Patrick Freyne

There's so many things about it that were... I would never say that because that would be a depressing thought.

Yes, you're right.

Peaked in high school.

There was so much about it that I loved.

And then like...

I mean, in later years, I remember in my 30s meeting my friend Paul for coffee, Paul had been in the band and we were just chatting away and Paul goes, you know, I think I'm glad we didn't make it.

And I kind of realized I felt the same because there was all this stuff about being in a band that was incredible when you're 24, you know, like sleeping on people's floors and driving around the UK and you're with your friends and it's like a traveling circus.

And I realised by the time I was 34 that that would be kind of awful in your 30s, even if you were doing it in luxury, you know.

And that I quite liked being home on a Friday night.

Was El Diablo then a kind of a side project, yes?

Yeah, so me and my now wife, Anna, we were really good friends at the time.

And Polo Canela, the travel editor of The Independent, yeah.

Excellent journalist and an excellent songwriter.

So the three of us were really into, in the world of the NPB, certain music was kind of forbidden, country and vote music.

That was like part of the rules.

And I had Ian to play some country music because it was really, I grew up listening to, my dad used to play Chris Christopherson and Johnny Cash and

And Anna's dad was really into all the kind of the Byrds and Graham Parsons.

And so we started writing songs and we started, you know, doing gigs and putting music out around the same time as the NPV, you know.

And this is very romantic.

Did you and Anna then, so you had been friends.