Unfortunately I got the venue wrong (it seems there are two pubs with the same name within a one mile radius), but it didn't take long to rectify the situation, and while Paul ordered a couple of frothy quenchers (as he likes to call them) I found a suitable table in the pub that now occupies the site of the Marquee Club.  Paul has a long and established career in the international music scene, and there is a lot more to him than meets the eye.  He has played with some of the legends of rock ‘n' roll; has written with some of the best singer/songwriters around; teaches guitar privately; sits on the Board of the Royal School of Music's "Rock School"; consults on the UK Government initiative "New Deal for Musicians" and is involved with the New King's Road Guitar Emporium, helping to kit out some of the most famous names in music with the most sought after vintage guitars available.  It was an absolute privilege to spend a couple of hours in his company and hear all his stories.  Read on and enjoy ...

Before we get to talking about the new album, can you tell us when you officially joined the Quireboys?

Five years ago in August.  My first show was the Serie Z Festival in Spain. 

What were the circumstances around you joining the band?

Well, Luke (Bossindorfer) left and passed on the baton to me.  Luke lives in Los Angeles, and as 99% of the Quireboys' work is in Europe, it just wasn't practical for him to carry on, especially as he had a family.  Joining the band was a very easy thing for me to do.  Spike and I used to live together in London, and I've been around the band for 20 years, going back to the Red Dogs days when we were the opening act for them. 

Were you involved in the recording process for ‘Well Oiled' or was it pretty much finished when you joined? 

I was involved in the process, absolutely, but as I was new to the fold, my input was basically playing guitar on it.  Griff had written most of the songs already, so it wasn't as much a team effort as this new album is.  It was a very quick process from me joining the band to recording ‘Well Oiled'.  I was still finding my feet and unsure how many suggestions I could make or whatever.  I walked into a very well respected writing partnership, and I didn't want to just arrive in my Superman outfit with a cape on and say "Right, I'm here!" 

You co-wrote ‘Treat to be Alive' with Spike, and finished it in 2004, yet it didn't get an official release until 3^rd September 2007.  What caused the delay?

Well, it was a nightmare from start to finish.  I could never understand why the label even took the project on, why they would pay for an album to be made, then not put it out, especially when it was such a great record.  I wish I had a better answer for you; I am still totally baffled to this day.  If I'd been the guy in the record company, I'd have sold my furniture to advertise that record because I'd have known I had a hit on my hands.  As there was no sign of it coming from the record company we decided to make our own copies and just sell them at the gigs.  At least that way people would hear the songs.  A crying shame, but there you go. 

Let's talk about the new Quireboys album ‘Homewreckers and Heartbreakers'.  We heard ‘Hall of Shame' as far back as October 2006.  Was it the intention to audition some of the songs in front of a live audience before making the final track selection?

Well, it was a lot simpler than that.  When we did that show, we had been jamming a couple of new songs, so we thought we'd just do them live.  When we actually came to record the album, ‘Hall of Shame' wasn't included.  We wrote a whole new bunch of songs, and then as the album was unfolding, we realised we'd forgotten about it, so we put it together very quickly and it was included after all. 

We heard ‘One for the Road', ‘Louder', ‘Mona Lisa Smiled' and ‘Blackwater' in December last year, but there was still a delay in getting the album out.  What was the reason?

The reality was that we'd learned by our mistakes.  While we were doing this new album, we were getting out of a management deal, a record deal, and trying to change agents.  We wanted to take our time to get the right people involved otherwise it would have been the same situation as ‘Treat To Be Alive'.  The fans complained that it had been four years, but you have to remember it was four years for us as well.  That's the reality, and unfortunately we could only take things at a certain pace without getting involved in big lawsuits.  We knew that if we didn't get it right this time, it would just ruin us.  And the proof of the pudding is now it was worth the wait, because the record company is doing a great job and the right gigs are being booked. 

Who does the bulk of all the negotiation within the band?

Well, it's internal, and our manager is involved.  I was very instrumental in sealing the record deal because I'd been playing guitar for Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites).  He's on Jerkin' Crocus as well, so over a six month period I had a chance to meet Mick Brown, become friends with him, and see how he worked with Dan Baird.  I then felt comfortable recommending him to the guys.  I had a list as long as my arm of questions for him - just simple questions, not asking for the palace on the hill or anything.  He answered each question with what he could and couldn't do for us, and I walked away from the meeting totally satisfied.  It's a totally different situation from the previous label, where we never met anyone the whole time we were signed with them because they had no interest in us. 

