I met Pete through my brother Ray. Pete was three years older than me, the same age as my brother, and they were in the same class at the William Grimshaw School, the secondary modern in Muswell Hill we all went to. When I found out that Pete had a guitar that bonded us and from then on we used to hang out all the time. We'd talk about music constantly--The Ventures, The Shadows, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran--and we'd talk about girls and football, the normal things boys talk about.
When it came to forming the band, we drew lots to see who should play bass, because Ray, Pete and I all played guitar. It wasn't really fair that Pete got the short straw; while I could rock out and improvise and Ray could mimic any style, Pete could do both. Our first experiences of playing as a band came at school dances. All three of us were plugged into the same amp but we thought we were great. None of us were singers at this point, so we'd mainly play instrumentals like Apache.
Pete was outgoing like
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