How I Know Colin Mills

I became friends with Chris Barker one cold, rain sodden afternoon in 1994, cursing my way down Cold Bath Road having spent my bus fare home on a bag of fun mix from the Icky Van at lunchtime. I'll go into it in more detail in a future post, but by the end of that year, the year that Blur released Parklife, and Oasis Definitely Maybe, we were firm friends. Chris was really into his art at the time, and me into my music, and we slowly influenced each other in the way we thought about both. After a while, perhaps a couple of years, Chris had bought a drum kit and decreed that we would form a band. I had already been in a few bands, notable mentions to the Scarlet Bananas and Silver Sixty Six here, but Chris was adamant that this band would be the one to concentrate on. He told me he knew of two lads who would be up for playing with us, who were already pretty much virtuosos in their field. They were both 17 years old. Wow! Seventeen?! Two years our senior! Seventeen year olds were surely going to be amazing musicians, have contacts in the music business and enable us to fall into any kind of record deal we could wish for. The majors would be fighting over us! We would meet 17, maybe even 18 year old girls who would drop at our feet! I was excited.

So around came that fateful day, in the late spring of 1996, I donned my best Joseph jeans and red Caterpillar t-shirt, grabbed my trusty axe and began the long uphill walk to Chris’s house. Up Old Barber I sauntered, passing Peckett’s Holt, Spencer’s Way and Old Barber (Even No.s 84-96) until I reached Knox Lane. A short few steps long Knox Lane and I was faced with the towering sheer cliff face of Knox Avenue. I took a deep breath, checked my ropes were secure and began the ascent. Four sweat soaked hours later I had reached the top. The most physically challenging part of the journey was over, but I wasn’t even half way to Chris’s yet. I headed deeper into Bilton, along the unending Redhill Road, towards the horizon, when slowly the end was in sight. I climbed through the ginnel, past the unused tennis courts just off Knox Way. I feared for my life passing those tennis courts, knowing that out from anywhere could jump Johnny Brown, or Wes Gotting. I came out the other side safely, hopped across St John’s Grove with a skip and a jump, through Scarey Alley and onto St John’s Crescent. I had made it!

Here is a map of my route that fateful day:



So anyway, I turned up at Chris’s and dragged my guitar upstairs to his bedroom. There they were. The bigger boys. I felt slightly nervous, but knew that my guitar abilities would have them spell bound for at least a moment, and then I could attack. “KILL KILL KILL!!!” I screamed, and I ripped out… oh no, hang on. Different story. Sorry. Um. Where was I? Yes. I remember…

They had a tape of a song that one of them had written. The little one. Colin was his name. The lanky one hadn’t really said much yet. He just stood there in silence, staring at my braces and rubbing his bass guitar. More on him in a future post too. The song was called Baby It’s You and they had recorded it at Dave’s (the lanky one) house. I was impressed, the recording quality was pretty good (bear in mind I was 15) and the song itself was strong. I was even more worried that I’d be found out for the fraud I was. I had written songs before, but nothing as complete as this.

“We’d like you to make up a solo for it” Colin said. So this was an audition? Alright then, bring it on. They played the tape again and I picked up my Rickter Les Paul. They want a solo? I’ll give em a fucking solo. Here it came, the space for the solo. I readied myself. Here we go… I played possibly the worst pentatonic solo anyone has ever played. Worse than fucking, I don’t know, the solo on “Magic Pie”. I hung my head in shame. I had failed, The one thing I had needed to do to impress these older lads and cement my name in Bilton folklore and I had messed it up miserably. But then I looked up at them. They were smiling. Grinning! They were impressed! They had loved it!

“That’s just want we were after, mate, that’s great!”

I couldn’t believe it – I had winged it. Unbelievable!



That band of course became Shooter – of which a lot has been written. Countless books and unauthorised biographies litter the shelves of bookshops everywhere and there isn’t much else to add to that story anyway. We all know how that went. I won’t waste your time. I will tell you one other little story from my youth however; the first time I got drunk.

Maybe 6 months after that first meeting, and Colin and I were firm friends. We played in the band most weekends and we all met up as a group to play swing football in the park nearest to where I lived quite often, as the summer sun set over the water treatment works next to the Nidd. Orange tinged memories of a perfect adolescence. Towards the end of the summer Dave decided to have a party at his house. His parents were away and he invited all of us round to his house on Skipton Crescent. I had drunk before, at Verity Hewson’s parties on Dragon Parade, but this was a party with older people, proper teenagers who had been drinking for years. This was going to be big.

I turned up with Andrew Chiu and Chris Barker and 6 bottles of Stella. I still wasn’t really keen on the taste of beer but I could put up with it now. We sat in the living room and I cracked open my first bottle. Down it went. Second and third slipped down nicely too. I was introduced to a girl called Liv; Dave was trying it on with her and it seemed to be working (they ended up together for a year or so as well, so quite a nice little story that). Liv was the first person I met from Harrogate Ladies College and so that was the start of that little avenue of my life. After a while I couldn’t take any more Stella, the nuttiness was just getting to much for my immature palette. I moaned to Col that I had run out of booze (lies!). He poured me a Jack Daniels and Coke. From that day, I have never looked back.

So thank you Col, for enjoying my substandard solos, entertaining me in the evenings and introducing me to Jack Daniels and creating this alcoholic monster which I have since become. I owe it all to you

Ladies and gentlemen, Colin Mills.