I understand you have opted to license the album this time round?

Yes, and that's everything to do with the situation that we were in.  We had to clear the slate because it just wasn't working for us.  Our agent only took us on because he had signed UFO and we had the same management.  We were like the crumbs at the end of it, which wasn't very good for us, but we didn't discover this until much later.  We had months of getting out of old contracts and getting into something that would suit us better, but we didn't want to wait until we got everything in place to then start recording an album.  We decided to pay for it ourselves and get on with recording it, so by the time everything was in order, we had an album to deliver.  Over the years the business side has changed as well.  CDs are sold at gigs now, and we have a very good deal with the record company.  It's in all the shops, in fact I just walked down Oxford Street to check, and it's on the "Recommended" stand at HMV.  We just came back from Norway last week and it was in the shops at the airport.  The record company is taking care of their side of it, and we are selling it at the gigs.  All I'm interested in is that it is available for people to hear and that it gets a fair crack of the whip. 

What inspired the title ‘Homewreckers and Heartbreakers'?

It's a funny story.  We were in Malmo, Sweden in the dressing room.  It was just before the show and we'd had a few frothy quenchers.  We were trying to come up with album titles, and everyone was laughing at the suggestions.  A certain member of the band was regaling a story about something he'd done, and another member of the band said "you're just a home wrecker," and someone else said "yeah, and a heartbreaker".  We were just having a laugh, and bang, there it was.  It was as simple as that. 

What is the story behind the album cover?

I went to visit my girlfriend's family in Prague, and her 95 year old grandfather, who had been an engineer all his life, took me to his workshop at the back of the house.  Hanging on the wall was this painting which just blew me away when I saw it.  It's a painting of the grandfather, painted by Josef Tokstein in 1938 during the communist era.  It's all about temptation.  He's holding a glass of wine and the skeleton with the violin is whispering something in his ear.  What you can't see from the album sleeve, because of the placement of the band logo, is that there is actually a naked woman above his head, which is obviously his thoughts, and as soon as I saw that picture it just astounded me.  Anyway, it was time to come up with an album sleeve, and rather than the same old picture of the band that most people do, I showed the guys a copy of the painting.  Everybody loved it.  The amazing thing about it is that it's an original piece of artwork that no-one outside of that family has ever seen before.  It's been sitting there since 1938, and what's even better is (leans over conspiratorially) the grandfather and the artist were complete scallywags.  I've heard the stories.  They were both home wreckers and heartbreakers.  It all tied in nicely, and it's a great album sleeve.  It's a strong image, a piece of original art, and there's a story attached to it.  It's not just some half baked idea that someone came up with.  It's been well thought out, as has the album.  It's a full package as far as I'm concerned. 

What's the usual division of labour in the creation of a Quireboys album? 

Well, as I wasn't there for all of them, I can only comment on the last two.  The great thing about this one is the current line-up is such a solid unit.  Nigel wasn't there, obviously, but we'll talk about that in a minute.  We've been all over the world together playing, so whether you put us in the corner of a pub or in a stadium, we're ready.  When we began to record it, the ideas were all there, and we knew everybody's strengths.  It was a really natural process, where everyone was open to suggestion or change.  Obviously there is a long history with Guy and Spike, and that's where the bulk of it comes from. 

Tell us about the tracks that you wrote?

I specifically wrote ‘One for the Road', but the original title was ‘Black Coffee Blues', about a trip to Dublin and waking up with a hangover.  I specifically sat down to write a song that I thought would fit on ‘A Bit of What you Fancy'.  As we're all very open to the whole suggestion thing, you can never say it's finished and that's it.  Spike, as we would expect, took it away and came back with different lyrics and Griff said make it ‘One for the Road'.  We jammed it and it worked.  Dead simple.  I'd written the music and lyrics like a kind of Al Green thing for ‘Take a Look at Yourself', then Spike got hold of it and made it what I couldn't make it because I can only take a song so far.  I've written with other people before and it's never been as good as working with these boys.  They are the right people for the job. 

To me, these are two of the more laid back tracks, with an almost West Coast/ Stones/ Eagles vibe to them.  Does this have any reflection on the people you've played with in the past?

