The road may be rough, but don't you ever, ever give up

The best things in life do not come easy, and the path is not straight. I have made the mistake in my life of taking things for granted when they came easily, not appreciating the moment and not being thankful for my blessings. However when things are difficult, when you take a few knocks to get there but eventually reach the promised land, it is sweet and hopefully you can appreciate it in a way that you never would have, had it turned up on a plate. 

Life is a funny old thing. When I was about 23/24 years old I had a bit of an existensial crisis. From the age of sixteen, my sole aim in life was to have a successful band. In 1986, I put together what I believed was the perfect version of the band. We recruited a singer who was brilliant. He was one of the few male singers who could give Freddy Mercury a run for his money. We had a brass section and I had a plan. The only real problem was that the new singer had other ideas. He had a completely different view of what a band was, what the point of being in a band was and what the point of writing songs was. He renamed the band, with the support of other members. I acquiesced. I didn't agree, but to me the principle of democracy in a band was important. He then engineered the sacking of our drummer. I was horrified. We had a couple of gigs to fulfil. I acquisced again, to my eternal shame. The only good thing was that it meant I had a valid reason for not including the gigs and that line up in the story of The False Dots or our gig list. 

I found myself at the start of 1987 in a very difficult situation. I didn't want to be in the band, but we also were all partners in the studios. I made the decision to restart the False Dots from where we'd left off when Allen Ashley left at the end of 1985. But in truth, the events of 1986 had doused the fire in my belly to play. The worst thing of all was that I had self doubt about what I was doing and why. It took me a decade and a half to get over that as a musician. One of the 'ideas' the new singer had was that we play covers and earn money. I don't mind doing one or two, especially at gigs where you are booked to do more than one set, but a whole set of covers? The singer was good at band politics. He suggested that each member chose a song. I can't recall all of them. His choice was Fame by David Bowie. He'd managed to choose a Bowie song I couldn't stand. Quite a feat. My choice was 'Save Me' By Eritha Franklin, using the arrangement by Aussie band The Saints. One of our sax players chose Low Rider by War and the other, to my great delight chose "Take it Easy" by Prince Buster. The last gig we did was in September 1986 at The Edgware Services club, the singer playing drums. For me, it was a horrific abomination of a gig. We had lost the essence of what made us the False Dots. We were just a very average covers band churning out laboured renditions of other peoples music. The audience seemed to like it and the singer took it as an enorsement of his ideas. 

There was one highlight in the set. When we played Take it Easy by Prince Buster, everyone got up and danced. The band had a few songs with a ska/reggae flavour, which we'd written, but this was actually diffierent. It worked. We all loved the song, apart from the singer, who really wanted to do pop and rock. But a seed had been planted. I loved ska music, The Specials are one of my all time favourite bands, but until we had a band with brass and keyboards, I always felt we couldn't do it justice. As we performed that one number and the club started skanking, I realised that if we wanted to do covers this was the way to go. The singer disagreed and said "Ska isn't even proper reggae". That was the end of our musical association. The bassplayer and sax player had an extended holiday lined up in India and it all just sort of faded away. 

Fast forward to 2021, the country is in lockdown. Our drummer has just lost his son. Allen Ashley, our singer has taken a sabbatical from performing and rehearsing, due to covid. But we are musicians and as it's our job, we get back on the case. The trouble is, there are only three of us. Graham on drums (who had been sacked by the vocalist in 1986 and returned to The False Dots in 1987), Fil Ross on bass and myself on Guitar and vocals, as Allen couldn't attend. I hadn't sung with the band since 1983. I had decided that we needed 'better singers'. But our mission was to get Graham out of the house and playing, to try and distract him from the tragedy. My biggest issue as a singer (apart from having a very average voice and a limited tone) was that I found I couldn't really sing and play together. But I had no choice. We had a couple of old songs I could manage. So I decided to write songs for myself, my own range and in my own style. What came out was a set of songs that sounded a bit like Madness would if Ian Dury was their singer (and they didn't have horns or keyboards). I wrote the lyrics to be as funny as possible, to try and get a smile from Graham. When we started, it was just a jam, with no purpose. Just musicians playing for the joy of it and for our own entertainment. 

I am quite a prolific writer, so within no time at all we had a set of ska influenced songs. In June 2022, we did a short set at The Mill Hill Music Festival of the new material. To my complete surprise, the audience loved it. In September that year, we ventured back into Camden Town, for the first time in a decade and played The Dublin Castle with this new set. I loved it, but in truth something was missing. Every time I thought back to that gig in Edgware, I thought of "Take it Easy" and everyone skanking. It sounded so much better with some brass. In September 2023, I asked Tom Hammond, who is an amazing trumpet player, to play a few notes on some recordings we were doing. He fitted in immediately and was the missing link. It felt like the band was complete. 

Anyway, fast forward to now. I have always felt a debt of gratitude to those musicians who influenced me and made my life worth living. That experience of playing Take it Easy planted a seed that has grown into what The False Dots are today. We do original material, with the odd cover thrown in. But I feel I owe Prince Buster something. I mentioned this to Lee Thompson, sax player of Madness and a good mate. Lee, like me, loves Prince Buster. The first single by Madness was The Prince, a tribute penned by Lee to the great man. I jokingly suggested to Lee that he get up with us and do Take it Easy when we perform at The London International Ska Festival. To my surprise, he was well up for the idea. Even better, Boz Boorer of The Polecats/Morrisey fame also decided to join in the fun! 

So, if you are coming to see the band at The London International Ska Festival, you should be in for a treat. Lee has also asked to do "Free Love" by Prince Buster, so it should be quite a show!

The middle eight in "Take it Easy" has the line "The road may be rough, but don't you ever ever give up". I suppose it could be the anthem of the False Dots. If I have one regret in my life, it is that I didn't have the faith in myself in 1979, when I had the energy and drive, to do what I've really known all my life. I wanted to play in a band that sounded like a mash up of The Specials, Madness and Ian Dury and that although my vocal style and talents are limited, they are perfect for such a sound. And when it comes down to it, they are the music I love. Being 63 years old and living the dream is a good thing. Don't let life pass you by. Don't give up on your dreams because of a few bumps on the road. If someone is walking the same path as you, it doesn't mean they have the same destination, so believe in yourself. 

The False Dots will be playing our brand new single Big Hairy Spider at the gig, which I think exemplifies everything good in our music. And if you love a bit of Hanna-Barbara cartoon animation, you will love the video!