SEVEN

It wasn’t as though we’d never been in a studio before, but it’s fair to say we’d never been in a studio like Townhouse before. I signed in at the security desk at the same time Dave Gilmore was also signing in! He was in the mixing suite in studio 2 and we were in studio 1 to record our debut single. We had a six album, worldwide record deal and it felt absolutely amazing!

“Getting signed is just 1% of your career” our A&R guy kept telling us but what did he know?

I'd arrived before Stevie and Nath and I was sat on one of the big leather sofas in front of the huge flatscreen showing MTV2 and I was trying to act cool and read my book (The Wasteland) but I was actually just too in awe of everything. It had taken all my energy not to play on the PS3 that was next to the sofa too because I wanted to keep it all cool. Stevie and Nath were buzzing and doing little to conceal it

“ANNA!!!!!!!!” they ran at me and lifted me over their shoulders like some sort of football goal celebration but I didn’t even try and resist. Now that I was with my band I didn’t care about trying to look cool to the reception guy anymore.

“ARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!” I yelped at them and we all made some excitable animal noises: monkey, wolf, donkey, cockerel, and then we did our own high five thing where we do it as a three and spin round and then spank the person to your right’s arse after spitting on your hand.

“OK kids, when you’re ready...” our manager, Martin had come in but he didn’t seem embarrassed by us or anything, in fact he looked a bit preoccupied and it was annoying because he was inadvertently raining on our little parade with his worried face.

He led us round the corner down the corridor a little way and into Studio 1; it looked like the Starship Enterprise! I walked into that room with my guitar on my back and I just felt like at that moment in time there couldn’t be a happier 22 year old girl on the planet. Stevie and Nath were probably feeling quite similar but Nath didn’t have anything to carry as he walked in though because they’d hired in like, the most amazing DW kit London town owned. We could see it sparkling in the live room through the window! I’d never seen such shiny floor.

Martin introduced us to the assistant and to the engineer and we said hello to Wayne, the producer who we’d met at dinner the previous week. There was another guy standing there who nobody had introduced. He was a little bit older than us, skinny jeans, short sleaved shirt, stubbly beard, muscular, quite fit actually. I was too shy to say anything but Nath went straight in there;

“Hey man, obviously Martin’s forgotten his manners eh? I’m Nath.” and he stuck out his hand and Martin said

“Right. OK. Erm. This is a bit awkward. I’m afraid there’s something we all need to talk about.”