Funeral Shakes take on the A-Z challenge!

Queen – A Kind Of Magic. Heard it when I was about 3 years old and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I’m pretty sure my mum still has a tape recording of me singing along to it somewhere.

We’ve only played a few gigs so far, so nothing too crazy. Had some nice crisps at the Bedford Esquires show recently.

Getting invited to open for Cancer Bats at their Hail Destroyer shows in April is pretty crazy, we didn’t see that coming at all.

“Together we cried, the day that Bridget died, for you my love every day I die inside” – This is in relation to a mutual friend of myself and an ex girlfriend who sadly passed away on her own birthday.

From the same song as I mentioned above “You’re so bad”. Simon had the riff and I wrote the lyrics to it in about three minutes one evening. I guess the words had been in there waiting to come out for a while.

At the moment, I’d probably say ‘Over You’. It’s really special feeling hearing and seeing people sing the songs back to you, definitely not an experience I’ve had much before this band, and something I hope I’ll never get used to. It’s the greatest feeling, and with ‘Over You’ being one of only two singles that people have heard so far, it gets the best reaction live.

Mike Patton would be pretty amazing, but would put my vocal performance to shame. I’m trying really hard to think of someone else that would be really awesome but not make me look terrible… Let’s just go with Patton.

Going back to work after a gig.

I’m allergic to bananas.

At any given time, someone in Funeral Shakes is likely to start playing the Metallica song St Anger.

Write what you know.

Not very far so far. We’ve only played six shows up to this point, and none of them further away than London. We have some treks coming up though. In previous bands we’ve all had some long journeys though, The Smoking Hearts went to Australia to play shows, and we once drove from LA to Houston to play a festival. 26 hours of driving or something.

When I was 13 I was lucky enough to see Dimebag Darrell play in Pantera. A few years later, I met him at Download when he was playing in Damageplan. I went over and said Hi, and how much I loved his bands, and his music; He said thanks, and offered me a swig of whisky. I don’t drink, but that was a nice moment.

Mrs Magician from San Diego. Maybe not that new (in fact, they’ve been around for a while), but remain largely undiscovered. They were a great influence on the songs on our first album, and their first album is still on my regularly played list.

Elvis Presley, back from the dead tour. Imagine the ticket sales.

Japan. Never played there. Lee has, and I’ve been there as a guitar tech in the past, but I’ve never played music there. That’s always been a dream.

“Have a good time, all of the time” – Vic Savage, Spinal Tap

It’s a self titled album. Good place to start as a band, right?

We have lots of shows! See us in London, Watford, Huddersfield, Stafford, Northwich, Bournemouth, Corby, Bridgwater, Nottingham, Darwen, Glasgow, Doncaster, Manchester, Bristol. We keep adding dates too!

Music will always be the greatest thing there is. I still get excited when I hear or see a new band, so I can’t say that one era was better than another.

We don’t have anything too unusual in the pipeline, but a Funeral Shakes coffin would’ve been ideal had Kiss not thought of it first.

I’m not really in to remixes as such, we do a few bits different live here and there. Would love to hear someone else do a variation on our song though.

I’m proud to think we even have fans. I think I’d still make music even if I knew no one would hear it, but knowing that there are people that listen to it and like it and invest their time and emotions in to the songs is a very special feeling, and if any one ever wants to say hi or take a photo or anything like that, it’s an honour.

None for this band (yet), but I once gashed my head open on my bass guitar. It was the first time I’d used my Rickenbacker and I head banged my head straight in to the machine head and split my forehead open. It bled for the rest of the show. I’m told that my blood still stains the floor upstairs at the Garage. Guess I’ll have to keep an eye out when we play there in April.

One of two candidates. Either myself, or Em. Never Lee, he’s the most on time person I’ve ever met.

We’d be a complete mutation never before seen by man, made up of lots of elements of other animals in the zoo, but never previously discovered… We’d have the colours of a zebra, the pomp of a peacock, the regality of a lion, the ferociousness of a brown bear, all rolled up in to an 8 legged rock n roll machine animal.