Musical stalwarts Clive Gregson and Neil Cossar of The Guilty Men to play Lighthouse Poole

HAVING individually amassed an incredible 10,000 gigs around the world, recently formed five piece band The Guilty Men will be at Lighthouse Poole later this month.

Blending Americana, country, folk, pop and psychedelia, The Guilty Men are made up of five of the finest musicians from the north-west of England.

Between them, they have played over 10,000 gigs, recorded thousands of songs and made countless radio and TV appearances.

The story starts in 1979 in Manchester, where Clive Gregson and Neil Cossar met through a mutual friend, John Martin, the bassist in The Cheaters.

Neil was the band’s guitarist, Clive was the leader of Any Trouble. The Cheaters had a PA and Any Trouble owned a van. It made sense to pool resources, often with both bands on the same bill.

Any Trouble signed to Stiff Records, while The Cheaters signed to EMI. Both bands released several albums and played thousands of shows. The bands ran their course, before Clive then went on to a successful partnership with singer Christine Collister, released over 20 solo albums, and spent 15 years in Nashville working as a session musician and producer.

Neil became a radio DJ, formed a music PR company and launched the online brand This Day in Music, before becoming a music book publisher.

Fast forward to 2021, when lifelong friends Clive and Neil were catching up over lunch and decided to write some songs together. Several weeks later they expanded the enterprise from a song writing workshop to a full-blown band with the edition of keyboardist Jez Smith, bassist Craig Fletcher and drummer Paul Burgess.

The band recently released their debut album Invisible Confetti featuring 13 brand-new songs.

The Guilty Men will be at Lighthouse Poole on Saturday 22nd March.

Tickets are from £20.To book visit lighthousepoole.co.uk