Terry Hall

I had come through a lot of trauma in my early teens but being 16 was a great period for me. I left school at 15 and was taking lots of jobs. One day I was a bricklayer, next day I was a hairdresser. When you get kicked out of school with nothing, it closes down a lot of doors, but I was just starting to get an angle on whatI wanted to be andwhatI wanted to do. There was a period where I was signing on and using my dole money to buy records. Young Americans by David Bowie was a defining record for me and I had the firstinkling thatmaybe I wanted to be in a band. ButI found it difficult to work out how you actually did it.

A pattern was developing of what I liked musically. Then punk happened, and when I saw the Pistols and The Clash I realised it