Who Is Chris Puleston

I was born in Luton on 21st December 1958, the son of a drummer percussionist, and was playing bongos and percussion before I can remember, moving on to playing kit drums at the age of eight. At ten I played onstage for the first time at a wedding reception with a band called Ajax 4, and by the age of twelve I had my own kit and a burning desire to play.

I took drum lessons at Queensbury School in Dunstable and was percussionist in their orchestra as well as singing in two choirs, Houghton Regis Church Choir and the School Choir. A good grounding for backing vocals! I was also learning to play guitar at the time.

At fifteen I was in my first proper band playing Hendrix, Stones, and Led Zeppelin covers, but had to wait another two years before getting into my first working band called September, playing pop and rock covers for money.

My first job after leaving school was in a music shop in Luton where I met a wide veriety of musicians, and took to jamming and depping with local bands as well as learning a lot about music in general. It was here that I bought my first set of tabla and started to learn more about Indian and World Music, taking to playing congas along the way.

By this time I was also listening to progressive music forms including King Crimson, Van De Graaf Generator, E.L.P. and Gong alongside Zeppelin, Floyd, Rush and Glenn Miller, with some Shankar and Shakti thrown in for good measure.

At about this time I joined a band doing original music in a roughly Genesis mode called Cold Eyed Driver, which managed a few gigs before its demise, followed by a space rock band called Rampant Dodo(!) which required learning thirty minute long pieces.

A few years later I started my own band called Zen which was an eclectic mix including odd time signatures, kit, tabla, congas, and anything else I could press into service, all in a progressive setting. This band was a fertile environment whick lasted through several incarnations.

My next band was my first foray into Jazz called Mummy. It was the brainchild of Davey Payne erstwhile saxman for Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Fergal Sharkey etc. I had to learn to swing and improvise to some very unconvetional stuff!

Following on from this I joined the Loverly Band which was as broad an approach to Jazz as you can imagine, playing big band swing, be-bop, impro, mexican, latin american and afro jazz styles, all original compositions. It was my first recording contract an album, still on vinyl in those days, called Loverly. It was also my first overseas tour of Holland and Germany. The whole project was a delightful experience, also featuring the vocal brilliance of Maggie Nicols.

My next stint was in an eight piece soul and blues band called Destination which meant having to learn tight arrangement with a fat brass section. Alongside this I was invited to join Walking On Ice, a progressive rock band which had just landed a recording contract. The resultant album entitled "No Margin" on the Cyclops label was a fine first effort of which I think we were rightly proud, but shortly after release the band imploded due to irreconsileable musical differences. What a pity!

It was at this time I started teaching drums in earnest, as well as working as a book illustrator on an encyclopeadia, (600 line drawings over three years) and took to the road with the Barkin' Spiders band, the motlyest, maddest, funniest bunch of rockers you ever saw. We toured around this country and Europe leaving stunned audiences in our wake and living the whole rock'n'roll lifestyle. After three years with them the band folded due to the sad death of its brillient frontman, Glenn Ford, from leukemia.

I then joined the Jambience band, playing a small floor kit, tabla, darabuka, dumbek, congas and pipe drum (my own invention). We played, or rather as its name suggests jammed, mainly ambient music with a lead didgeridoo, acoustic guitars and lots of passion, and great fun it was too! We recorded a good live album which captures the sheer energy and ability of that lineup.