Phil Selway

Phil Selway's first public performance was at 15 or 16 in a school band, on drums, though he had never sat behind a kit, on the reasoning that it would probably be fine. He thinks he got away with it. He is wistful about the confidence involved, saying it was not like him at the time and that he has spent the decades since trying to get it back.

Before they were signed, when they were still On a Friday and an eight-piece with three saxophone players, a friend booking the entertainment for a London university ball put them on, opening for Boney M. Selway calls the billing inspired, which is fair.

He credits the promoters who brought touring bands to Oxford in that period, and the opening of a venue that turned a handful of unconnected groups into something like a scene, with Supergrass and others coming through alongside them. Their own audience, he says, did not really start to grow until around the first album.