The journey to Guildford was fraught with a catastrophic queue on the M40 motorway, it seemed a lorry full of hay bails had burst into flames, and shut down both sides of the carriageway. The queues were enormous and it took us 3 hours to get through the traffic having to stop twice to let the van cool down a bit. We kept ourselves amused during the traffic jam, although a journey that was supposed to be 3 hours turned into over 6 hours.
It was midnight when we arrived at MOTO service station in Reading and we were pleased to be off the road for one day. The journey hadn’t been helped by a virus contracted whilst back at home for 2 days. I havnt had a cold in ages and I return home for 2 days and become infected. The runny nose, sneezing, coughing, sore throat, hot & cold sweats, tight chest and achey bones make a hangover seem like a walk in the park.
The problem with having a cold and a sore throat when you are a singer is pretty bad. Ive done it before, last year I sang for 4 hours on a sore throat and thought nothing of it, until I lost my voice for nearly 2 weeks. Which is a complete nightmare. With a live performance and interview on BBC Radio Surrey lined up and a festival performance in 2 days, I’m praying that my voice will be OK. The next morning the pain in my throat had become worse, it feels as though someone had poured pepper into my mouth and its moving into my chest. Luckily today we only have a 10 minute radio interview and are only doing the one song. As we headed out of a Reading on our way to BBC Surrey we stopped off at the local Tesco for some lozenges and Echinacea tablets.
Pumped up full of meds we headed into the BBC studios in Surrey and were greeted by the lovely Pauline, a very nice lady who had given us meticulous directional details on how to get to the studio. Directions on parking helps a great deal and we even had our own pass for the day.
Later on we were given a room to tune up and rehearse in, which was very nice. We managed to practice through one verse and they called us in. We were just hoping that my voice would be ok. In the studio we were introduced to the wonderful Joe Talbot whose show we would be appearing on. Sharing the studio today as part of the DJ Legends Week on BBC Radio Surrey is Graham Dean who used to be on Capital Radio. Graham informed us that he used to work with Billy Butler who is legendary in our home town on Radio Merseyside.
The traffic was being announced while we set our stuff up and 3, 2, 1… and today in the studio we have Helly and Andy also known as The Rag Tag Misfits. The interview went fantastic and Joe and Graham were very encouraging and asked all the right questions. We talked about The Trussell Trust food banks, our up and coming performance at Woolstock Festival tomorrow, our new album “Colours”, the practicalities of living in a van, the legalities of busking in the different towns and we performed a song off our new album called “Silly Things” which is a song about life on the road (which I can happily say my voice held out regardless of this horrible cold and sore throat).
With the interview concluded we thanked Joe and Graham for having us on. Pauline mentioned that BBC Introducing in Surrey may be interested in having us on the show and gave us a contact name (thats the 3rd BBC Introducing who have taken an interest) Three listeners contacted the show after we had left with fantastic compliments towards our performance, so we were really pleased about that.
Thanks for having us and inviting us on to the show Pauline, Joe, Graham and team. You are all wonderful and kind made us feel relaxed and welcome. Thanks for inviting us back and we’ll see you next time.