My name is Graham Rennie, I was born in Corby on 11 September 1975. I first started to listen to music seriously when I became a teenager as is true for many people,and was influenced in my choices by friends. When I was 15 or so some guys I knew were into rock, and in 1985 Bonjovi were cool (as far as I was concerned anyway!). I listened to the New Jersey album until I knew every word and didn”t care that they mostly sang love songs, I knew of nothing else.
That all changed one day when a guy in my street gave me a bootleg copy of Appetite for destruction by Guns n Roses. I had been introduced to a new kind of music, it was still rock but a far more aggressive beast in comparison to the tamer crooning of Mr Jovi. And I loved it. It wasn’t long before I wanted to emulate Slash and pleaded for a guitar, when I finally acquired one I spent more time posing with it in front of the mirror pretending I could play than actually learning to master the damn thing!
Darren Greaves, the musical force and technical pioneer that drives Lucid Dream, was just another guy at my school. A guy I didn’t know. I also didn’t know he lived just around the corner from me, but I was introduced to him by the same guy who gave me my first taste of GNR. The reason for this was that he had also bought a guitar and was unlike me actually learning how to play.
We probably got on right from the start, I can’t really remember but we must have, as Darren is not the sort who suffers fools and tends to steer clear of those he dislikes. We spent many hours listening to music in Darren’s room, much of what he played was from his parents record collection. KISS, early Marillion, Pink Floyd, Rush. And as he played the music on his stereo his fingers tried again and again to replicate what he heard. I on the other hand progressed little.
I’m not sure what happened that made us decide we were going to write songs but it came easily and we recorded them all scratchy and hissy on a two deck tape recorder, and were proud. Proudest of all with Homebound which we used years later on our first cd. Time goes by and people do the things that make them go in one direction or another, we lost touch for over a decade.
I became a bit restless with Corby and moved to Devon, Essex, London, Devon again then in 2004 finally back to Corby. Coming home I found much had changed in my absence. People had moved on and I needed to find something that made me feel like I’d never really left. I had written lyrics on my travels and felt they could be something more if put to music.
Darren wasn’t too hard to find, and was still the same guy I’d been able to show my words to all those years ago. He had been busy getting familiar with digital recording techniques and had a store of music that needed vocals. This was more than I had hoped for and we started work on what was to be our debut album What the deuce? A line used by the character Stewie in the cartoon Family Guy. As a first go at making a cd it’s a little rushed although it took a year to complete, as we can only commit to working together for three hours a week . If all the time was spent consecutively it would be quicker than most bands write, record and produce their work.
The way we create our music has always been the same, words are written to wrap around the melody. Normally starting with a hook from the chorus, from there the theme and mood is decided and a song is born. Money in the bank as I say. I’m still fond of GNR, but am a fan of mostly heavy metal. Bands like Korn and Slipknot, a far cry from Darren’s loyal tastes from his youth , but we make it gel somehow, and enjoy ourselves into the bargain!