rivers2cross

On the back of the cover for A New Dawn there are a number of people who get special thanks. The album for the most part has been very much a solo project, which is as much down to circumstances as anything else. However, there are some people I wanted to thank.

The involvement of Steve ‘Smiley’ Barnard of The Alarm on a couple of tracks was an absolute highlight and it ultimately really pushed me on to take the other songs to a new level. In a perfect world I would have loved to have done the whole album with him, but my current circumstances conspired against that idea. His partner in crime on bass, Matt Round, really showed how the bass guitar should be done.

Backing vocalists!! It seems absurd that anyone would do this for me, especially two fine singers, in their own right, Billy Liberator and Steve Webster. On the “Friends” track the boys did me proud and just added that something extra to the song. Steve sings in several bands, Free’s Company, Joyrider and also for the James Martin Band. Billy Liberator released a superb album last year called “Companions” with album number two not too far away. Both these guys are also long-standing fans of The Alarm, but it’s only in recent years that I have got to know them along with so many others.

Although the album is punky, alternative and power pop in sound, there are times when I think how good a keyboard would be on certain tracks. I was able to call upon Jason Bradley, who plays for Braver Than Fiction, to play on “No Man’s Land”, the World War One ballad, the penultimate track on the album. It’s about time we met in person!

It’s not been easy getting any kind of airplay since I first began this project in 2020. One person who has got behind everything I’ve done is Dave Francis on Radio Albatross. I am so grateful for his support. Paul Hammond who hosts the brilliant Punk AF radio every Friday night gave me some brilliant advice and wasn’t afraid to tell me where he thought I was going wrong. Although it was tough to take at the time, I took his words on board and the final album I am now releasing is all the better for this. Richard Latto hosts Stereo Underground on BBC Sounds every Saturday night and having exchanged a few emails with him, I tried my luck with asking him if he would listen to On The Way Back. He played it on the show! My music on the BBC who’d have ever thought…

Gina Irlam and Natalie Woodward both came up with the album title. It was absolutely perfect, and for me personally it has been especially apt these last 12 months. Laura Hopkinson gave me the idea for the Friends track, and she also had kindly agreed to create and paint an album cover for me. Cancer played a part in that not being possible, but I am still hopeful that Laura, health permitting, might be able to do a painting in the future that we can sell to raise funds.

The Majority… The only band I’ve ever been in back in the 1980s. So many laughs we had, and we were actually pretty good. A reunion one day??

A New Dawn comes out on Friday. Over £600 has been raised for Bowel Cancer UK, Love Hope Strength and The Bowel Movement. You can order a copy of the Vinyl LP, CD and Download from www.rivers2cross.com All profits raised by every sale are donated to the three cancer charities.