It felt like a great way to actually prepare yourself for the music ind- when you did eventually make the decision to go at it as a solo independent artist.

Yeah, like a...

I mean, as you said, it was very much manufactured and orchestrated, uh, the way a lot of...

You know, I, I think that kind of day and age is nearly gone, you know? Uh, uh, the power has been kind of given back to the, the artist and the independent artist.

Um, but at the time, yeah, it was straight into deep end, signed to RCA, uh, touring with those bands that I named, um, you know, doing HMV signings 'cause physical CDs were still a thing at the time.

Um, it was just kind of...

The, the reason, the, the kind of straw that broke the camel's back for us, uh, in terms of a band and why we ended was that streams became a big thing, you know? Um, so the streaming world, like Spotify, et cetera, had, had just become a thing, so physical sales were, were kind of becoming redundant and, you know, s- uh, streams were being counted towards the charts and stuff like that.

Tell me a little bit about what made you take that decision and, and how you talk about it in your music.

What do I do with my hands? Yeah,

I'm like, what do I do? And then I was like, kind of like, right, do I ask someone, can I use their guitar? So I didn't.

Anyway, long story short, we get up to the top and it's like, you just, you basically just in a queue at the site.

It was in the button factory and you're in a queue the whole way up to the stage.

And like, so if I'm like fifth in the queue, I'm just watching the four guys before me, like stand on the stage, introduced themselves, Louis and it was like Louis, Liam McKenna, Linda Martin.

And I don't know, maybe like two other people.

And they would just like ask a couple of questions.

And when you guys decided to come to an end, I'm sure the last thing on your mind was what were you going to do? Like, were you going to go solo? But like, was it a group decision? Was it a Louis decision? It

You do buses up to the ground, and it's a proper haven and, and love, love letter to Liverpool from, from some big Reds like you.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

So it's, um, four of us, all, all mates and fans who, um, who started the bar.

But yeah, it's a bit of a sign.

All kinds of memorabilia.

Um, obviously we've got the trophies and stuff, as you mentioned, but sort of just trying to create a good atmosphere before the game, after the game, and then if you, if people wanna watch the game as well.

Absolutely.

Let's go to day one.

Okay.

Well, day one, firstly, I was in college studying music in BIM and I was kind of into like the fray, One Republic, you know, really like kind of indie rock, pop rock bands.

So I was playing a lot of music, writing a lot of music.

And then Louis Walsh was on the telly, the radio, everything.

And he was just saying, I'm starting a new band.

It's going to be the next Westlife, the next Boyzone.

When was that and what happened?

It just, the weight, the balance, I think I was almost, I don't want to say skeptical coming in, but you look at something so... to me, just mind-blowing, and then put your hands on it, and you're like, this works nice.

Yeah, I think, like, you hit a couple really critical things, because this is, like, bringing back, like, the total project for me.

I've been on it since the start, day one, and...

When was that? All the different things we've worked through.

It's, well, I started, it's been shelved a couple times, it's been brought back to life, it's been shelved.

We've had pre-NPD people working on it, on, like, hey, how do we build the mechanism, but...

What was like, what kept us going forward is like the number one requested solution.

That's really nice.