Well, I never thought of it that way, but very possibly.  I do a lot of writing anyway, and we'd got all the rockers already covered on the album.  I didn't want to put songs forward just because I could get my name on it, I wanted to contribute something I thought would be part of the whole picture, and I thought those two were right for the job.  Take ‘Rumours' by Fleetwood Mac - that album is a whole picture.  You couldn't say it's a rock album, a soul album, a pop album.  That is a well rounded album.  It sounds cocky comparing that album to ours, but why not? 

People always assume from my past with songs like ‘Sweet Little Ruby' or whatever that I write just rockers, but a lot of time has passed since then and I've worked  with a lot of great songwriters like Bap Kennedy and listened to a lot of different stuff.  I'm a lot older now, and I've played with a lot more people so it's a whole different picture.  I've been writing this morning, getting songs together for what might be my album, another Quireboys album, another Spike album, a Paul and Griff album, who knows?  I just keep writing all the time.

How long did the album take to record?

The whole process took a week.  It was a great week.  It was just us, locked in the studio with no drinking and no distractions.  The studio is Lost Boys - it's in the middle of nowhere on a working farm.  The reason we went there was because the studio we have in Bedford is well known to everybody in the town, and come lunchtime every day, you'd have every plumber, builder, painter and candlestick-maker bringing their lunch in to hang out with the boys.  That's what happened on ‘Well Oiled' and it was a pain in the ass.  This time we went somewhere where we couldn't be found.  We wanted to take away any of the possibility of disruption, and that's why I think it sounds like such a good record, because everybody was focussed on what they were there to be focussed on.  Recording ten feet from the pub just isn't conducive to getting anything done properly. 

How are the guitar solos distributed?  Can you and Guy play each other's solo parts?

I don't have a great answer, because it's such a natural thing.  You know how sometimes twins finish each other's sentences?  It's almost like that.  It's a great combination.  It just naturally pans out who does what.  No-one gets precious or angry if they don't get the solo they want.  I got the bulk of them on this album, but it doesn't actually matter, as long as the song is great and the solo fits the song.  If they weren't sure about something I did, they'd tell me and I'd do another one.  It didn't matter, because it was all for the good of the song.  It's a very good situation to work in with the Quireboys.  Spike, God bless him, is his own biggest critic, and if there's something we don't like, he'll do it again and again until he thinks it's completely right, just as all of us do.  And yes, Guy and I can play each other's parts.   

I understand there were some more people involved this time around, with different instruments being used as opposed to previous albums?

That was the plan from the start.  ‘Well Oiled' was around the time when Jet were really happening, and I think the writing was influenced by them at the time, with the whole raw guitars thing.  This time we wanted to make a classic Quireboys album.  We knew as it developed that the songs lend themselves to the mandolins and violins, just as they did on the first album.  Nothing was set in stone; we didn't have a United Nations meeting before we started or anything, because it's art, after all.  That's the great joy of the whole thing.  Nobody was going to complain if a guitar solo was replaced by a violin solo.   That's not important; the song is what is important, and the album as a whole.  We brought some great players in, too, and Cherry Lee Mewis who did the backing vocals.  They're all local guys from Bedford.  

Do you still see yourself as earning your stripes with the Quireboys, and will we hear more contributions from you on the next album?

I think we all still feel that, because it's not a lazy band.  I believe it really is a force to be reckoned with.  It's like a football team.  You can't turn up for training and say you can't be bothered, because everybody's got to be at the top of their game.  But I feel totally at home and comfortable in the band; it feels like I've been with them for ever - well, I suppose I have been indirectly over the years.  It's not about me trying to make a name for myself as a writer, it's all about what my contribution is.  I don't present songs just for the sake of it because I respect the situation I've walked into.  If everybody was to start doing that, it would suddenly stop being the Quireboys, and become a parody of the whole thing.  You can't just stamp your feet and demand that your song is on the album, because if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit, and we have to be true to it.  The sound might change, but the spirit has to stay the same.  That's why I'm very careful with what I present.  I don't want it to become something different.  I've got enough outlets for other things if I need to.  Actually, I read a review in a country music magazine the other day, where the writer had to be almost beaten to death by the PR company to listen to the album because they said "we don't listen to the Quireboys, they're like Ratt or Poison".  Of course we're not, and we never were, but that's what some people's perception is. 

