The Burning Rat

The thing about being on tour is that you travel along many roads, as we did many, many times. One of the things that impressed me most about the band was how they could listen to a song and play it at the gig that very night.

They’d be in the van with acoustic guitars, working out the riffs. JB would be banging on the steering wheel, working out the bass. It was amazing to see.

This particular gig was in a lovely little pub with a massive stage area, a balcony, the works. It was beautiful, and we played an absolute stormer. I even managed a complete guitar change with Johnny without anybody noticing. It was about the most perfect gig you could imagine.

The landlord was happy. He paid us more than he should have done. Everything was lovely jubbly, and we got booked again.

So we went back expecting exactly the same thing.

This time, however, we decided to build ourselves a little backstage area. After setting up, the guys sat down there and smoked something a little bit illegal.

The gig went well, but unfortunately the landlord wasn’t so happy. He’d just got divorced from his wife, he was upset, he wasn’t making money, blah de blah de blah. Then he found our backstage area.

He threw an absolute hissy fit.

I packed down the drum kit faster than Usain Bolt. We got out of there so fast it was amazing, though Jamie, being Jamie, still managed to get the money from him.

Back in the van, we were all a bit stressed out. Then Johnny, being Johnny, just turned round and said:

“We should do the burning rat.”

“What’s the burning rat?” we said.

Well, according to Johnny, you find a rat, put a cloth round its tail, light it and put it through the letterbox.

We spent the next two hours discussing different methods of doing the burning rat.