The songs for what would become the ‘Get A Life’ album were written around 1996/97.
We couldn’t afford studio time, but what we lacked in finances we made up for in attitude.
We recorded the album in the front room of my rented South London flat on a second-hand Fostex 16 track tape machine, an Atari ST computer that ran MIDI, Octopad drums, and a Roland guitar synth triggering bass. It couldn’t have been more DIY.
In 1996, we were struggling to survive as musicians, booking our own gigs and supplying our own PA under the Bombshells name.
I was permanently skint and desperately trying to scrape a living from music.
It was incredibly hard because many of the people who joined the band would leave after discovering it involved hard work humping gear and travelling hundreds of miles for very little money.
We’d be back to square one looking for a drummer or a bassist.
By this time I’d learnt to bang out a few chords on guitar and had started writing songs on my own.
Prior to this, I always worked with a guitarist writing the riffs and music, and I would write the lyrics and vocal melodies.
I channelled my anger and frustration into the lyrics—my passive-smoking triggered chronic asthma inspired ‘Allergy’, my beautiful Les Paul Custom inspired ‘Powerdrill’, and ‘Business As Usual’ was all about snotty A&R men who were forever ‘In a meeting’.
Several songs that we played in our live set for years to come feature on ‘Get A Life’: ‘You Can’t Buy Back The Dead’, ‘The Great Fire Of London’, and ‘Princess Paranoia’.
