From Bruce to Russ:

As with every rock band the key instrument is the guitar and more importantly, the guitar player, and I had spent so many years in the company of Bruce, his sound and style that it was a mystery to me how I would be able to feel comfortable around a different character – again, a product of insular behaviour. My belief had always been, I guess, that the relationship I had built with Bruce was irreplaceable; it had been forged in the fires of years of touring and recording and despite our difficulties, had formed the backbone of the LA sound. I couldn’t see how I might be able to find a replacement for that situation – again, bear in mind that all I had known was the bubble of LA, I had never had to think outside of its fragile walls before.

Once again, the answer came via an unexpected source. My wife (we’d married very shortly before I started work on the album) had a long-term friend from Bristol – her hometown – with whom she’d spent her formative years going to gigs and clubs with, and I had also gotten to know very well. Her boyfriend, it turned out, was a budding guitar player and was looking for a project to work on.

In typical fashion of that period, instead of being cautious and trying out quite a few people, my attitude was – ‘he’s the guy’! A typical Toby knee jerk reaction that was part driven by fear of finding the right person coupled with a naive approach to forming professional relationships and a sort of want to support others that bordered on the ridiculous but was only ever meant with kindness. This, some would call, crazy approach has been a key component in some of my best and certainly worst decisions when it comes to deciding with whom to work with.

I often look back on that period today with absolute horror at how I dealt with some of the most fundamental needs of what was by any one’s estimation – my faltering career; I think the truth is that I’m no ‘tough nut’ I’ve always seen the best in people even when they have ended up being poisonous and exactly the wrong characters to work with or involve in my life. I’d say that this has been my biggest achilles heel. Thankfully these days I don’t employ the same thought processes as I once did.

The guitar player’s name was Russ Godwin and despite the fact we had no history whatsoever together we met and actually got straight into the process of developing the ideas that I had and also, most crucially, writing material together. This was a first for Russ and I found the whole situation a breath of fresh air. Russ was a totally different character to Bruce; he was very easy going and fantastically inventive. I remember many times he’d tune his guitar in strange open tunings – something I’d never seen happen up until that point – leading us down a path of oddity that fed right into the fast-developing concept of the album that was beginning to crystallise in my mind.

Russ pushed me and forced me to approach song writing in a whole new way. This ‘freeing up’ of the writing process and the fluid nature of our working relationship in turn allowed the last ‘click’ of the emotional machine in my head to focus and it was then that the flood gates opened.

More very soon,

Toby