| About The Band |
| THE INITIAL CHANGES As time wore on and more songs were written, the decision about the band's name once again came into question. Around the end of 2000, Muscutt came up with a new name - Cord. "I'd been playing this game down Simon's called "In Cold Blood" which featured this character called John Cord, which I thought was a cool name". This wasn't the only factor, however. After reading the very dictionary from which the Sepia name had been chosen, the group discovered the true meaning of 'sepia'. "Initially, I thought it was just a nice name or word" says Peter, "until we were reading through and wanted to know what it actually meant. It was then we discovered that sepia is a form of colour treatment used in old photographs and films, and is a really nasty brown colour - like coffee stains...so...we changed the name". Sepia Mk 2, "Cord" - was born. ROUTINE By now things had established themselves. Peter wrote songs every month and emailed them down to Simon for prior approval. The songs were stored on Peter's computer on one large file. One problem musically was that none of the songs had any melodies to go with them. Added to this was the band's musical abilities which at the time, were not the best. Peter had a guitar, but did not have access to it all the while was at university. Simon had relatively low experience at playing either the guitar or bass, although Gary had access to guitars. All the band needed was a proper bassist, drummer and singer! Oh, and some tunes, of course. The drummers position was filled for a very short time by one of Peter's co-workers from his time at one of the supermarkets in the summer of 2000, a guy by the name of Simon Cox. Simon owne his own kit, although due to restrictions at home, was not allowed to practise there. Things were looking up. Cox was recruited following an extremely ad-hoc meeting in The Cellars Bar between himself and Muscutt one lunch time, where Cox listened to some of Peter's basic chord layouts for songs he had written. However, Simon was lured away by another band called Ruby Moon, who's existance today is uncertain. Rumour has it Cox played a gig with them at a pub in Exeter. Rehearsal rooms were sought out without much luck, locations cited included a community centre in Teignmouth, and a room at Hazeldown Primary School, after school hours. However, none of these were met with a positive response to allow the band to practise there. It seemed just as progress was being made with the whole thing, nothing was going right. A practise at Peter's house fared no better - Gary twiddling away trying to learn cover versions of Oasis and Nirvana songs, while Peter strummed inconsequentially and Simon resorted to playing on Peter's Playstation. By this time it was Spring 2001, and the beginning of a shift in songwriting styles, for both Muscutt and Laughton. SONGWRITING As more experience was gained from constantly writing songs, the styles of both Peter and Simon began to change. "I think in the early stages of the group, we had no idea what you were supposed to do in a band, or what kind of things you were supposed to write about. That's why a lot of the stuff in mid-late 2000 is kind of silly or immature, we had no idea what we were doing" explains Muscutt. From 2001 onwards however, Muscutt began writing more from experience, and Laughton's contributions began shifting from ideas for Peter to write about, to his own work based on real life situations. "I suppose the stages I go through are a bit like a cycle" says Peter. "I'll write light hearted, almost comedic stuff, moving into sensible territory, you know, deep and meaningful - before going ga-ga and writing completely weird shit that means nothing at all, going back to sensible and finally light hearted again. "I think Simon' songs, although they seem pretty simple and jolly, really have an underlying sense of pessimism - most of them are about leaving behind all your friends, people changing you, and generally things that piss him off". THE BAND MK3 The final name change took place fairly recently, in January 2002. After sticking with the Cord moniker for so long and evntually growing bored of it, Muscutt took the law into his own hands and introduced another name - The Freak Travel City Kids. "I admit, I did actually sneak that one in" says Peter. "The only reason being I honestly didn't think Simon or Gaz would go for it, with it being such a weird name and all". The name was derived from a piece of graffiti on a wall near the Pool Meadow Bus Station in Coventry, West Midlands, where Peter saw it one day. "Don't go looking for it, I don't think it's there now - either someone covered it up with a poster or it got scrubbed off by cleaner people - which is sad, because, you know, that could have been like free advertising!" |