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that's kind of continued. I know a lot of creative people who have dipped their toes into different

things, whether it be visual art, sound art or basically rock and roll and blues acts, so I think
there's a lot of people who actually, they're just creative whether they be musicians or visual
artists, or whatever.

BiTS: Do you still continue with the art now?

JH: Well that's interesting man because I've not done it for a long time and then when we were
forced off the road in lockdown last year, I started making drawings again. I'd not done it in quite a
long time, mainly because the last two or three years prior to that I'd been so hectic with touring
and it's very difficult to make artwork when you're the driver in the band as well, which I am, so
yeah, I got into it again last year and I'm starting to do a bit more this year. I've found it quite
relaxing and it was a similar sort of feeling that I get when I'm on stage. It's like an adrenaline

rush when you're on stage and you kind of lose yourself in the moment when you're playing guitar
and singing and the same thing happens when I make drawings and without the ability to go out
and gig, it's a way of getting those
emotions out.

BiTS: Okay, so you were a year at art
college. You're studying art and you're
doing a bit of work and playing in bands
when you can, how did you move into
being a professional musician? What
happened?

JH: A lot of work, man [laughs]. It's
weird because there wasn't a turning
point where I was like oh, I'm going to
be a professional musician, or a day
where I woke up and went ah, I'm a

professional musician now. It was just
like years and years of different things and then suddenly, I guess, you do realise that you're
basically making enough money from it and there's enough people coming to your gigs that you
seem to have done alright and can, I guess, class yourself as a professional musician. But yeah, I
mean when I first moved to London, I moved to London from Burnley and when I was gigging
around Burnley, it's a smaller pool of musicians and you feel like, I don't know, I was quite big-
headed when I was younger. I guess I did feel like I was one of the best musicians on the local team

and then you move to London and it was like a massive slap in the face because the competition in
the capital was just ridiculous. I remember going to a couple of open-mike nights and just actually
trying to get gigs in venues, thinking well I'm automatically going to be able to get gigs because I'm
that good and then people turning round and going well, never heard of you [chuckles]. So then
you have to start from scratch and work your way up and I guess a big game-changer for me was

when I started playing at Ain't Nothing But blues bar in central London. I started going down to the
jams and just turning up every Saturday and Sunday with my guitar and playing some tracks and I
was just a guitarist at this point. I wasn't a singer and then you end up in a situation at these jams
where there ain't enough singers, so I ended up just on stage singing a few blues tunes. Then one