Page 14 - BiTS_04_APRIL_2022

BiTS: Did you have a job at that time? I take it that you weren't a professional musician from the

go.

SK: Well, no, I think that was part of the problem. When I left school, I was a bench fitter, an
engineer. I left school at 16, fifth year and I went out and I got a job in an engineering factory.
Remember, I don’t know if you’re old enough, Midland Bank.

BiTS: Yes, I remember.

SK: Do you remember those screens that the Midland Bank used to have up?

BiTS: Yes.

SK: That’s what I used to make. The company that I was working for they had the contract to
build all those screens at the time. I did that for a few years, and as I say, I was just getting more
and more frustrated because that wasn’t what I wanted to do. There was something inside me
that said this isn’t

the end product
for you. I didn’t
know what it was,
but I know that
what I was doing
at the time wasn’t
it. At the time you

could maybe get
two jobs in a day.
There was plenty
of employment.
This was in the

60s - 64, 65, 66,
around that time.
So I tried four or
five different jobs. Again it wasn’t for me and that’s where I think the frustration came in, or
part of it, anyway. I needed to get rid of that frustration somehow. I wasn’t a violent person. I’m
still not a violent person, so it needed dissipating some other way.

BiTS: When do you consider you became a professional musician? When you did nothing else
but music?

SK: I suppose I became a professional musician the first time I got paid to do the gig.

BiTS: [Laughing] Technically, that’s true.

SK: That gig at the Oval House, but that wasn’t the objective to become a professional musician.
I was just in a situation. Played. Enjoyed immensely what I was doing and the guys I was

working with enjoyed what I was doing, and it came from that. I played a lot, but it wasn’t
sufficient to keep me going. I had to do other jobs. Cleaning jobs. Any job that I could get to
support the music.

BiTS: When did the music become the principle source of income then?