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to cringe a little bit. [Chuckles] It gets worse and worse the more you sit there and
listen to it.

BiTS: What happened next? When did you move on?

AD: That one stopped actually, weirdly enough just before COVID. So we were going
for about a year and a half, maybe. Maybe a little bit more. We didn't really do much
because, we were all in sixth form and all of us were a bit busy. Then I went off to

uni, literally 2020. So COVID year, and that was kind of when I started to branch out
in terms of musicianship. So I'd always
had an interest in playing other things

and doing other forms of music and
things. I'd done musical theatre pits
before. I was in music school as a kid, so

I got a lot of exposure to a lot of things,
even if I didn't quite understand it. And
then at uni, I became a regular on the

student theatre scene as a sort of brought
in session player and then I was invited
to join some of the big bands from some

of the people I met on that circuit and that
was kind of where I then branched out
into really kind of hammering home my

technique, my musicality. Thinking about
what I was playing rather than just going
with a wiggle, [chuckles] if that makes sense.

BiTS: Yeah, absolutely. What sort of guitar did you have at that stage?

AD: At that stage, so I probably shouldn't admit this, but my first student loan, my

first year of uni, the second term got completely cancelled because of COVID, and so
what I did is I used that money to buy my first Les Paul [laughs]. What else are you
going to do with two grand which is just sat there in your account?

So I was playing a Les Paul. My first guitar that I bought myself was a Fender Strat,
so that one was kind of on the regular circuit. And then I’d also picked up an Epiphone
ES-339 Dot. I don't know if you've ever been down South, you might have heard of
Madison’s Guitar Shop, which sadly has closed down now, but they did a part

exchange for me on an amp that I handed in and I saw that as my jazz guitar, purely
because it was a semi-hollow. It wasn't beautiful in the slightest, but I would go with

that's what we're using it for and that was kind of what I was taking up and down
all these gigs. I think I took it to The Fringe and back. That was one of those guitars,
it's not that I regret selling it, but it's one where I'm thinking, that was a cool moment
in time.

BiTS: Are you a guitar collector? Do you have dozens of them?