March 16, 2002

If anyone can claim to have had their career choice in some way chosen for them, it's Aqualung's Matt Hales; born above his parents outhampton independent record store, with a piano dominating the front room, he was writing songs by the age of 4. By 11 he'd been commissioned to compose his school Song (the melody stolen, he confesses without a hint of shame, from Howard Jones' “Humans Lib” album), by 14 he was co-writing with his brother a clutch of “songs about road safety”. Awarded a scholarship at 16 to study composition in Winchester, by 17 he'd had his first symphony “Life Cycle” performed by a 60-piece orchestra, with Matt himself conducting. No ordinary childhood. No ordinary child.

The parallel lives of Matt Hales- where classic(al) song writing ran alongside the more prosaic disciplines of the rock format- really begins here, with Matt forming his first band with brother Ben, performing Police covers and selling cassettes at