IAIN MATTHEWS

"I was at home, living with my parents, and one day the phone rang - it was Paul Samwell Smith, who I didn't know although I knew who he was because he'd been the bass player with The Yardbirds. He was looking for a guitarist to work with an artist he'd just taken on... could I go round and see this guy, see if we could get on and help him sort out the songs - and that was Iain Matthews."

The partnership with Iain and Andy, which included Plainsong, ended for 18 years.

"It was all more to do with what was happening in his (Iain's) life than what was happening in the band. He was tempted away from the Plainsong situation by something that looked better at the time - to go to America and work with Mike Nesmith. Iain admits quite frankly that it was a mistake and that he shouldn't have done it, but that's part of life's rich pattern. There was tension between him and Dave Richards which was beginning to build up, and it got worse when the band split. I immediately went off and joined Grimms and got on with my solo things and put it all behind me."

But re-established itself in 1990 when ...

"I was visiting a girl friend down in Brighton and looking for something to do in the evening. I got the Brighton Argus and there was an advertisement in there for a chap called Iain Matthews playing at a pub in Brighton. I said to Sally, I used to work with a bloke called Iain Matthews, it can't possibly be the same one, for a start he lives in America and he would never play a pub in Brighton, I mean, it just isn't his style at all. And she said, well lets go anyway and you can always tell him that you've seen someone with the same name. We went, and it was Iain, working as a duo with a guy called Mark Hallman, so that was a terrific encounter."