I must admit that despite all of this, it took me nearly 40 years to have the strength to actually admit this in public. Now oddly, I don't mind proper instrumentals, if they have a theme and structure. I loved The Shadows early recordings and not just because Hank B. Marvin's son was in the band and invented the riff for The False Dots song "Not All She Seems". I have a similar aversion to all soloing. If you can't say something cool in four bars, don't bother.
Now the trouble was, that I have had some great guitarists in the band. Craig Withecombe, Bill Pithers and Fil Ross to name three. All of whom contributed massively to the band. All of whom played great solo's. I don't actually mind jamming along when they are doing it. But if I was a punter it would leave me cold. I believe every second of song should justify its existence. I just don't think solo's do. Captain Ubungus, an ex guitarist, loved solo's. He would spend hours explaining why the solo in Hotel California was the best solo ever, with it's 7 modal changes. I liked the song, but for me, my brain switches off after the fourth bar of the solo. Now this is not to say there are not great songs with solo's in. But personally, I always wish the solo was much shorter.
An unfortunate by-product of this is that I've never bothered to learn to solo properly. This means that I would never get a job as a lead guitarist in a covers band. It is lucky that I don't want that gig. Anyway, this series is called Rock and Roll Stories. This may be the longest preamble to a story ever.
Back in the early days of the False Dots, in our very first iteration, we were all barely able to play. Pete Conway had the idea of getting in a lead guitarist who could actually play to augment the line up. It was agreed that I would play rythme and he would play lead. The guy was a Canadian called Wayne Kerr, would you believe. He claimed he was in the Sex Pistols film "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" playing an American roadie. We were 16, he was about 24 and turned up in full rock and roll attire. I took an instant dislike to him. He was arrogant, patronising and a complete W anchor". We played him 2 or 3 of our songs. He hated them. He then said "I will play you a proper song". He told us the chords and proceeded to play something with the chords of "Ca plane por moi" with trite words about how the system screws you up. It was bad punk rock by numbers. The guys style was more Iron Maiden than Johnny Thunders, although he claimed to have jammed with the Heartbreakers. He was very keen to impress us, with tales of drugs and groupies. The more he went on, the more I disliked him. He pulled out a bag of cocaine and said "This will make us all play better". Before I could say anything, he said "Not you, you are no good, you are not in the band".
He had walked in, talked B@ll@cks for ten minutes, slagged off our songs and sacked me from my own band. Back in those days, I hadn't dealt with my anger management issues. I simply took off my guitar and hit him on the head with it, knocking him out. Pete Conway simply stood and stared, then said "That was proper punk rock Rog". The guy staggered to his feet and said "You are an animal, you just assaulted me, I'm going to call the Police". I replied "Yeah and tell them that you offered us all a line of coke, now F@ck off" which he did immediately. About 20 minutes later, there was a knock on the door. He was back. He was raging. He'd left his bag of cocaine behind. I told him to "f@ck off" again. He said "You took me by surprise, come outside and we can sort it out properly". I replied "Ok" to my huge surprise, he then ran away at top speed. I couldn't be bothered to chase him.
Pete was embarrassed. The guy was unquestionably a W anchor in every way. We actually did a version of his song with new lyrics "When Wayne Kerr came from Canada, He didn't know a F@ck, About British punk Rock, His Brain was truly stuck". In my mind, he was the exemplification of everything I hated about musicians before I discovered punk rock. But most of all, I hated the way that he thought that playing long boring solo's made him interesting. When I saw the Rock and Roll Swindle, I was not even sure if the annoying roadie was actually him.
A couple of days after the 'incident', Wayne rang Pete. He told him that he was mates with Hells Angels and they were coming to murder me. Now normally, such a threat might be alarming, but Wayne was such a W Anchor that Pete just laughed and he put the phone down. Needless to say, I am still alive.
I'd like to think I've got better since then. A year after this incident Craig Withecombe joined the band. Craig was our age and a far better guitarist. Although Craig could be rather annoying at times, I never even remotely felt like thumping him or any of the other musicians who followed him. A few friends were present and witnessed the sorry incident. Word went around. Pete Conway would wind other guitarists up by saying to them "Rog is a $h1t guitarist, but if he thinks you can play better than him he'll clobber you". It took me a while to realise why most other guitarists I knew avoided me.
Now I am a grown up, I am not particularly proud of my behaviour and it could have caused a serious injury. No amount of such behaviour justifies violence. I was recounting the story to someone, and I said this. They said "If he walked in now, would you apologise?". I could give five reasons to say, no I wouldn't, but in truth I would. Violence is never the answer.
On that note, if you haven't, please have a look at our new video.
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