The Noble Grape was the nucleus of the very first album “Younger Than Before” and then as a band, we made “Today Is All We Have”, both back in the mid 1990s. I had been thinking of making a “band” record again for some time, when I had a rush of blood to the head in mid 2008 and wrote an album’s worth of demos which I sent to the original members.

I spoke to Mickey Simmonds about how to go about doing it and he mentioned Monkey Puzzle studios near Bury St Edmunds where he had just recorded the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s reunion album. We discussed how the sessions might work and then I booked a long weekend for November 2008. Johnny “Blofeld” Hodgson couldn’t join us, so Mickey took over the fourth member role. Although it meant less guitars, it meant more keyboards.

The sessions themselves were fabulous – a real experience – and we flew through material to such an extent that we canned two of the original ideas and jammed on the last day from which the lead track emerged (eventually). One day the 12 minute progressive rock “wig-out” will come to light, and there was even a stab at a reggae jam – all great fun. With the recordings in the bag (literally) and re-formulated at Mickey’s studios in Surrey, I started putting new guitar parts and vocals down, but this was a long tortuous process over many months.

Mickey eventually mixed the album down in January 2010, and I didn’t get it mastered until late 2010, leaving me most of 2011 to get the final package together, for a Christmas 2011 release. I think it has all been worth it, and it is the best material I have been part of so far.