In the DVD ‘One More For the Road' Nigel doesn't look too happy.  Shortly after that, he left the band.  Can you tell us what the circumstances were?

Well, I'll work my answer backwards for that one.  The reason Nigel isn't in the band any more is that he lives in Los Angeles where he has his own thing going with his wife, and he wanted to cherry pick which gigs he did. That's all very well, but we already had a bass player who had been in the band for 3 years.  We have to pay respect to Jimi, and we couldn't expect him to just hang around.   The cost of flights back and forward from LA for a few gigs here and there for someone who was doing it just for a jolly, well, the levee had to break.  I still speak to Nigel all the time, but it just couldn't carry on like that. 

Spike told me Nigel used to get in his way and once he broke his nose while he was doing microphone acrobatics.  Jimi stands much more in the background - is this just in case something similar happens?

No, it's very simple.  I spotted Jimi when I went to see his band.  He's a great player, and a great looking kid, but he had a real vibe about him, and he wasn't even moving.  He was doing John Entwistle.  That's where that comes from.  He hasn't been told to stand in the background, that's just his thing.  What's interesting is that he's a real chameleon.  He's into Whitesnake this week, so his hair's all big at the moment.  He becomes whatever he becomes, but I think it's really cool, he's just at the back locking in with his bass and the drums.  Anyway, there's enough dancing going on already at the front - it's like Strictly Come Quireboys! 

Your first band was the Red Dogs in 1997, hailed by many as something of a national treasure and seriously underrated.   Am I right in thinking that you put the band together?  

It all started with a band called Split Crow Road who had one album out, and they moved to London.  I moved to London at the same time, and lived in a house with them.  Their guitarist John Dickinson decided to move onto other things, so I took his place in the band.  Then the singer decided not to come to London - didn't want to leave his girlfriend or whatever, so the obvious thing was to form another band.  We were called Montana Red Dog after the card game.  We had a couple of singers who didn't work out, and then put an advert in NME and Mickey Ripley came in, and that was it.  We started getting a bit of a name for ourselves in London, and in the meantime Ginger had been sacked from the Quireboys, and brought Ray Zell from Kerrang along to see us because he was going to pinch our bass player.  Ray Zell loved the band and we got the full squiggle in Kerrang.  Ray's girlfriend worked for Razor Records, and the next thing we got a call from Razor.  I'd borrowed £500 from my mate so that we could go into a studio, the guy from the label arrived, paid off the £500, and the result was the ‘Sweet Little Ruby' EP.  Next thing, Atlantic America got involved, and we did the ‘Wrong Side of Town' mini album with Barriemore Barlow from Jethro Tull.  It could have been great, but it was mixed so badly that I don't think it sounds good at all.  We only released it because we had a tour coming up.  Then we went on to record ‘Working Late' at John Entwistle's studio in his house.  Again, I wasn't happy with the way it was being mixed, so we fell out with Atlantic America.  The rest of the boys in the band were saying we couldn't argue with them, and I said we could argue as long as we wanted, because the mixes were shit, and I wasn't having it.  We won in the end, and went into Triple X studios in Acton with Gavin Lewis, finished it, mixed it, and it came out on Eagle Rock Records sounding as it should have sounded.  It would never have sounded like it does with the mixes from Entwistle's place.  By this time, we had fallen out with management, and the band fell apart.  That's it in a nutshell.    

As that experience took place early in your career, has it left you in any way bitter towards the industry?

No, not a bit.  It was only later that I discovered the reasons behind the whole thing.  We were supposed to do the album with Mick Ralphs from Bad Company, who would have been perfect for the job, but the guy from Atlantic wanted to make friends with John Entwistle and Barriemore Barlow, so that's how we ended up there.  We were just pawns in the game. 

How did you end up playing with Michael Schenker?

I started working with Michael in 1993.  The Red Dogs had just split up, and I was nursing the heartache of everything I'd worked for going down the pan.  UFO had the same management as us, and when Michael needed a guitar tech, I was called in to do it.  He wanted Pete Way and Paul Raymond to play on the acoustic ‘Thank You' album, and no offence to them, but they couldn't play the parts.  Pete suggested me to Michael, Michael heard what I could do, and I basically went from being his guitar tech to being part of the show.  I toured Germany, America and Japan with Michael, but it comes as no surprise to anybody that there is only so much you can take of him.  When he went berserk in Japan and attacked Mr Udo, I was offered an American tour, but I turned it down.  He's a legendary player, but a very difficult man.

