The Demo Tape

Now that we had a demo tape the world was at our mercy.

We knew from reading the NME that all we had to do was take the tape round a few record companies and at least one of them would offer us a £million contract.

Strop made the phone calls as, despite our attempts to teach him to talk proper, he had a posh-sounding voice of the type that suits seemed to like.

He got us an appointment with an A&R man at Safely Does It Records. We wore our cleanest T-shirts and were on our best behaviour; Eric made it all the way through the lobby before his first argument, and even that didn’t become a fully pledged fight.

The A&R man greeted us with the bemused look the entire older generation reserved for us. The tape consisted of two songs: an early version of 'It’s our world now (or at least it will be when we kill the rest of you)' and a song that never got a formal title, which was listed on the cassette as 'Some Noise'.

The man listened in silence. At the end of the track he stood up. “Stay there,” he said, “whatever you do don’t move from that spot.”

“Wow,” said The Boy, “that’s fantastic, he must’ve gone to get the big boss.”

“Yeah,” said Skins, “’cause he wouldn’t be able to sign cheques for more than £100,000 himself.”

We amused ourselves with similar banter for the next half hour, before eventually he returned. However, he wasn’t armed with the big white chief of Safely Does it and a cheque for £1 million. He had two policemen with him.

“That’s them officers,” he said, “I want you to arrest them for crimes against music.”