Bastard - Behind the Music

  • Paul was originally going to sing, hoping to achieve a gravelly Muttley McLad voice by shouting in the bathroom, but this just made him sound like some Northern bastard shouting in the bathroom. Phil snatched the microphone away with the intent of demonstrating the requisite amount of gravel to be added to the voice, and amazed everyone - himself most of all.
  • The album was recorded in two days in Phil’s South Hill room on a crappy 4 track mixer, and mixed down over the university summer vacation at Legge’s parents’ house because their stereo was better than Phil’s.
  • Paul supports Burnley Football Club.
  • Paul M lent Paul and Phil his bass for the duration of the recording, and Phil bought the drum machine from Mad Paul. There were a lot of Pauls involved.
  • Paul is a much better guitarist than Phil, but Phil is better able to hold his booze.
  • Paul had to be “signed in at the door” of Chamberlain Bar because his residence card had the wrong expiry date printed on it.
  • Phil wrote “Off Games Week” after waking up with a raging hangover the morning after being told by some bird he’d been vaguely seeing that she “didn’t want a relationship”. The daft cow did this in the bar whilst Phil was ordering a round of drinks, which he promptly doubled and drank all to himself before going a bit mental.
  • Paul had the audacity to play “Steve Bruce” to the girl who it was about and then insisted it wasn’t about her, even though she was the only bird in the entire university whose nose looked like it had gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson.
  • Phil was - and still is - very proud of the first verse of “Jim Porter Supporter”
  • The birds in Chamberlain were indeed minging.
  • Phil used the first mixdown tape to transfer the analogue recordings to digital format in early 2000. The original 4 track master has gone missing and may even have been recorded over.
  • The album’s cover photography was done in a photo booth in the Students’ Union. Two drunken men crammed into a tiny photo booth, but it wasn’t gay, like.
  • The barcode on the CD artwork is made up and doesn’t mean anything at all.
  • Paul recorded “Tears of the Gods Parts I and II” using Paul M’s effects unit while Phil was on campus being examined orally. He turned up at the exam still pissed from the night before, because he was that wild and crazy.