I’ve always gravitated towards blogs, I used to love Flea’s and Questlove’s back in the day, it inspired me to do one in The Noisettes and later in Stereophonics, it turns out I really do love writing, so in advance thank you for reading, vibes to you. x

Where to start?
I've been on a bit of a journey of late so I will start at the beginning, the best start to all journeys.

The day Queen Elizebeth died Stereophonics finished the superb ‘Ooycha’ tour in Malaga.

The day after I returned home my life totally fell apart.
If I compare my situation to others with hindsight I would say the term “fell apart” is rather extra but in all honesty that’s what it felt like.

I am certainly no stranger to high end drama, I've also been around long enough to know these waves come in multiples, when it rains it pours is the saying that springs to mind immediately, these curve balls also seem to be circular, almost seasonal, like planets orbiting earth.
Well my world got properly rocked.
I am not going into greater detail as that’s not what this is about, it's not a sob story.

Why is this relevant?

Well this first blog back is about lots of things, it’s about health, gratitude, control, it’s about change, responsibility, and it’s deffo about not letting a bad situation get worse by giving up or giving in.

So what did I do to comfort myself during this dark period?
Well what haven’t I been up to is the real question.

First things first, I have been wanting to restart this blog thing for a while but the time was never making sense to me, then it struck that perhaps there’s never a perfect time and just starting is what matters, the thing is I just didn’t want to be like everything has been hunky dory for me and come on here and lie about how I feel / felt, that’s not the vibe at all.

I started making a list a few months ago of topics that I am going to write about and as I sit here at my desk I have that list written on a pink sticky note stuck on the wall in front of me, it’s next to a fake full size painting of the Mona Lisa I found in my Grandmas attic, at the top of this list written in red pen is the word weight!

I have always struggled with how I feel about my appearance, not a strange or a unique hang up by any means, in the past especially in times of trouble I have always turned to food, previously booze, weed or my precious work, all the usual vices.
This time round it’s been different.

Writing these words around ten months have passed since the Queen died and I returned home from that tour and although a desire to be strong and present I’ve been on a bit of a transformation mentally and physically.

I did this all by climbing stairs and skipping.

There’s a beautiful nature reserve near me, there’s 127 steps leading up to a viewing platform where you can see the O2 arena. I would go to those steps everyday and climb them for hours, the analogy I took from it was that I was subliminally trying to reach something, I was trying to get somewhere that wasn’t where I currently was, I climbed and climbed, and no matter how much my mind or body wanted to stop I wouldn’t, I just wouldn’t let myself get in the way of getting to where I was needing to go.
With the skipping I skipped so much I wore the cable away on two ropes, the rhythmic aspect of skipping just makes sense to me, it’s every drum beat there is, every time signature, every accent.
It’s amazing stuff really.
Subsequently I’ve lost a gang of weight, almost 25 percent of my body fat the fancy scales in my bathroom say.
The point of this isn’t about weight loss though, this wasn’t the goal, just a positive by-product.

I started exercising because I felt like I had lost control of my life, I looked at exercise and how I look, feel about myself as the only thing at the time I could control.
I knew it was one aspect of my world I had complete power over so I took that power and control and made it my daily way of dealing with what I was dealing with, just having something tangible and positive to go to was my saviour and as time passed I started to feel different, I started to fit into things I haven’t worn since the Noisettes days and the sense of pride I had about this achievement was magnificent and gave me a little more fuel I needed to cope.

What I learnt is when shit doesn’t make sense you have to find something that does and cling on to it with all you got.
Well for me it was climbing stairs and skipping.
It could have been food, it could have been booze, it could have been my work, the list is endless of band aids available, I know this because I've been there, done that. Instinctively I somehow knew I needed to step up and better myself on a deeper level than just hiding behind things I had previously hidden behind.
I knew I couldn’t rely on the usual methods as a way to distract, I needed to gain some new tools to move forwards.

That’s not to say I haven’t been creative through this time, far from it.
Oddly staying open to other methods of living life and not leaning heavily on my vices or passions as a means to feel good has opened me up tremendously and I am most surprised to say I have now entered the most prolific creative period of my life.

For example, I finished my first novel.
I remade a very popular bands first album in a Bossa Nova style with some sensational Brazilian musicians, I have recorded 102 songs (and counting) under the banner ‘Cassette Tape Love Songs’, I am finishing up ‘Cloud Rock 2’ my cover / remix series, I am working with Steve and Luke the creators of Stomp on a solo drum show and my band 86TVs have played 22 shows around the country and are putting the finishing touches on our first single out very soon through Parlaphone records. I’ve recorded drums with loads and loads of artists from Florence and the Machine to a film soundtrack about a cowboy in Salford.

Most importantly though I just feel immensely lucky that in the moment where traditionally I would crumble I found a strength I didn’t know I had.
I used climbing steps and skipping as my foundation and trusted my instincts and in doing so I feel like I am on a transformation.
I am still on an unknown road but I feel like I am driving the car, the cars gleaming, probably sparkly, the sun's out, windows are wound all the way down and there’s a great album blasting.
It’s all a work in progress but progress is being made, I am turning a negative into a positive and I feel so good about that I wanted to write about it.

So that’s almost all of todays blog, heavy with a pinch of enlightenment.

Like a homemade lasagne!

Speaking of lasagne my favourite show of late is ‘The Bear’.
I am enjoying listening to the new Blur record, the song ‘Barbaric’ is amazing to me and I am reading Werner Herzog’s book ‘The Twilight World’, I found it in a book shop in Bristol, The New York Times quote on the front was enough to spark my curiosity -
“A potent vaporous fever dream”, enough said.

If you want to ask any questions, which may be included in further blogs use the link below and please sign up to my mailing list so you can be notified of my next instalments / future vibes.
I am also going to be picking 10 names at random and sending something special out.

Health and happiness is everything.

Love and pure vibes to you all.

Jamie Morrison x