Full Album show of April 18, 2020
Album: Give Me a Masque

"The band story started in 1978. Punk rock was in full swing although the Sex Pistols had just split up. My school (Yewlands School Sheffield) like the music industry was split into two camps, the old and the new. I along with two friends (Aeg Browne and Roy Haywood) had just started watching the new bands - The Jam, The Clash, The Stranglers and realised we had to start a band ourselves and we became The Mix."

I bought a guitar and started to learn to play (still never quite managed it), Aegs brother Pat already played in a band so Aeg had a start on us. Roy decided to take up the bass and another friend of ours Rich Williams could play the drums. Rich was a bit of a rocker but we turned a blind eye. We started writing our own songs and rehearsing.

The first practice room was at Love St, Sheffield which we shared with the Human League and a band called Black Mariah. Things soon took off and we gigged everywhere including Sheffield's Top Rank, Limit Club and The Leadmill.

Around this time we had interest from a guy called Lincon Alias of WEA Records and recorded a single and a 14 track tape (Gothic Writing) which sold well in the Sheffield HMV store. We went on to meet the main man at WEA but things didn't go too well. He told us that we were out of time, the music we were playing was old hat.


In 1983 the main bands were Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. The new romantics had arrived and we were harking back to 1978. So forsaking all of our principles we decided to join them. We got a good keyboard/piano player in Dave Benford and The Mix became Fiction. We tried to get somewhere for three years but never quite got there.

Fiction split in 1986 and I didn't play again until 1990. I got a new band together called Masque featuring Aeg Browne, Chris Stringer on bass and local superstar Driftin Dronfield on drums. We went back to our roots, recorded some new tracks and had a good time for three years then said our goodbyes.

Booker Creed started in 2011 with me on guitar and vocals, Andy Mason on lead guitar, Chris Stringer on Bass and Andy Horner on drums. So far we're having a ball. The future's so bright we gotta wear shades.