Stiff Promotions

BOO HEWERDINE can barely remember a time when he wasn't writing songs.

He crafted his first, about a sandcastle, when he was just seven. But he might have been working on songs before then.

"I seem to have always thought in songs," he said.

"It used to be a bit irritating for people around me because I would turn every situation into a song.

"I can't remember a time when I wasn't writing songs or poems. It always seemed the natural thing to do.

"Other kids played football - I wrote songs.

"I used to write songs and then take them round to friends who had bands. They played them and they always went down well.

"I was in a band at school. There were three of us and we all wrote songs. It was a really good environment because there was this competition to see who could write the best ones.

"It didn't do me any good at school though because I bleached my hair and they threatened to throw me out."

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HUNDREDS of tunes and three decades later, Boo's career has followed the usual roller coaster ride of a man making his way in the music business.

Several false starts with friends in teenage bands, the verge of making it with 80s Indie band The Bible, then finally real success as a solo singer song writer - writing for himself and a string of hits for others including Scots Queen of Folk Eddi Reader.

Not bad for a man who didn't pick up a guitar until he was 18.

"I had been writing songs for years so by then I really thought I ought to learn how to play them," he said.

With a little more business nous, Boo's song writing skill could have opened the door to fame and fortune when he was still just a teenager.

He explained: "I had another band at school with my best mate. We produced a demo which was really good.

"We went down to London from Cambridge and had this meeting with Virgin Records. Paula Yates came in at one stage which I thought was really something.

"The Virgin guy said our demo was really good... but I had no idea what that meant, so we went back home, waited and nothing happened.

"Maybe life would have turned out differently if I had known what he was talking about."

The same thing happened again soon after when the band moved down to London.

"We were so naive. We thought we'd give London a go but I was so broke I only had five strings on my guitar.

"One of the women who lived in our flat took our songs to a record company who said they really liked them.

"Again, I had no idea what that meant and the opportunity went. After that I got out of London because we weren't going anywhere."

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BOO came tantalisingly close to stardom with the formation of The Bible in the mid-1980s.

From an inauspicious start playing their first gig on the same night as Live Aid - "we had a small audience...." - the band quickly gathered a local following and made its first record Walking the Ghost Back Home.

"We pressed 500 in the hope of selling them at gigs," Boo remembers.

Then the reviews came in. "They were amazing and I had guys ringing me up offering money and deals. One offered £100,000. It was a pretty amazing time."

A deal followed with Chrysalis Records, The Bible made the top 10 of the Indie charts and they met Marcus Russell, who now manages Oasis.

"We were really impressed by him," Boo said. "Mainly because he came to a rehearsal where someone's dog was restless and he offered to take it for a walk!

"It was a really great time. We were touring and did really well live.

"We kept trying to make the next record but the record company didn't like anything we brought to them.

"We got caught up in record company politics. It all fell apart in the end and I went solo.

"I knew something was wrong with my career when I was unpacking our records at the warehouse I was working in."

The Bible reformed for a one-off gig in 1994.

"Loads of people came and it was a really successful gig," Boo said.

"We spent another year together and produced Dodo - I think it was The Bible's best song but I had to put it out myself in the end."

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A CHANCE meeting with Eddi Reader while he was with The Bible helped Boo launch a successful solo career now spanning nearly two decades.

"I was working with Eddi when I wrote Patience of Angels. It became a hit and transformed my life," he said.

Boo continues to write for and tour with Reader along with a host of other household names.

There's old friend Natalie Imbruglia, Irish pop girl band Hepburn, Mel C and Alex Parks...the list goes on and on.

Walk into Boo's spare room and you are likely to stumble across an unusual shrine.

It's called The Box and it's where Boo keeps a copy of every song he has had recorded.

There are over 500 items in there now - the latest addition being a German dance version of Honey Be Good - one of the nearly songs from his days with The Bible.

"It's a bit of a hobby really. I try to lay my hands on anything that I have been involved with and chuck it in The Box.

"It used to be The Shelf - but it outgrew that and I got a cardboard box instead.

"There's no truth to the rumour that I make people bow down and pay homage to it."

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SOMETIMES Boo can struggle over a song for days on end.

Occasionally, just occasionally, he can turn the tape on and play an almost finished song in one take.

"That doesn't happen very often but when it does it is a really great feeling," he said.

"You can learn the craft of song writing but the idea is the thing.

"Once you have got an idea or a title, the next stage in the process is to think of the shape and structure of the song and fill it in. Think of it as space to fill.

"Ultimately I am trying to move people and touch them.

"You can write a song at any time but you have to be match fit....it's something you have to be doing all the time so that when the right idea comes along you are ready and in the mood to knock it into shape.

"When it works really well it all comes together quite quickly and it is one of the best feelings in the world.

"A really great song has a flavour that is unique - a flavour all its own which is totally what I try to achieve.

"You can physically feel it at a gig when you play a song which touches people - it sends a shiver up your spine.

"My own favourite song at the moment is Quarantine. I have been really moved by it.

"It's quite a gentle song but musically and lyrically I get really wrapped up in it. But it might be another song by next week."

His music is difficult to label. It doesn't slip easily into any single category and he recognises that has caused him a problem.

"It's usually easier to say what my music's not," he said. "It's not folk, it's not rock, it's not Blues or Indie. I am just a man with a guitar.

"Everyone has a problem fitting me into a box. It's been a bit of a hindrance really."

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BOO'S now back with Marcus Russell at Ignition.

He's got two albums on the market - one of new music and a cover of covers album called Harmonograph - his own versions of songs he has written for other people.

"The songs on the covers of covers album are not my favourites," he explained.

"I made an original list of 300 which I whittled down to about 140 - and then just did the first dozen or so that came into my head when we were recording.

"That means there could be a volume two, three, four and five to follow!

"Not all of the songs saw the light of day on other people's albums. The only rule was that I haven't recorded them before.

"They are being played the way I wanted them to be played for the very first time."

He's as busy as ever working on projects with other people and spring 2006 brings solo tours throughout the UK and in Australia and Japan.

There's an appearance at the Cambridge Folk Festival, more time on the road with Reader and another solo tour in the autumn.

"Normally I release a new record and then not know what I am up to from one month to the next. But the two albums mean I know what I am up to for the next year.

"It's a really great feeling - it's all a new experience for me."

ends