PuppyKiller was born in Manchester, sometime in the summer and raised up in Somerset. Of which I remain rightly proud. I exhibited no musical talent as a child. Beyond pitching the Bon Jovi (!) song ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ to a faux A&R man. Played, in this instance by my older brother (Maff didn’t go for it. The jokes on him, it was massive). And a failed attempt to learn to play the saxophone in secondary school. It was too heavy, my house was a long way. There was a lot of music around in that childhood. There are vague memories of record players, Marty Robbins and Dr Hook.
Unremarkable childhood morphed into unremarkable teenage years in which no awards were won or big splashes made. Still no real musical ambition, outside a growing desire to play guitar, left handed, of course, chiefly inspired by another older brother (I have six and one older sister), and the inexplicable writing of words. Music I would hear at this time; Iron Maiden, AC/DC The Specials, Easure, Prince and MC Hammer. Music I listened to Genesis, Phill Collins (I have a real thing for brass as a result of listening to Phill) and Sting!
Unremarkable teenager turned to twenties which you could make the occasional remark about. It was a time of further education, and the absolute knowledge that I knew everything (ha ha ha). It was a time I first glimpsed the face of death. So control of my memory is non-exisitant and memories loom at once large and brilliant in my mind and are then consumed in the fog for indefinite periods. There is no real chronology. It is very difficult to pin point really at what point things took place. But around half way through these twenties a guitar was purchased as a birthday present, it was red and black and electric. It was the best present i ever got as I would never have brought one for myself, for the same reason i’d never buy myself a skateboard.
This present and a dose of circumstance led to the birth of PuppyKiller. It was around 2003, it was summer, it was Manchester. This was the first time the words I had inexplicably been writing had combined with the red and black guitar. The earliest dates on the recordings that I have are 2004, I was 27. I know I started to record things on my laptop pretty soon after my arrival in Manchester, and before I could really put two chords together.
It’s worth noting, at this point, that I would never call myself a musician. I simply use the guitar (crudely), combined with other equipment (crudely), to express how I feel at certain points. I started out using the red and black guitar, a POD, and a laptop, I did the majority of stuff like that. And later moved onto and fell in love with recording to tape with an acoustic guitar and some microphones. I place these where I like and turn the knobs till I like how it sounds.
2004 to 2006 saw PuppyKillers return to the land of his childhood and a massive increase in the amount of material recorded. This could be a result of my first real encounter with failure and the notion that I knew very little indeed. There then come a long period of silence, which involved the arrival of two sons among other things. But the writing never stopped and we find ourselves here in late December 2014.
PuppyKiller has never appeared onstage as a solo performer, although, I did enjoy playing numerous ‘shows’ as one half of the band Keep it Together. Was it me. Was it me. Was it me? Who knows if it could ever happen?
I will continue to create.