In terms of playing with the greats, you also played with one of my favourites, Dan Baird.  How did that relationship come about?

Well, it all started in Spain at the Serie Z gig, where Dan was on the bill.  We became friends from that point, and if he was ever in town he'd call me and we'd jam a few songs.  Last September at the last minute his guitar player let him down and couldn't do the European tour, so I got a phone call asking if I'd go out and do it.  I had to learn everything, which I did do, note by note.  I've loved these songs and loved the Georgia Satellites more years than I care to remember.  I flew in to Zurich or somewhere, went straight to the gig, did the soundcheck, and did the show.  I couldn't do the whole tour, as I had Quireboys commitments, but Warner Hodges, one of my favourite guitar players, took over from me and did the other half of the tour.  That way Warner and I became great friends and now I'm playing in his solo band - that's a mighty sound!  It's a dream come true for me - I'm like a kid in a candy store. 

Once again you played with some heavyweights at the tribute concert for Frankie Miller in 2002.  What was the highlight of that show and why?

I'd been playing with Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy in The Clan, so we've always stayed friends.  There was a tribute night coming up for Frankie at Glasgow Barrowlands, and the core band was going to be Ted McKenna, (drummer; Sensational Alex Harvey Band), Hugh McKenna (keyboards, SAHB), Brian Robertson on guitar, Joe Walsh on guitar, and me on guitar.  Robbo's management phoned me up and asked me if I'd do it.  That evening there were 30 artists who got up and played with us, all doing Frankie songs, so it was a lot to learn.  I remember Joe Walsh came into the rehearsal room and said "I've done ‘Life's Been Good' a lot of times with a lot of musicians - ok, starting with you, what are you going to play", and he looked at me.  I had to stand there and play it, and he went round the room like that, just checking that everyone was capable of doing it.  That was an absolutely amazing evening.  It ran over by about four hours.  I've got all these people on stage with me, we're doing ‘Rocky Mountain Way', ‘Life's Been Good' and stuff like that, and I thought I'm just a kid from Blyth; where the f**k did this come from?

One connection from your career that's a bit more left of centre is the Fun Lovin' Criminals.  How did that come about?

I was in The King, the Elvis tribute band, and we were supporting the Fun Lovin' Criminals.  The first night I met them was at Brixton Academy, and Huey (Morgan) was sitting there watching me play in the soundcheck.  He said "Hey, are you from Newcastle?"  I said yes, and he said "you're not going to f**kin' kick my head in, are you?"   I said no, and that was it, we've been friends ever since.  He and my cousin are in partnership in Dublin; they own bars in Temple Bar.  He's got an offshoot band called Cooley High with Matteo Di Fontaine, the DJ from the Criminals.  Their guitar player in America had a drugs bust so couldn't fly to Europe, so he asked me to play with them.  So I joined them, we were opening up for the Criminals, and then doing a hell of a lot of drinking in Dublin.  I'll never forget it; we didn't go to bed for three days and we were in Eamonn Doran's, which my cousin owns, at 9.00 in the morning.  The police came in and said "lads, we don't want to be party poopers, but could you make this your last beer?"  Anyway, we carried on, and I got through a bottle of Jagermeister.  I thought I'd gone to sleep in Dublin, next thing I woke up in a hotel in London, and to this day I have still no recollection of leaving Dublin.  How did they let me get on a plane?  They must have been trying to get rid of me!

The success of The King was a huge surprise to all involved.  Tell us the story. 

That was f**kin' brilliant.  Me and Bap Kennedy and Keith (Weir) used to do records all the time; we were just trying to make a buck and get by as musicians.   We used to sit and drink all day and brainstorm ideas and when we were in Nashville doing Bap Kennedy's album ‘Domestic Blues' we went to Graceland, came up with the idea for The King and made it happen. The plan was to record an album of songs by dead artists with Elvis singing.  We printed 500 albums thinking it was a bit more money in the pocket and that would be it, but John Peel and Bob Geldof got hold of it and it was a tidal wave.  EMI signed it, Electrola in Germany signed it, it just rolled and skyrocketed, and the next thing we're flying round in Lear jets.  We had Tina Turner and Lenny Kravitz's tour bus, and we were thinking where did all this come from?  The only catch was the guy who was The King was the biggest f**kin' prick.  He was horrible, very small minded, and thought he was being ripped off by everybody.  He was working in a post office one minute, then flying around in Lear jets, he'd just paid for his house right out, and he still felt he was being ripped off.  I remember waking up one morning in Stuttgart. We had a new tour manager and they had us booked in the airport hotel where a sandwich was £20.  I asked the tour manager to organise some food, and he said just go and buy some.  I said I didn't really want to because I didn't ask to be in that hotel, as I'd always asked to be downtown where the bars are.  He said you can eat when The King arrives, but that wasn't until 8.00 that night, and it was 11 in the morning.  So, as great as it was, and fun, that's when I realised the party was over, so I said f**k this, I'm off.

