Keith is a native of the frozen wastes of Newcastle-on-Tyne which is where he acquired his very first guitar at the tender age of 11. It was a Rosetti Lucky Seven and cost him (or rather his Dad) the huge sum of seven guineas! I remember it was a kind of turquoise sunburst and the strings were miles away from the fingerboard – but I loved it all the same. The very first tune he learnt to play (badly!) was the Volga Boatman. Then he moved on to a Futurama III (£25!) and pretended to be Hank Marvin and even learned the Shadows walk!

The lure of the big city beckoned and Keith moved to London (sadly as a student teacher and not as a rock star) – something to do with getting a ‘proper job’. It wasn’t too long before he had formed a college band, calling themselves Sefton Wall (one of the guys came from Sefton near Liverpool and Keith stole the latter half of Hadrian’s Wall, which as all you historians know was built across the country from Newcastle to Carlisle by the Romans to protect the Geordies from the Picks and Celts... or was it the other way round?

In those days, Radio 1 was still in its infancy and as part of the regular entertainment there would be daily performances by bands which were pre-recorded at a selection of BBC studios and the played on shows hosted by the likes of Jimmy Young, Dave Lee Travis and Johnny Walker. One of these shows was Katch 22 and after passing an audition Keith joined this outfit. Lots of country-wide gigs followed together with more radio appearances.

Keith remained in London and when Katch 22 dissolved, went on with another band member to form Paintbox who produced a couple of singles and toured extensively in Britain, as well as Poland, Scandinavia and Holland during the late seventies.

The band moved from London to the west country shortly after this the band took up residencies in numerous clubs and pubs in the area. I was during this period that Keith and other band members started writing original material… “We had become a three-piece by that time so the songs were constructed around that framework. There was something magical about the combination of one guitar, bass and drums. It was all about ‘space’ and dynamics which I know is a cliché to say but less was really more and in those days it all seemed to work really well.

The main problem was the band name “Paintbox” had a great reputation playing covers but the name was ‘wrong’ for an original band. So we came up with Mercedes – it felt right and sat really well with the material we were writing. Mind you, it wasn’t easy to change as we lost a lot of work during the transition but fortunately, over a period of time our audiences returned and we ended with a terrific crowd of fans….

The band managed to secure a number of German tours mainly playing in US Air bases and at one of these were spotted by talent scout who worked for a US management company.  “We had just come off stage and this guy came up and asked for a telephone number. When we got home, the phone range and the and the end result of the conversation was an invite to Los Angeles … To be continued.

For all you guitar players out there… a special little note from Keith…

“I can say I’ve had most of the ‘mainstream’  guitars over the years—you name it.. Strats, Teles, 335’s, Les Paul’s (I kept a standard Gold Top for many years), Now though I own a couple of PRS guitars—a very old pale blue Standard 24 which you would have to pry from my dying hands and a more recently acquired Custom 22 with the beautiful flying birds inlays on the neck."