We consider the birth of ‘And also the trees’ to be our first live performance which was on January 12th 1980 in Alcester, Warwickshire.

In 1978, when he was 14, Justin bought a second hand acoustic guitar and started teaching himself how to play it.

It wasn’t just about getting into punk rock music; we cut off our long hair and wore narrow, ‘drainpipe’ trousers and this, remarkably, was enough to completely set us appart, to make us different…

Our first song was called ‘Lies’, a basic punk thrash with me chanting “Always telling me lies” in the chorus.

The advent of Punk rock is often referred to as ‘the punk explosion’ and it’s a good description. By 1979 the dust had settled and the creative atmosphere was like an uneasy calm after the storm.

As 1979 progressed we dropped the name ‘Control’ and toyed with other ideas but nothing stuck.

One afternoon in late November 1979 we had a meeting at the Havas house to decide on a name for the band.

In December 79 we heard that a local new wave band were looking for support acts for a gig they were putting on in aid of the Cambodia fund in Alcester a small town about six miles away from us just over the county border in Warwickshire.