Exitbase was crazy and different. Having now finished university and started work I needed something to work on creatively. On that basis I started responding to adds in the Melody Maker and as a result ended up meeting Gavin (the bassist) in a pub in Ealing. Gavin was a strange looking bloke. He was well over 6 foot, with a thick Scottish accent, skinny as a rake, but with crazy eyes and quite clearly was gagging for a piece of the rock and roll dream. We got on great straight away and quickly found we were both crazy about the Verve (the early stuff – not the later radio friendly pap that everyone knows). After a bit of a chat and a couple of pints of Guinness I think Gavin was convinced although he hadn’t heard me play a note yet, and we headed back to his house in Hanwell to jam and meet Mark the singer. They already had a couple of songs that Gav played me in the car which sounded pretty cool but they had loads of ideas knocking around that they were struggling to knock into songs. By the end of that first night I think I’d managed to take a couple of their ideas and turn them into fully-fledged songs. By the time Mark turned up a couple of hours later Gav was like “you’ve got to hear this”. I was in.

It was interesting being in a band where your primary reason for being together is exactly that: being a band. In the past it hard always really grown out of messing about with my mates (although that circle did expand to incorporate singers and drummers slightly out of the sphere – we were still all essentially the same age and at school together). As a result the guys were fiercely motivated do work at it and make it. Creatively I’d probably always been the one pushing things previously but here I’d found two people who would lap up whatever I came up with and want more! I say two people because initially it was just the 3 of us, which made for interesting rehearsals with no drums! The reason being that Mark had a mate (called Ruben) who was going to be arriving in the UK from NZ in a couple of months and he was by all accounts a shit hot drummer – although a little crazy (aren’t they all). 

However whereas in the past I’d probably of lapped up all of that energy, now with a full time job my energies were somewhat diminished. To make matters worse the guys were obsessed with rehearsing. At least 3 nights a week we’d be together. At least 2 of those were in the rehearsal studio and we never started there till 9:30 so by the time we got out it was around 12 and by the time I got home and unloaded the car it would be 12:30 and with the music still ringing in my ears it would be 1 by the time I’d get to sleep. Then up again 7 to go to work! 

We kept it up for a while. I loved the guys, they were great fun. It was like being in a gang again and nothing beats that feeling. When your all pointed toward a common goal and it’s that you against the world mentality. In a way its remarkable how well we got along considering we were just randoms who met through an add – but we did.

We had some great times. I remember the night we got together and just got wrecked because we were having such a hard time agreeing on a name. In the end I came up with Exitbase and as soon as everyone heard it (through a mist of smoke and drunkenness) we all knew it was instantly right. I’d liked the name the Exit Band that I got from Radiohead and their song Exit Song but then I thought we needed to make it a little bit more groovy/dancey. Something to signify we were not just another white indie band playing pallid guitar music. And so I added what was originally bass but when your wrote the words together we agreed the base spelling looked better.

The other night that sticks in the mind was one night when we through a party around Gav’s house. It was crazy and probably the closest I’ve ever come to losing it! At about 2 in the morning we somehow found ourselves with a U2 covers/look-alikes band playing in Gav’s front room. Not what you’d expect. For the full story you’ll have to ask me…

The music we were writing was cool and unlike anything I’d ever written before. The influences of the guys were a lot more rocky and groove based than anyone I’d worked with before and they weren’t afraid to rock out. What we ended up with I think was something that sounded a bit like a cross between The Verve and The Doors. Which as musical influences goes aint bad!

In addition to the songs with all the rehearsing we’d been doing and the musicianship of the guys we were uber tight. With all the years of playing guitar I could now really let fly and get close to the giddy heights of losing it (whilst still sounding good) that I’d seen my heroes (Bernard Butler, Graham Coxon) reach on stage.

However all that came at a cost. After 6 months or so of that relentless schedule something had to give. I couldn’t do the job I was doing and hope to progress as I was hoping to and keep up this relentless performance/rehearsal schedule. So something had to give. And in the end I decided the band would have to go. To be honest I don’t think it was that difficult a decision even though I loved the guys and playing with them. I had felt a little uneasy from the start when I sensed how seriously the guys were taking the band. This was life and death to them. And for me it just wasn’t. I’d made that life decision back when I was 18 and it wasn’t one I regretted. I didn’t want work to be just a series of dead end jobs that I did whilst I focussed all my energy and efforts on making it in the music business. The music business could do just fine without me and me without it.

Telling the guys this was difficult though. They were genuinely gutted. We did have that magic together and when you have that its hard to wave goodbye to. But if they wanted the dream as much as they did they needed someone who was as committed as them. I offered to write down tab for all the songs and help them audition replacements guitarists so everything was left amicably. In fact about a month or so afterwards the guys gave me a call as they’d somehow secured some studio time in Ealing Studios and wanted me to come in and help them record some of the songs we’d written together – which I happily did. The demos didn’t turn out that great. In fact I think some of the tapes I’ve got off live gigs we did were better (we were that good live). I think the reason in part was that the “producer” we had was a student and seemed to know less about recording than I did (and my knowledge was the sum of 3 weekends experience) and the fact that we just tried to do too much. Recording takes an inordinate amount of time. We could of probably of done 1 song well but instead we decided to do 4 songs badly. Cest La Vie.

My only regret of that time is that I lost touch with the guys. They were a good bunch and I’d love to hear what they came up with next and where they are now. But the world moves on and our lives were pulling in other directions.  

Gigs I can remember:

Half Moon, Putney
Red Eye, Kings Cross
The Rock Garden, Covent Garden
(There were a lot more but I can’t remember them)

Songs we wrote included:

Step In Between
Into The Blue
Nowhere Near
Next Life
Whatever Gets You High
Closer
Cramps

The guys in the band were:

Mark HooperVocals

GavinBass

RuebenDrums

MeGuitar


Download EXITBASE songs