After a few brief dead end jobs, I gave up regular work once and for all, and acquired the 'Kojak' hairdo at the suggestion of a hairdresser. The record company had insisted we ditched most of the band members and got in a few new people. The drummer had been with Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel for a while, and later did some sessions with Aha and Alison Moyet. Other musicians who came along at that time included the guitarist who had been with the Tom Robinson Band (perhaps most famous for a song called "Glad To Be Gay!"), and drummer Richard Burgess, who later had a hit with Einstein a Go Go in Landscape, and I met him many years later when he had become a Born-again Christian.

We were in the studio being produced by Jonathon King, who was a well known TV personality and music commentator in the UK, but later became infamous for more dubious reasons. He also drove a Rolls Royce, and having received thousands of pounds from the record company, and bought all the latest equipment available, we thought we had at last "made it"! The record company boss came to the studio and said "You haven't given up your day jobs, have you?" I thought he was joking, but within a month or two, we were back on the dole, having been dumped by the record company. Our first single had been released to a chorus of apathy and indifference, but we had at least heard our record once or twice in a radio commercial, and seen our picture in newspaper ads.

The manager of The News had some vague connection with Queen, and saw them as the role model for our success. So we were being pushed in a rather glam direction at a time when punk was the new big thing. Punk was followed by ska, and a kind of Britpop they used to call New Wave. Sex Pistols and The Clash were followed by Madness and The Specials, and The Jam remained big throughout that time. We seemed to be out of step with it all. The lineup of the band had changed, and Mik Sweeney had come in as a significant influence on direction. He was mad on Bowie and so that rather glam influence never seemed to go away. After a year or so, it had run its course, and I thought I'd had it with forming bands, so I'd try and join somebody else's.

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