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BiTS: Tell me about setting up the band then. The Slimline Shufflers are, I take
it, named after you?

HS: Yeah, I said it as a joke in our first band practice and it kind of stuck [chuckles].

BiTS: [Laughing] It sounds like you should be advertising Schweppes ale or

something like that.

HS: Yeah, yeah, it’s a funny one. Hardly anyone can pronounce it properly when

they first hear it.

BiTS: Okay, so how did you start the band? I gather it’s about nine years since

the band first started? Has its membership stayed the same?

HS: No, it's actually changed a little bit. We had a different drummer. We started

out and then he got very busy and became less and less available. So we tried out

a few drummers. There was this great drummer called Emma Holbrook, who plays

a lot of stuff in Bristol and further afield. She played a few gigs with us and then

there were one or two other kind of jazz drummers we tried out and then we
settled on Max Harrison, who I knew from open mics since 2012. He started

playing with us more and more and we realised that he was the guy because he

could sing as well, some blues stuff, and soul kind of things. He’s stayed in the

band from about 2017/18.

BiTS: It's an unusual lineup with no guitar.

HS: Yeah, again, we've collaborated with guitar players over the years, and we

decided that it was best without guitar because there's a lot going on without it.

It kind of gets a bit too cluttered if we have too much going on in that way. So
guitar was the obvious one to lose. Eric's got such an amazing full sound on the

piano that we don't really need much more than the harmonica and the drums

and bass really.

BiTS: Do you carry with you your own amplifiers and all that sort of thing?

HS: I have a Blues Jr that I use and a little Laney Cub 10 for smaller gigs. Eric, he
needs to get an amp, but he just goes with the PA usually with his keyboard.

BiTS: Tell me about the other people in the band. How did you meet them all?

Did they make themselves known to you or are they people you've known for a

long time?