Page 17 - BiTS_11_NOVEMBER_2024

AA: We received an email out of the blue, asking if we would like to do it and, in all

honesty, we thought someone was pranking us, genuinely. We thought it was a prank
and we had to have somebody look at it and tell us that no, no, in fact, this is real. That
came to my wonderful booker, Diane Tuppen, my booking agent.

We freaked out a bit. We were incredibly excited and the cruise itself was phenomenal.
I'll remember it for the rest of my days. Absolutely phenomenal event. There were so
many wonderful friends from the British blues community there, including The Cinellis,

True Strays. When Rivers Meet, Dom Martin and I forget now who else? My apologies
to anyone I’ve forgotten, but there were so many of us that knew each other on that
cruise, as well as all the fans that came and it was just a phenomenal time. We stopped
off in Croatia at Dubrovnik, then we were in Santorini. Forget the other place we stopped

off at, which is terrible, but it was absolutely wonderful. Mind-blowing. Great to see
many American artists in person as well and made a lot of new friends there too. So it
was joyful.

BiTS: I want to ask you, if I may, about the
red glasses that you wear. I gather that
they’re something to do with dealing with

migraine. Is that right?

AA: Yes, that's right. I have something
called photophobia. It's created by a

number of conflicting conditions that I
have that mean that I'm extremely
sensitive to light. The problem started
gradually from my teens through to my

20s, but I would mostly just end up
wearing sunglasses at night in well-lit places. So I would get sharp pains in my eyes,
but I didn't really think much of it.

Then a couple of years back I started getting migraines where I would sort of not be
able to see anymore. We didn't know they were migraines at the time. I would be getting
nausea, blindness, throwing up and things like that. And after a series of specialists, it

turned out that it was a type of migraine that manifested itself in a weird way. That's
why it took us a while to figure out what it was, and it was being caused by my sensitivity
to light. I do suffer from quite bad pain when light is too bright. I find it difficult to see
in bright light situations.

Anyway, I was supposed to wear some specific lenses called FL. I think FL-41 or
something along those lines. They are these special yellow lenses that block out the
blue light spectrum. However, I could not for the life of me find a pair that I liked the
look of. I'm quite vain and I thought they were all hideous [laughing].

BiTS: [Laughing] Good for you.