My mum always said I was singing in my pram, so I’ve loved music pretty much my whole life. She used to take me to charismatic renewal prayer groups when I was younger and I played folk hymns there, but my older brother Shug was about 10 years older than me, and he was a punk. He had a band called Shug Plug and the Sockets and I just wanted to be him, so when I got my first guitar for my 9th birthday the first song that I learned to play was 'The Gambler' by The Clash.
I grew up in East Kilbride which was a bit of concrete jungle. But what the environment lacked in inspiration was balanced by an abundance of subcultures. Every Saturday we’d all meet and parade ourselves around the town centre. I remember being 14 and looking like a pint of Guinness with all black clothes and peroxide blonde hair.
There were loads of goths, punks, indie kids, and it led to this explosion of music and art. It was almost as if all our creativity and self-expression was being bounced off the concrete back at everyone.
