Background Stuff
I was born on a small island on the south coast, called the Isle of Sheppy. I know nothing of Sheppy as we moved about a day after I was born. We went on holidays and days out back to the island but I've never felt any connection to the place.
My real home was Maidstone the county town of Kent, the so called garden of england. My family owned a pub in Maidstone town centre called The Pilot, this is where all my earliest memories come from. My granddad was a huge part of my life at this time and I still to this day cool myself down by running my wrists under cold water purely on his word. The pub was fun in all the ways you would expect it to be. My sister ran a mini children's bar, we had a great spiral staircase, hundreds of places to hide and a constant flow of aunties and uncles (Customers). I often wonder how I would have turned out if my life carried on in those surroundings, but it wasn't to be and we soon found ourselves living in a two room flat on a council estate two miles out of town.
Whether they were or not I'm not sure but I remember these as dark and sad times. My dad had a drinking problem that seemed far worse without the "Landlord" title and my granddad died. I felt a connection with my granddad that was never filled, and the day he died is still the worst memory I have. My parents seemed to be struggling to stay together and my mums depression seemed particularly bad at this point.
We moved when the council decided to do-up the flats and where given another flat on the other side of the estate. We were given a flat with an extra bedroom and this felt like heaven as even in the pub everybody had to walk through my room to get to theres so it was my first real bedroom. The Bell road flat was the longest I have ever lived anywhere and still feels like home (although it now looks completely different). We lived there all through my secondary education. I don't know when mum and dad finally split up but it was sometime at Bell road. It was where dad taught me my first chords and where I wrote my first songs (all dark and all depressing).
My mum's family has a great tradition for getting together on birthdays, christmas and other events, its very much run by the women in the family and I think disappointing these strong women who put in the effort to keep the family together was a big reason why I didn't choose to live a life of crime which was so easily available to me and ignoring the temptations around me was about the only show of will power I'd seen in my early years. My mum always made the most of what we had, made our home a haven from the estate and I kept my life outside the flat seperate. This let me indulge in music and other art-forms that would have been ridiculed by my "Friends".
In my first year of college my dads body finally gave out to the constant alcohol abuse and was rushed to hospital. I was taken up to see him with what felt like goodbyes in mind. He pulled through and as I was living on my own at the time, I invited dad to move back into the flat at Bell road. Mum had moved out with her new boyfriend and the novelty of having my own flat had long worn off. We had no money and no jobs so we decided to form a duo to gig in the local working mens clubs, it was called "Jack to Jack". We gigged for two years before my sister came home from university and joined the band to form "Mirror Image" (On account of dad being left handed so the necks of the guitars mirrored each-other on stage).
Dad wanted my sister to live with us after university but she wasn't to happy about coming back to bell road after living in one of the most beautiful cities in england (Chichester) so we moved to a house, still on the estate but the "posh part" Furfield close. The house was nice but we were about as broke as we'd ever been. Dad had virtually no grasp on how to not throw money away and I wasn't much better, my sister seemed oblivious to any problems we faced. I loved the house, the garden and the times when my brother and his family visited, basically so me and my brother could either play on the computer or create some stupidly dangerous game like chipping golf balls across the garden at each-other. Whether it be through guilt or a complete lack of parenting knowledge my dad let me do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to. I cut roofs of cars, played riffs on the guitar over and over in the only room with a tv and generally walked around like I owned the place and everyone in it. I have blanked out alot of it, I can't remember day to day living like watching tv or the bed I slept in or the morning, afternoon and night routines. I am truly ashamed of my behavior at this time and I know that I was punishing my dad for messing it all up. The way I act now is constantly being compared to that time in my life. I am still seen as that person by people who should know better which makes me see that I haven't yet achieved the persona that I want.
It was just before I left for university that my girlfriend at the time fell pregnant with Megan Harmony. Suddenly my future was going to change in a way I had never expected. I had dreamed of leaving the estate for so long and my selfish personality saw me not only leaving for university but also splitting up with my girlfriend four months after Megan was born. I battled with these decisions all the way through university and it made me a very hollow person. I have never regretted any out-come of the decisions I've made, only that I'm the type of person who could make them.
I decided to to go to the same university as my sister went to, I fell in love with Chichester when visiting my sister and always knew I would end up there. I became a new person at university. I was exposed to so many different personalities that my boxed in view on the world was immediately blown away. I went from eighteen stone in weight to fifteen within the first year and felt a kind of freedom in this utopian place that I had only seen on tv. Its hard to explain the feeling of living on an estate, you can see your life mapped out, you get a flat, you have a baby, you get a bigger flat and as your family grows and you get a house only to have the friends and life you had when you was a kid, this thought scared the crap out of me but it was safe and I didn't know much else.
I moved back to maidstone town after university and after a year decided to move to brighton to regain some of the freedom I had felt at Chichester. It didn't happen, and brighton ended up seeing me busking to buy food and finally giving up music all together to work in a bank. This didn't last long and realizing that nothing is as important as my music I quit the bank and moved back to Maidstone.
I moved to a one bedroom flat on Buckland Hill and wrote my first UK Country styled album "Buckland Hill". This was a low point of hangovers in a smoked filled bedroom/living-room, I needed to live like this for a while and I did enjoy some of it but the lows where very low. I couldn't keep it together and found myself more frequently in places I shouldn't have been, I all but gave up completely when I met my partner Katie. I snapped out of my stupor almost immediately. We carried on with the Brunger tradition of moving from flat to flat, Katie then gave birth to Mia-Rose and we moved in to the house we are still in. I became a real father to Megan and with this goal finally achieved I decided to top and tail this time in my life, ending it with another album "Fields Of Homes" It came from my eyes finally being opened after too much drink and mind altering drugs, It came from truly becoming a father and a real person. Fields Of Homes is my view on the world and the way we live in it. My next album will be different in so many ways but my music will always be UK Country music.
