Adrian 'Jimi' Westwood :
Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Backing Vocals 
Jimi would like to say that he picked up a guitar at the age of two - and jammed with Eric Clapton at the Albert Hall when he was 5 years old and Clapton said that he was the greatest blues player to crawl out of the swamplands of South Yorkshire.
Or that he was sick as a child and came out of a deep sleep as a reincarnation of Paul Kossoff.
But sadly he can't.
Jimi picked up the guitar at 16 and played at the Brown Cow in Sheffield 4 years later, a gig so loud that he virtually lost his hearing for the next 24 hours. What with the other guitarist with tassles on his boots and Jimi with his poodle, pigeon shit hair the band was doomed.
Jimi started actually took up the guitar at the same time as four fellow Sixth Formers at his school.
Jimi remembers, "We were all learning the same things - Stairway to Heaven note for note, the riff from UFO's Doctor Doctor and probably Smoke on the Water. One of the four finally learnt 'Stairway' note for note - at the age of 41! He's now moving on to Beethoven's 7th symphony. And I hope to crack that one by the age of 93!
"My first taste of playing live was in a mate's living room. Four guitars and one bass into one plug socket playing Quo's 'Paper Plane' with my mate's dad stubbornly reading his paper in his armchair. His expression gave nothing away. I think that he was stunned by the ineptness and the knowledge that the tempo of the music was still no match for the speed of his spinning electricity meter."
Jimi teamed up with Mick Thornton at college but they only ever messed around with the music there. They pretty much messed around with everything in their college years.
A 7-year break then lapsed before Mick and Jimi decided to take music a little more seriously. After a couple of false starts they hooked up with Dave Hoyle, an already very experienced bass player, who provided the one thing the band needed - organisation.
Jimi's favourite players? Hendrix, Kossoff, Townsend, Clapton, Richards - all the usual stuff, he says.
View Adrian 'Jimi' Westwood's Equipment List
|
