A group of Merseyside musicians are planning to tour the world in a van that they are converting into a mobile studio.
The five musicians, who hail from Liverpool and Wirral, have all worked for other artists but will now branch out and pursue their own project under the name 'Big Time Jay and The Liptones'.
The band features lead singer Danny Rowlands, guitar player James Maxwell, David Fitzpatrick, saxophone player 'Warby' and guitarist Mike Woods.
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Having met up again after many years and started the band, the five decided they would try to do something different and hatched the plan to tour the world.
Guitarist Mike Wood traded his car for an American 'recreational vehicle', which he plans to convert into a mobile recording studio for the group to travel the world in.
Mike spoke to the ECHO about the plans for a slightly different world tour.
He said: " A long time ago we were all guitarists or musicians for other people and now it’s got to this stage when we’ve all kind of met up again as old friends as thought ‘sod it, we’ll start a band’.
" So we’ve started making our own music.
"Then we thought we could sit here and wait to get signed by a record company, but we thought, rather than that, why don’t we go and do something different.
"I had a race car, which we swapped for a 1986 American RV and and the plan is to turn that into a mobile studio to record music and podcasts."
Mike and the band have grand ambitions to tour the world - wanting to travel through Europe and head to Asia.
However, not wanting to run before they can walk, they've set their sights on heading around Britain for festival season this summer.
Mike added: " The plan at first is to travel around the coast and meet other musicians around the country.
"We'd invite them into the bus, do a little session, do a podcast, get them on our channel and hopefully get people noticed.
"Come July or August time we’d hopefully be able to attend the festivals in our bus and meet more people there. Maybe start a little radio station up."
Having spent their lives playing for other musicians, Mike and the group are liberated by the chance to do something different.
Mike added: "I’ve been playing for 30 years. I used to play for soul and Motown artists years ago, but our genre now is a bit of everything."
A first has been released on the group's YouTube channel - in the style of a rap diss track - and more music is coming.
Mike added: "It’s not to everybody’s taste, but we thought why couldn’t we make something that was a little bit of fun and not take ourselves too seriously?"
With grand plans in their sights, the wheels are almost in motion for the band.
Mike said: "Hopefully, by June, we can be on the road and ready to go.
"Work’s already underway on the bus. All the insides have been stripped out and the interior’s starting to be put in and the studio is starting to be fixed up so, it’s moving pretty quickly to be honest."
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