At 16 I was into jazz fusion. Not even jazz, just jazz fusion. Rock instruments played like jazz. Really not fashionable in any way. People like Weather Report, Jack Pastorius. My dad was bang into it, so I thought it was normal. Until I played some to my mates. Then when I saw their reaction, it became my dirty secret. I could play guitar pretty well. Or pretty fast anyway. Me and my mate had duels, trying to outspeed each other to become the fastest guitarist in Yorkshire. That was all that mattered to me.
One of my first pieces of advice to the teenage me would be not to go with the white Whitesnake-style suit for his first live gig. Though it did have the benefit of disguising my dandruff. I got into heavy metal because you could legitimately play solos. Van Halen was a big influence. At my first live gig I wore a white suit and I had long hair, quite curly but not much of it, quite thin hair, all round the front, parted just behind, with just a sprinkling of dandruff. And I played a lot of long, fast guitar solos. It wasn’t a very good look. And it didn’t get me any girls.
I was obsessed with particular girls, a feeling often unrequited needless to say. I remember a field geography trip to the Isle of Arran, when I was so in love with this incredible goth girl, Katie Kinaid. She was really into rocks. Not rock, geology. She didn’t notice me. But I was besotted. I just thought about her all the time, hoping for a glance. I was a late starter, quite naïve. Later on, I could see how being a comedian did help in that area. When you’re funny people sort of feel you must be nice, or at least not frightening.
When Bernard Manning was shown a clip of The Mighty Boosh, he said: ‘As funny as a burning orphanage.’
I tried to leave home at 17 to become a jazz guitarist. We went to stay with a friend of a friend’s uncle but we came back after three days. We thought we’d make inroads into the jazz scene in London – we’d read biographies about guys who got gigs at Ronnie Scott’s and got spotted and immediately taken into someone’s band. So we told our parents we were leaving home. They gave us two days and we lasted three, so we outdid expectations.
If I met teenage Julian now, I’d see this shy person, with long hair, into odd music. But he is also becoming interested in comedy. I found it quite magical, finding people who made me laugh, thinking about how they did it. I remember seeing Vic and Bob and thinking, ah yes, that’s just what my mates do, that absurd humour, making an in-joke a public joke. Controversially, I quite like Bernard Manning. He had this particular kind of Northern delivery and timing. And when the jokes weren’t horribly racist, they were so funny. I mean, my grandad was a racist. You can’t do anything about these people, they’re from a different time. I remember Bernard Manning was shown a clip of The Mighty Boosh on a TV show, which was a great honour in a way. He said: “These two don’t have a fucking clue. As funny as a burning orphanage.” He had a real way with radical imagery.
