A perverse crossover of earnestness and crippling 21st Century anxiety.

Five-thirty.

Five-thirty in the morning.

I didn't even want to go to Abbey Road. Who's ever recorded anything there, eh? Eh? Come on. For goodness' sake.

Five-thirty in the god damn morning.

Still, Ed knocked on the door of the Phoria house looking chipper. Sez rolled out in the way that he does, all silky hair and a distinct focus on 'breakfast time'. Trewin, as usual, was full of beans – throwing van keys in the air and what-not as he talks to you.

I slept through the A27, needing a tea.

London traffic. A sea of cars sitting dead in the shitty morning sun. Everyone beeping and sitting perfectly motionless, except for the people adjusting their hair or their make-up. Seryn.

So, traffic – which is what happens when you flood an inlet – and then bundling across the pavement like a wagon in the wild west. In through the out gate. Honestly. And who says rock and roll is dead?

We slither out, excitable but...focussed.

Sign in at reception. Sign in for your session at Abbey Road.

'Yes , Hi. We're here for the session with x at Studio three.'

Mmmm.

And then we're in! Skipping down the halls, as you do, into the first open door. All dark and wood. All deep red rug and dead headspace. The peace of the treated walls hits you in the chest. A meet and greet, suddenly. The students we'd be working with. This was all set up by Berkeley, Boston. It's their session, but they pretend it's ours.

Handshakes. 'Hello.'

They're all clean. I slept in Jeb's bed (his presence in all but scent is regrettably ommitted from this story), and am who I am, so you can imagine how I felt. I'd just been in the back of a stinking van after a four-thirty start, so how do you think I was? Why did I suddenly have to face fifteen or so grinning Americans?

No, no. I kid, of course. 

Really.

 

So setting up guitars, then. Setting up guitars in Studio 3 of Abbey Road studios. No big deal, really. It's not like I've wanted this exact moment for the entirety of my colourful career so far, noodling around after school playing Guns n' Roses covers, all the while dreaming of doing exactly this, here, right now, strumming my freshly-strung telecaster in the same place any teenage hero I dare mention had strummed their own, so to speak.

So I played a little Pink Floyd. And the whole band, having set up, segued into a kind of chilled out funk jam for a couple of minutes. Ed was on a real Rhodes.

Man.

Time to work.

CRICKETS!

The fire alarms in the building, it turns out, we're being picked up by our guitars, and were forcing the sound of chirruping crickets down the microphones.

Numerous solutions were saught.

Trewin ended up sitting like a Yogi, trying to angle his guitar away from anything,to stop the buzz.

Still, we've just started recording, so sshhhhh. Quiet in the studio.

Cameras. Cameras everywhere. Everyone's documenting everything.

I found out later that there had been two ambient mikes placed in the studio, so as to record the goings on during the session. I'm a nice man (don't look at me like that) and don't often say things that I mean out of turn, but...now the paranoia strikes. What if I made a bad joke? What if I was having some fun just being a little bitch? I'm sure I didn't say anything. Oooh. I know I screamed. A lot. But then, that's just what I do.

40 odd takes of two halves of a song, in the end. Jesus, lads. Get your acts together. They don't call me Three-minute Douglas for nothing, you know.

Everyone's in and out – not knowing where to go or where they should be, but focussed. Always moving with purpose, despite not knowing how best to fulfil it.

Lay down the bass, Tim.

Synth was easy enough. Bass guitar was not. My hand had become a lump of lead. I played my balls off and, on holding the last note of the last take, screamed over a sustained note as I held back my left pinky, which was cramping its way towards the fretboard, ready to ruin my good time.

I showed it, though. I told it who was boss.

An original Hammond through a Leslie speaker. Our balls were literally exploding into dust at the sounds and the toys and the atmosphere and the people. Ed could have been skipping through a field of marigolds. Trewin had his eyes on everything.

It's a fucking magical place, I tell you.

FREE LUNCH AND DINNER.

Say. No. Mawah.

Back to Connie's. She's a violin player, playing in the quartet (made a quintet by the appearance of her fabulous bass player friend), for a quick beer and, good lord, sleep.

Do we sleep?

Do we?

God, we peeled ourselves off the floor that next morning.

I had to look at the financial district of London through caffeine-free and sleepless eyes. I had to watch the wankers in the back of their cars, skimming a little bit off everything, causing all the problems that we are told they are the answer to. It was one hell of an energising hour.

And I had the day off, on day two! I'd played my three god-damn instruments. It was the turn of the string-quairntet, and a bit of piano, and Trewin's vocals. One of the most magical moments was when Trewin, attempting the vocal track, very quietly asked for the lights to be turned off, and in the control room we were left in complete darkness but for the panoramic glow of the mixing desk. I just stared and listened, one of which things is something that I have never done before, ever.

And...I mean...it just happened. I spent the rest of the time at the back, getting drawn unnecessarily into an offensive joke swap. I swear, mum – I don't know any. We just...hung out and chatted with these fascinating and wonderfully friendly American students and, clearly, very kind, humble, and inspiring staff.

Their professionalism out-marked mine by a-thousand-to-one.

But I played Pink Floyd in Studio 3 at Abbey Road, which they didn't.

Then, Connie's. Or maybe not?

'I could go home.' (Not my words.)

Ah, a car park debate.

'If we ever come against an option where we choose whether to be men, or mice,' said Trewin, 'can we choose to be men?'

Agreed.

Back to Connie's. Again. More beer, this time.

More getting a knock from a frustrated neighbour because we were waking little children across the complex.

More dancing to tunes we didn't know., in our alcohol soaked pyjamas.

After all, we'd just been to Abbey Road, and we didn't have to wake up at three-thirty the next day.

I'm still getting over it.

We're on tour, next. Let's see how it goes.

Have fun, whatever you choose to play in Studio 3 of Abbey Road Studios.

I know I played fucking Pink Floyd.

Did you?

No.

Tim