Tell us about the gear that you use?

I enjoy the challenge of playing with different stuff.  I really believe you can sound like yourself through anything.  That's the fun thing about it.  Of course I've got my Les Pauls, my Telecasters, my Strats and my Marshalls.  I've been using Blackstar recently.  There's a guy called John Dickinson who builds boutique amps which are just incredible.  I actually used a Peavey Classic 30 and a Dickinson amp on the album.  Some of the overdubs were done with my Marshall, a Blackstar pedal and a Hughes and Kettner amp.  I've got my 1980 Les Paul Heritage, a Standard Series Les Paul, my 77 Tele and my 79 Strat.  I did all the slide guitar on ‘Louder' and ‘Hall of Shame' on an ASC 1500 Yamaha hollow body.  That's a great guitar.  All the acoustic stuff I did was on Yamahas, but I can't remember the models.  Amps are amps to me.  It comes from the fingers.  Obviously you've got to have a certain level of quality, but I have fun using different gear. 

Have you tried to establish a particular sound over the years?

Not really.  Sometimes I question myself thinking maybe I should stick to this or stick to that, but f**k it, there are a million guitar players with their signature sound in the world, and I enjoy stuff with different sounds.  It's me playing it, so obviously there's some consistency through it, but quite often when you've got a different sound you come up with a different solo or a different idea, and that's the exciting thing about it, because the sound can lead you in a different direction.  Just listen to Elvis' records.  If those guys had had Marshall stacks and all the pedals that we have now, they wouldn't have come up with that sound.  They were using what they had, which made the playing as it was.  Those guys were using Gibson Super 400s  and Gretsches, and you couldn't bend the strings then.  It was James Burton who started using banjo strings on his Telecaster, to recreate the pedal steel bends.  That was what was available to the people that forged the sounds of those records, and the whole rock ‘n' roll movement.  I'm a firm believer in not pigeon-holing yourself into just one thing, because you might discover something new.  What if you're suddenly thrown into a situation where you've got a totally clean sound with a guitar that's difficult to play?  What are you going to do?  You've gotta do something, and that's what those boys did. 

Tell us about some of your extra curricular activities.  I understand you are on the board of the Royal School of Music?

It's not that fancy, actually.  It's a great thing, they started a Rock School, and it's a serious thing.  It's about the kids being given a chance to form bands and interact with all the other kids of different ages and different levels, and there is equipment provided and we do it at the Royal College of Music.  We kind of go in as mentors and we help them and talk to t hem about how it is to be in a band and what you're supposed to do.  Some of these kids are young, some of them are 16 or whatever.  Then we have a battle of the bands, and we have a celebrity panel to judge them.  There are prizes etc, it gives them a chance to play in front of an audience in a good atmosphere.  Myself and Jo Burt who was Tom Robinson band, Virginia Woolf, Black Sabbath, Freddie Mercury's bass player, we have Andy from Faithless on drums, and we go in and do a show as a band of professionals to show them how it's done.  We do workshops like bass tuition, how the bass works with drums, how the guitar interacts, etc, so it's a pretty good thing. 

How did you become a consultant for the UK government initiative "New Deal for Musicians."  I understand some of your clients have gone on to be very successful musicians?

