues across Sussex, long before cell phone and YouTube, so nobody had a clue who I was. I was able to anonymously belt out these beefy epics without the pressure of it being seen online. I didn’t need any online snark or judgement then as it was, importantly for a me at least, a kind of therapy. I needed to be invisible.
Sometimes we played to walls of indifferent backs, or empty pubs, but more often than not we packed the places out as our reputation grew. The last gig we ever did ended up being 5 hours long, and with the set played twice all the way through. I was approached by the most massive Hell’s Angel I’ve ever seen, and asked if I wanted to be the singer for Reading’s own rock legends ‘Mammoth’ - famous for all being HUGE guys (I would have been the small one!) And for a good ten minutes I considered it!
I’ll post the other two tracks another time, but for now - enjoy a version of me from an alternate past where I could have been a full-time singer in a rock ’n roll band…
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