All I really wanted to do was make an album that was going to be just back to what I like to do... And it was a coincidence that these new bands, this new wave of bands, were doing Alice and Iggy rock.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wanted to be in a band that shared ideas and were in it together.
The rest of the band were basically friends, So it was me following them around and begging them to let me be in their band for two or three years. And they finally let me in on the harmonica, actually, and then the keyboards, and finally the guitar.
I just wanted to be a part of the band. Actually, that's what inspired me.
I always wanted to be in a band with a bunch of dudes who loved Green Day and all that.
The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.
And if I'm honest about it, I was obsessed with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. This is like '92, right in the throes of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I think I probably wanted to be Kurt Cobain.
We went into that knowing that we were never going to sell a major record 'cause we didn't sound like these bands, so I just thought this was an opportunity for us to make the kind of records that we wanted and make some money at the same time.
When I left HEEP I didn't know what I wanted! It took me a long time to adjust to life away from the band and the only thing I knew was that I didn't want to repeat my mistakes!
Something happened in the nineties. There was a shift. I don't want to blame it on grunge or the rise of indie - but that was basically it. It was seen as dirty and kind of ignorant to have these ambitions, to want to be a big band.
With the first album, I wanted to do so many different things, and I was fighting with myself to try and see if I was worthy enough to do it.