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Through a mutual friend Jeff met and started playing in a band with a shit hot guitarist by the name of Scott Biaggi when after a short while they decided to change the bass player in I stepped, different players seemed to come and go all the time and if memory serves me right I think even Jeff was in and out of the band back then.
The shape of the band really started to take shape when we put an ad in one of the music papers for a rhythm guitarist and a certain Pete Franklin turned up with his beat up Telecaster and string for a guitar strap!  Thinking about it now even then he was a control freak!  We ended up playing songs he had written, makes me wonder who was auditioning who his energy, personality and beer drinking ability made sure he got the job and we set about trying to become Rock Stars.   My ambitions as a musician were fairly simple ones.  The first goal that really springs to mind was to play Hammersmith Odeon , when I was a teenager it seems I was there every week watching Thin Lizzy, Priest, Sabbath, AC/DC, etc.  I would stand there dreaming…one day.  In retrospect our lack of image (remember it was the eighties!) together with the ‘Don’t give a shit’ attitude may have harmed our chances of any real success.  When you came to see Chariot as a live band what you see is what you get and we really didn’t give a shit!  Just give us the beer and point us to the stage and we were happy we were one of the lucky ones.  
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Although that major record deal always seemed to elude us we had one heavyweight fighting our corner.  Mike Shannon was the owner of Shades a fantastic little record shop in the heart of London’s Soho.  Mike came to see us live a few times and decided he believed in us enough to back us with one of the most important commodity any aspiring band needs…. Money.  Mike set up Shades Records and put us in the studio where we recorded and released two albums, ‘The Warrior’ and ‘Burning Ambition’ and a great video entitled ‘Live at the Marquee’.  The video especially portrayed exactly what we were like back then, raw and rockin’ with no wimpy overdubs!  Both albums and the video (DVD) have recently been re-released through Majestic Rock and have released the fire in all our bellies.
 

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It was fairly soon after that though that I started to get a bit disillusioned with it all, not with the band but the music scene in general so after a lot of hard thinking and a heavy heart I got together with the boys and told them my decision to jack it in, not just leave the band but also hang up the bass completely.  They understood and respected my decision. Chariot carried on the change over and it went fairly smoothly.  It wasn’t long before the bass playing duties ended up with an excellent player by the name of Tony Newton who formed a strong partnership with Pete over the subsequent years.

I wasn’t quite sure how to react when Pete asked if I fancied playing on a couple of songs on this solo album he was trying to put together.  It was about a year ago and pet and I was at a pub in Romford watching Jeff play in one of the many bands he’s played in over the years.  I think my initial reaction was something like “You’ve gotta be joking, I have not even picked up a bass for about ten years!”
  

If any of you out there know Mr Franklin then you know how persuasive he can be, plus he’s one of those mad control freaks and he’s a nightmare if he doesn’t get his own way!  Anyway, as the night wore on and the beer flowed we watched Jeff up there cranking it out I thought well…how could I say no?  So I dusted off the old Fender Precision I tried to get the fingers on my left hand working again and you know what, it really is like riding a bike.  It was still a daunting prospect for me I wasn’t sure if I was in the same league as these blokes after all this time.  Pete’s playing and writing has improved immeasurably over the years (just listen to the last Deeds album ‘Blown’ and sees what I mean).

Jeff is still a class act, a real Rock drummer and when he said he was bringing Paul Lane to the rehearsal studio…. Well, Paul is just a great technical player whose talent and hair has never received the recognition it deserved.  Although his hair is getting plenty of recognition now! (Anita’ it mate? Ha Ha!)  The rehearsals went well, better than well, they were great, we still knew how to rock!

So here we go again, older and a lot wiser.  We have been recording in the studio with a real top-notch bunch of songs (I think we’re gonna surprise a few people this time!), for an album titled ‘Behind the Wire.’ In the meantime Mike Shannon has been working his arse off for the band (just like old times eh’ Mike?), getting together a couple of compilation albums which can be bought through this website.        

Anyway, that’s it for now; hope to see you all ‘banging’ down the front soon!!!                

 

John.