My Passion With Tony Roberts

Having played the guitar since I was 14, and being a self confessed ‘rock n’ roller’, I’d always harboured a desire to play in a rock band, and a couple of years ago the dream became reality when, along with my son and three friends we created The Lyck.

Currently, we play at different venues around Yorkshire – anywhere that offers a friendly drunken audience, including rugby and social clubs. Officially we describe the band’s genre as ‘classic rock’, which means that we, along with the audience must nod heads or other body parts rhythmically at around 120 beats per minute.

It’s a massive thrill seeing people singing and dancing along to classic numbers from the rock legends that we cover, like Guns N’ Roses, Bryan Adams and Thin Lizzy. Hopefully, we do them justice – we certainly put in the time with rehearsals, managing to meet at least once a week for a three-hour session.

I’m a developer and builder during daylight hours, so escaping to a musical world that’s totally disconnected from running a business is like a strange and wonderful fantasy.

Of course, there’s a strong comedic aspect to it all – we don’t take ourselves seriously – it’s all about having a good time, and the fact that our tastes and influences are so diverse makes it really interesting! We have each modelled ourselves on very different icons, including Paul McCartney (that’s me), Jimi Hendrix (Bob, the lead guitar), Dave Grohl (Jamie, the drummer), Bryan Adams (Stuart, vocals & guitar) and Natalie Imbruglia (our lead singer Debbie). We admit that it’s a unique and eclectic set up, but somehow it works!

We recorded ourselves singing live a few weeks ago, and were all staggered at just how good we sounded, just like a real band!

John Lennon’s Auntie Mimi once said to him, “You’ll never earn any money from that guitar”, and how wrong she was. I remember my parents both echoing her sentiments, and how right they were!

But some things are worth a great deal more to you than financial reward, and that’s how I view my part in the band.

Collecting guitars has been a great hobby over the years, and I now own seven, the most recent of which was bought at an auction by my partner Hazel. It’s a rare find and a complete treasure, as I can’t find the same model for sale anywhere in the world.

I once played Phil Manzera’s famous red Gibson guitar – he’s the guitar player from Roxy Music – and it’s one of the highlights of my musical experience.

Any hobby that totally transports you away from what you do during your day to day life has to be good for the soul, so I intend to keep rocking and rolling way into the future.