I take that seriously because twenty years ago I was unemployed and signing on the dole, and I'll never forget when the guy said "occupation" and I said "musician" he said you can't write that, it's not a proper job.  Then I got the opportunity to go into Job Centres and work with people who are unemployed musicians, and it's a recognised occupation now.  I deal with everything.  It's like being part counsellor, part mentor, part friend, part listener.  I teach everything from copyright law to where to place a microphone in front of a speaker to how to work with Pro Tools.  I advise on what the role of management is, and how to go about getting a deal.  It's amazing how many people say "I'm looking for a deal" but they're  not, they're waiting for one to arrive.  It's a reality check a lot of the time, because I've been doing it so long.  Bands like the Darkness were on new Deal for Musicians.  Now a lot of bands are coming through that have been involved with the scheme, and while they're not going to get an overnight success, hopefully we help steer them in the right direction if they do get a deal and the manager will make the right decisions and not have them signing the wrong bits of paper.  That's what it's about really. 

Now's your chance to give the New King's Road Guitar Emporium a plug?

I've been involved with them for years.  The shop has a lot of famous patronage like  Gary Moore, Joe Walsh, Richie Sambora.  It's endless.  It's not in the West End, it's out in SW6, there's a pub next door, and people can go in there without being bothered by passers by.  It's a great place to sit and jam, hang out, smoke cigars, have a drink or two, and they've got the best selection of vintage guitars and amplifiers in the world.  On the other hand, there are a lot of people who want to invest in vintage guitars, like collecting artwork - they're not going to go down in value.  Hedge funds may go up and down, but a guitar with a certain pedigree will go up.  Quite often I'm brought in to demonstrate the guitar and talk about it, or there will be people who just want to learn to play and they want to hear how a guitar sounds because they can't play it themselves.   They'll be able to hear the virtues of something with a Brazilian Rosewood side and a maple top, and understand why some guitars are more expensive than others.  So it's a case of catering for rock stars to investors to people who actually don't feel confident going into a situation they perceive to be high brow, but it actually isn't.  I'll go in and make them feel comfortable, I'll demonstrate the guitar, tell them the virtues of it and make it sound as it should sound for them.

What got you into playing guitar in the first place, and who are your heroes?

I was in love with Slade when I was a kid.  I even had a Dave Hill haircut when I was 12.  My older sister took me to see them in 1972 or 1973, I can't remember, but I remember Newcastle City Hall, everybody dressed in the glam stuff and the girls going berserk, and ‘Slade in Flame' coming out.  I was hooked from then on.   As far as heroes go, when I was at school it was Michael Schenker and UFO.  That playing just blew my mind.  Rick Derringer, Cheap Trick.  I loved Kiss.  AC/DC are still my favourite; Gary Moore can't be touched; Nils Lofgren.  I loved Rory Gallagher and used to follow him around on tour and sleep in the car.  Steve Earle's acoustic playing is phenomenal; Brad Paisley; Warner Hodges; Rick Richards from the Georgia Satellites.  All the classic rock ‘n roll players who can do something in quite a confined area, because all the licks have already been written.  It's like someone doing Shakespeare.  It's the same words, but one guy can shine and one can be shit! 

I understand you teach guitar also?

I really enjoy teaching.  I like seeing those stages that I went through when I was 12 years old teaching myself.  I don't ask my students to learn nursery rhymes - it's straight into proper playing.  Sometimes they love me, sometimes they hate me, but I always explain why we're doing things, and I do personalised video lessons for students so they don't go away and forget what happened in the lesson.  The results are brilliant.  There are two guys I've been teaching for 12 months, and we're doing Zeppelin, Free and Lizzy all at a proper level.  Sometimes I'll get students saying they are baffled by a book, and I'll look at it and be baffled myself.  The books are so badly written, so I do my own personalised course.  If you look at a scale in a book, it's generally not how a Rock'n'Roll guitar player would do it, so I transpose it to the position where Jimmy Page would play it.  Students don't want to be Segovia, they want to be Jimmy Page, and that's the top and bottom of it, so I teach them the scale that Jimmy Page would play as opposed to what's written in the book. 

Final question - how would you sum up ‘Homewreckers and Heartbreakers' in your own words?

I think ‘Homewreckers and Hearbreakers' is the best album the Quireboys have made.  It's an album that will remind fans why they fell in love with the Quireboys in the first place and it's a great introduction to the Quireboys for new fans who weren't around back in the day.  Hopefully it will whet their appetite enough to check out the Quireboys' previous albums. 

‘Homewreckers and Heartbreakers' is out now on the Jerkin' Crocus label.  The Quireboys are on tour in the UK from 27^th November to 14^th December.  Check www.quireboys.com or www.myspace.com/thequireboys for details.

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