And what you mentioned there about you didn ’ t make a demo , you just kind of went straight in and started on the record , is that kind of typical of your process , do you prefer to skip the demo stage and go straight to the record ? No , it ’ s not at all actually . So , I ' ve got lots of equipment around me and I ' ve got three studios and I ’ ll tell you why the reason for that is , is that I ' ve learnt just a few things over the years , not much , but I ' ve learnt a few really good ones , is that my studio has to do everything , it has to do demos , we mix all the music here , we mix all the DVDs here , we do everything here and the one thing I ' ve learnt from being in TV and doing film stuff and even musical stuff is , is that if you ever have to present a piece of music and say , ‘ okay , guys , it ’ s only a guitar and vocal but just imagine that ’, stop there , noone ’ s got any imagination , especially not the people working in these departments which you ' re pitching these ideas to .
So , I have racks of stuff , I ' ve got hard drives full of samples , I ' ve got orchestral programmers , I ' ve got drum makers in auxiliary studios and I reach out to them , I don ’ t mind spending money and time getting an idea to a place where I can hand it in and they go , ‘ oh , my God , this is incredible ’. I ' ve got enough confidence to know the song will be good enough , but then I ' ve got to put the packaging on it , in order for it to be the present they wanted . I ' ve just done a thing with Disney and I know that , you know , the next meeting that Bob Iger takes is probably Hans Zimmer , so I ' m fucking competing with Hans Zimmer , you know , it ’ s like , you ’ ve got to think like that , you know , the meeting before my meeting with my label head will be with U2 , so I want to be taking in stuff which has really been thought through , sonically , as well as from a composer ’ s point of view .
You started out playing in social clubs . It must have been a hell of an apprenticeship ? It was , yeah . I mean , playing cover versions , I just can ' t recommend it enough really . I know The Beatles did it for years when they first started off , because what you do is , you get to get under the hood of copyrights , why is this song known around the world , because it ’ s connected with people , because its lyrics have made people draw a line in their life to it , draw a parallel and you know , why is this chorus so good , oh , because the chords go major here , it ’ s such a great lesson . Through the clubs , you know , I was properly thrown just onto the battlefield , I couldn ’ t read music when I started off , I had to , you know , the clubs I was in , they ' d have , like , Ken Dodd and Bob Monkhouse and they ' d come with a little book of songs , that every half an hour , they ' d turn around and they ' d count you in and I mean , I wasn ’ t even born when a lot of these songs came out , but once I could read music , I could play anything .
Also , you know what , people ignoring you , it ’ s one of the things that used to really annoy me on X Factor is that people would walk out and you ' d go , ‘ what have you done before ’ and like , ‘ nothing , this is it , today ’ and you ' d go , ‘ what ?’, you ’ ve had no experience whatsoever , it ’ s like , you ’ ve got to get out there on stages , you ’ ve got to have that guy on the front row reading a paper , your goal is to get him to put it down and listen to you , you know and that was the result of that night , yes , I got him with that third song .
It must have built your stamina , working with Ken Dodd as well . He was one of the hardest to play for because he ' d have , he ' d give you this sheet music and it ’ d only be , like , four songs , you know , Happiness and all them ones , but on the sheet music it ’ d say , ‘ and Happiness starts as soon as he ' s said how ’ s that for a shuttlecock , Mrs ’ or something , there ’ d be a joke before it and that was your cue into it , so you ' re poised over the keys and half an hour goes by and another half an hour goes by and another half , and you ' re thinking , jeez , when is this song coming and just as you relax , you hear the gap and then you ' re in , you know , so , yeah , you needed stamina .
If you ' re writing for a band , you ’ ve got to meet their expectations , those songs have to work to their strengths vocally ? You know what , one of the hardest times as a songwriter for me was when the band first started and we did gigs , people were most impressed by the dancing , ' cause the lads were , I mean , they weren ' t just good dancers , they were really , I mean , Howard and Jason were brilliant dancers and so people would never leave our gigs going , ‘ I love that song number two ’, they ' d go , ‘ brilliant dancers ’, and you know , I was still listening to Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond at this point and the lads were , like , ‘ we need some music that says , you know , we ’ re bad , we want to be cool guys ’, you know and I ' m thinking , shit , I ' m not cool at all , I mean , I ' m the opposite to , and it was a really difficult time for me , those first couple of albums where , you know , it was writing songs over one chord and trying to get lyrics , it just wasn ’ t me , that ’ s what it was , it wasn ’ t me , I couldn ’ t have been further away from who I was as a songwriter . Eventually , I got everyone back to , you know , what I wanted to do is write songs , so it was hard , it was hard but , you know , that ’ s the challenge of being in a group , but what you get is you get the safety of having other people around you , you get the camaraderie , you know , the upsides of being in bands is brilliant , so I never minded it too much .
A huge percentage of your songs have those anthemic choruses , like Rule The World or Greatest Day , people kind of use those songs to soundtrack moments in their lives . That ’ s a funny one , I don ’ t know about that . I must say , when I ' ve finished it , I never sit there going , oh , wait to hear the crowd sing this , they ' re going to have their arms in the air , seems to come from somewhere , and I don ’ t know , but I think we ' ve been lucky that a lot of our songs , when we play them in front of our
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