Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?
JM: Getting paid 2 and a half p by Vicky Sinden at primary school for playing the opening few bars of Joplin’s ‘The Entertainer’. This enabled purchase of an iced bun at break time.
SR: Mostly a curiosity about sound – combinations of melody and accidental harmonies. As a child I was always making Heath-Robinson type instruments out of bottles and bricks and bits of wood. I used to multi-track using tow cassette players and end up with these awful hissy chunks of clicks and bangs and clunks. I think part of me is still trying to get back to that.
Who or what were the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?
JM: My father dying suddenly when I was a child.
SR: When I was about 22 I had a dream in which Frank Zappa and I were trying to get in to a health club resort in the Catskills. We finally made it to the recliners, sunblock cardboard shields on our noses, and Frank said: “People think that the struggle in art is to either create great works of the highest quality or to pound out poppy trash, but the true magic happens when you can combine the two.” I have been chasing that goal ever since.
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