I’ve decided to put out a Bandcamp only single for Men’s Mental Health Month (November) Download and donate here. Both very personal songs, the first I wrote and recorded for my best mate Trevor Smith as he was dying of cancer, called ‘I’m Here’  it’s a counter to my entirely selfish song ‘I’m Not Here’. Trev was a superb drummer who played with Level 42, The Rockinbirds, Divine Comedy, Miracle Mile, Nick Heyward and on lots of my records, music was the language we spoke and whilst it’s no ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’, it meant a lot for me to to be able to share this sentiment with him and to be there for much of his last few months. The recording’s a little rough around the edges, a live take snatched in a Stuttgart studio on a day off mid tour in late 2022.

The second song ‘Night Thoughts’  is a soulful out-take from ‘Domestic’ and explores those interminable long dark hours that we all have from time to time that deprive us from sleep and can too easily spiral downward into even darker depths.

Both songs in one way or another are about the need to be able to talk about your feelings, and so it is fitting that all proceeds go to the brilliant MANUP? charity, who encourage men to talk and share their feelings, they offer many practical services and means of support, and ultimately seek to chip away at many of the stigmas surrounding mens mental health. It’s time to stop using the term ‘man up’ and MANUP? seeks to rebrand that awful phrase.