Page 134 of When We Were Young

DM:Will caught Aidan cheating on Emily. There was a big family hoo-hah one Christmas, and it all came out. Emily chose Will, and when they got together, his family kicked him out. He stayed at mine for a while until he got his ownplace. After that, we got signed and were living out of suitcases, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

OL:So, he wasn’t talking to his family?

DM:No, not for a long time. Not till they split up… Anyway, back to the music.Fragmentswas all about wanting someone you can’t have. He spent years writing it. I’m so proud to have been a part of it. It did so well, the record company wanted to get the second album out as soon as possible. Will was under pressure.

OL:The songs didn’t come as easily?

DM:He had all these years to write the first album, his whole life to pick the best songs and, two years later, they want another twelve songs of the same quality, and he wasn’t happy with what he was coming up with. Now he was loved-up with Emily, he had nothing to write about. I was convinced that was the problem. I’m ashamed to say I panicked. My livelihood depended on him writing more songs. I was shitting myself. I’d never done an honest day’s work in my life, so I did something I’m not proud of…

OL:What did you do?

DM:[Sighs]I told Emily she should break up with Will so he could get his mojo back.

OL:And did she?

DM:No.She told me to piss off, which is exactly what she should have said.

OL:But you said they broke up. What happened?

DM:Well, I’d triedaskingher to split with him, but she wouldn’t, so I made herwantto split with him for real.

OL:How?

DM:Will bought a picture from her art exhibition. He didn’t want her to know. It was a secret. He got someone at the record company to buy it for him so she wouldn’t find out. Come to think of it, that thing’s probably still in my parents’ attic.

OL:What’s it doing there?

DM:Will didn’t have anywhere to live – we were touring at the time – and he still wasn’t talking to his parents, so I offered to store it at my mum’s. I need to check if it’s still there – I hope it is.

OL:If you find it, will you let me know? I’d love to see it.

DM:I’m going there this weekend. I’ll check.

OL:So, he bought it, and he didn’t want her to know? Why?

DM:Well firstly, he bought it because he loved it – it was the artwork for theYellow FeathersEP – but he didn’t tell her because he wanted her to think someone other than him would want to buy it. I knew it would piss her off if she found out that he’d lied.

OL:That’s why they split up?

DM:No. I mean, I had to have a few drinks to pluck up the courage to tell her, so all I remember is that she didn’treally react. Not in the way I was expecting, anyway. So, I pushed her even more.

OL:How?

DM:I broke the bro code. I told her he spent the night with Christie Blackmore.

OL:He cheated on her? With Christie Blackmore?

DM:I don’t know. I doubt it. Christie was coming on pretty strong, but Will wasn’t interested in anyone other than Emily. He went to her suite to listen to her new track, and he didn’t come back to our room that night. And I told Emily; what sort of friend does that?

They probably didn’t even do anything. When he finally showed up the next day, he was really ill. Turned out he had a virus and was suffering from exhaustion. He was probably just knackered and fell asleep in her suite.

I put him through all that for nothing.

OL:He didn’t start writing again?

DM:No. My plan couldn’t have backfired more spectacularly. Before, at least he’d been writing, it just wasn’t up to his standard. After the split, he wrote nothing. We stayed on in Wales for a couple of weeks, then the record company came to hear what we’d been doing all the months we’d been there. We only had four songs, but we played them anyway. They were shit, and we knew it. The suits said we should go home and come back once Will had more ideas to work on. One suit suggested we work with this songwriter he knew. He thought it wouldbe a great collaboration like Bernie and Elton. Will wasn’t having any of it. He wrote his own songs. He didn’t want to play anyone else’s.

OL:What happened when you left Wales?