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was the first year of my adult life that I didn't play a single gig and I felt like a big part of me was
missing that year. Yeah, so this is the sort of Genesis really of Gozer Goodspeed. I got asked to do a

mental health charity gig by my best friend. He said, I know you want to do a bit of playing. Why
don't you come on down and just do a set at this charity gig we're playing here in Plymouth? So I
said, yeah, sure, but I don't want to do it
under any name I've gone under before, so I
just plucked out of the air for one night only,
Gozer Goodspeed. Thought it would be a bit of
a laugh and what happened was I played the

gig, it was packed, and it went down really
well, and the owner of the place gave me a
residency off the back of that one gig.

BiTS: [Laughing] Wonderful.

GG: Yeah, and so the name Gozer Goodspeed

just kind of stuck and that was eight years
ago. So there you go.

BiTS: Are you allowed to divulge your real
name?

GG: Yeah, my real name is Neil. So there you
go. No one is probably going to christen their child Gozer these days.

BiTS: What kind of music were you listening to when you were growing up? I mean, was there a
lot of music in your house, for example, when you were a kid?

GG: There was. Music is a strange thing. There was a lot of music going on in my house and in the
car, particularly when I was a kid. My parents were big into, you know, people like Queen. My mum
was big into ABBA. And then as time went on, it moved towards things like, I guess, Def Leppard.
And you know, that was where my parents' music tastes lay, and then they are not musicians, my

parents, but my grandparents were. So my grandfather on my father's side post-war, he was part of
a little jazz outfit and he was an organ player and he used to be out five nights a week playing gigs
in, you know, in the dance halls and gentlemen's clubs and things like that. But he was a
greengrocer by trade and he used to routinely come home at, like, two or three am, get about four
hours of sleep and then get up to go to the market to get all the produce. So yeah, so music kind of
skipped a generation and it all landed in me, I guess.

BiTS: And was that in the West of England? Is that where your family comes from?

GG: Yeah, we come from Plymouth. So yeah, that's where I'm talking to you from now.

BiTS: And you’re still there?

GG: Yeah, still here. It's a nice part of the world, contrary to what you may have heard [chuckles].

BiTS: I'll continue to call you Gozer. That's the easiest way, but what is your favourite kind of
music to be playing? I mean, you seem to have played a lot of different kinds of stuff.

GG: I have played a lot of different kinds of stuff. I think the difference with what I play these days
is that that's the stuff that just naturally comes out of me. So I think when I decided to get back to
playing music, post that gig that I was telling you about, my whole remit was just I'm only going to