Coming from a musical family with my Dad ( Matty ) and my Brother ( Dave ) both playing in the clubs in the North East area, it was just a question of time before I found my true love in life – Sex ! – Err, I mean music !
I started playing guitar at about 14 and luckily for me, there were a few people who I knocked around with who were learning at the same time.

Practicing in my Dad’s garage my first band took shape. ‘The Blitz’. God we were bad, but everyone has to start somewhere I guess. One particular practice, my mate Skid ( Lyndon Scott ) came to watch and during a break he sat himself down on my Dad’s kit of Drums. I had just learned to play ‘Jilted John’ so I started the main riff ( to impress the lads ! ) When all of a sudden, when the drums were supposed to kick in – they did !
We all looked round to see Skid playing like he’d played for years ! – it was actually his first time on a kit of drums ! So within 2 minutes our current drummer Sleesey ( Ian Slee ) was instantly promoted to lead vocals and Skid became our Drummer !
Geoff Robson played lead along side me and we had a different Bass player every week !
School came to a joyous end and musical tastes changed. I started to work at the pit as a welder and became close friends with Mark Wilson who played Bass. Unfortunately for the world of music, The Blitz fizzled out.
My next venture was ‘Paris Opera House’ a typical 80’s band with big hair and makeup. It was formed with my best mates again, Skid on Drums, Hass ( Harry Corkhill ) on keyboards, Mark Wilson on Bass, and Conrad Rawling on Lead vocals. The band played a few well received gigs including the Mayfair and the Barbary Coast ( or should that be the Barbaric Coast ! ). However, things weren’t progressing. Skid’s job was very demanding, Hass wanted to play his natural instrument of Bass instead of Keyboards, and we wanted a fresh start which also meant a change in vocalist too.
I’d heard of a guy in Seaham who was supposed to be a brilliant vocalist called Cabby  ( John McCabe.) So myself and Geoff Robson went to meet him and luckily for us he was interested in singing with us. I changed from playing guitar to keyboards and traded in my Gibson Heritage Les Paul for a Roland Juno 60. ( What a good decision that turned out to be ! ) We found a new drummer from Middlesbrough called Keith Cadwalendar and with Mark Wilson still on Bass ‘Any Mortal Thing’ was formed.
At the same time, Cabby was writing some songs with two guys, Geoff McCauliff on Bass and Tony Holden, who now plays bass for Rock Solid, on guitar. They needed a keyboard player and so asked if I’d be interested. We worked on two original tracks and one cover or ‘The Sun Ain’t gonna shine anymore’, and so, with a Roland Drum machine, off to the studio we went.        
Any Mortal Thing was doing pretty good, we wrote about 6 original tracks and played local pubs and clubs for a while. Myself & Geoff went down to London to see which record company wanted to throw lots of money at us, but unfortunately none were willing !
Things were becoming stale and so eventually the band finished.
I’d started to get the recording bug, and wanted to write some new material, so I decided to look for a guitarist. I saw an advert in one of the local music shops and off I went to meet this guy called Mark Little. Me and mark stuck it off straight away and we looked for a vocalist, but that was far more difficult than we thought. We tried many, but found none that we felt were right and so that venture too was doomed to fail.

I reached the end of the road musically and so I sold every piece of equipment I had and melted into the background.

A few month’s later my Brother Dave had said that he had joined a Club band called ‘The Lynk’and that he was having a great time and suggested that I should get back into the scene again. I jokingly said that if The Lynk every need a bass player, then give me a call. Two weeks later I got a call saying The Lynk needed a bass player. Like every guitarist, it’s not too difficult to pick up the bass and so I borrowed a bass and a bass combo, learned ‘Simply the best’ and off I went to audition. I got the job, learned the rest of the set and was out gigging 3 weeks later !
I’d always turned my nose up at the club scene, until I started to play in them. I had a fantastic time and made lifelong friends in Steve Taylor ( vocals ), Gordon Webster ( Drums ) and Neil Watson ( Guitar ). ( Both Steve & Neil are now in Feed The Bear ) My brother left the band and was replaced by Paul Russel and we changed the name from The Lynk to ‘Brazil’ and over night went from being one of the region’s most hated bands to one of the region’s best loved. The power of a good name !

After many years playing the circuit, we decided to call it a day and Brazil was no more than a whisper on the wind !

After a number of month’s out in the cold, I felt the urge to start again, and fate had something in store it seems. As on a trip to the Washington Gallery shopping centre ( which I’d never been before ) I decided to go and buy a Rush CD. So I stood looking at the Rush section and this guy pushed me in the back, I looked round to see Mark Little. We hadn’t been in touch for years and I was telling him that I was trying to put a band together. He said that the band he was in was on it’s last legs and that he was playing at the Times Inn that weekend. I decided to go and watch and was blown away by his guitar playing, and his vocalist ‘Betty Rogers’. I asked them both if they were interested and luckily they were.  We practiced for a while using a drum machine but it was no use, so I went to my old mate Skid to see if he would help us out for a while and luck was with me again as he agreed. ‘Original Sin’ was the name, but we needed a keyboard player or a second guitarist to complete the line up.
Mark suggested Ian who was in his last band. Ian played only one gig with us before deciding that it wasn’t for him, and so I contacted Paul Russell ( ex Brazil ) to see if he wanted to play keyboards. Paul joined, and out into club land we went.
However, things didn’t go according to plan and we hated the club scene. Mark suggested that we should play the pubs and from that point on we never looked back.
 
After a while Paul decided to call it a day and we were stumped as to what to do. In my ‘Brazil days’ I had dabbled with using bass pedals to trigger keyboards to get us through an important gig. I still had the pedals and so I decided to give it ago. It was tough at first, but after a while it became second nature to play both the bass and the keyboards. It also allowed us to stand out from other female fronted bands doing similar material.
Original Sin were becoming well established but unluckily for us, Betty decided to start a family.
It was never going to be easy, but we decided to try and find another singer. We auditioned quite a few excellent singers, and we decided to continue with a female vocalist. Enter Laura Holiday ! Laura fit in so well and back on the road we went.
At the same time that Laura was singing in Original Sin, she was being pursued by nasty people down in London who wanted to give her a record deal.
She fought and fought against them but decided that it was something that she had to do, so on Feb 2007 we played our last gig with Laura and as it turned out, or last gig as Original Sin.

Unfortunately for the listening public, myself, Mark & Skid couldn’t give up. So we decided to go down a different path than Original Sin.
When we auditioned singers to replace Betty, there was one guy who really stood out from the rest ( Gregg Cromack ). We contacted him and within half a day we were selecting songs and putting forward band names.

The first incarnation of 'Bullet' got off to a fine start and we started to build up a good reputaion around the area, but because of family and work commitments the line up has changed... Skid was replaced by Paul who was then replaced by our current drummer Alun-imal !.... Gregg was replaced by Marcus Black, who was then replaced by our current vocalist Brain 'Smudga' Smith !... Mark was replaced by Alan Williamson, who was then replaced by our current guitarist Paul Nesbitt !

That brings us right up to date and if you’ve read all this, then you’ll need a drink !

In fact if you’ve read all this then I’ll buy you a bloody drink !