Reeved arrived at exactly the point when I needed it.

By the beginning of 2002, Purity Cries had run its course. The project had taken me into creative places I would never otherwise have explored but the intensity, dysfunction and sheer emotional weight of those years had left me exhausted. Somewhere amongst the all-consuming electronic melange, I had almost forgotten how to simply pick up a guitar and play with other people.

Around that time, Paul and I reconnected once again. We talked about revisiting Dawnraiser in some capacity but rather than returning to the past, we both ended up becoming part of something new. Paul joined Reeved first.

I was rather more hesitant. The involvement of several people from the earliest Dawnraiser period inevitably brought back memories of more uncertain times and it took a little while before I was persuaded to give it a try.

The band brought us back together with our old schoolmates Dave Ayres, Mik Ayres and Chris Ayres, most of whom had been involved in those earliest Dawnraiser years. Bassist Chris Brooks was the considerably younger newcomer and brought a different energy to the group. On paper it looked like a curious reunion of familiar faces but we were all older, had travelled very different musical paths and the dynamic between us was no longer the same. We were creating something that bore little resemblance to where we had started.

The Revolver and later Voltage rehearsal rooms had been a constant feature of my musical life from Dark Embrace onwards. During the early Reeved period, however, we moved to the basement beneath Where The Wild Things Are comic shop on Sunbridge Road. That brought my first long spell rehearsing at the studio to an end, although I would eventually find my way back.

After the complexity of Purity Cries, Reeved felt wonderfully straightforward. It was an unapologetic rock band. We rehearsed regularly, played live whenever we could, wrote songs quickly and perhaps most importantly, rediscovered the simple enjoyment of making music together.

Looking back now, I think Reeved restored my confidence as a guitarist. It reminded me that sometimes plugging a guitar into an amplifier and simply playing was enough.

The band was always open to trying new ideas and gave me plenty of room to experiment. However, the more ambitious and elaborate I tried to make the music, the less it felt aligned with what Reeved naturally wanted to be. In hindsight, I was probably overcomplicating things unnecessarily and attempting to turn the band into something it had never intended to become.

That divergence became particularly apparent after I spent several weeks away from rehearsals while my partner at the time was in hospital. During my absence, the others had begun developing something new and when I returned it was immediately clear that our musical paths were beginning to separate. At the same time, I was growing increasingly weary of playing cover versions, something which echoed the latter days of Dawnraiser and quietly reinforced the feeling that another chapter was waiting.

During my first period with the band, we played regularly around West Yorkshire, ventured farther afield on occasion and built a repertoire of original material alongside a selection of covers which gradually became our own. We also recorded the four-track demo Anybody Local?, leaving behind a small but representative document of that version of the band.

I eventually left in September 2003 to pursue ideas which would develop into Jigsaw Culture. My departure was not entirely without acrimony. We had all invested a great deal in Reeved and not everybody was ready for that chapter to end in the same way or at the same time. Time has a habit of restoring perspective though and the friendships ultimately endured. Looking back now, that matters far more than the disagreements surrounding the end of my first period with the band.

Reeved continued without me for several years but the story was not quite finished. In late 2006, the original line-up began rehearsing again with the intention of playing one final show. Those plans initially came to nothing but the idea refused to disappear completely.

The following year we began again with a slightly altered line-up, featuring Lyndon Birchall from Wild Trash on bass. We revisited the old material, adding a few new ideas and eventually returned to the stage for two final appearances in early 2008. This time, the farewell actually happened. I alighted the vehicle at that point and the lads went on to form a new band called Old School Enemy, which served as a natural successor to Reeved.

In 2025, while making plans for my birthday celebration, we briefly discussed the possibility of performing a small handful of Reeved songs. On paper, the logistics already looked difficult. Dave was interested but perpetually busy with theatre and film work, while finding an eighth day in the week for Gordon to take on drum duties proved equally problematic.

Paul, Chris Brooks and I did at least get together for a rehearsal and ran through some of the old material. It was an interesting experience but something did not quite click. When Paul and I discussed it afterwards, we both felt that it had seemed strangely forced, particularly when compared with the Dawnraiser rehearsals, which had felt immediate and alive even before the full line-up was in place.

That was probably the moment we finally accepted that Reeved belonged to a chapter which had already reached its conclusion. The songs still meant something to us but the band itself no longer felt like something we needed to revive.

Reeved reminded me why I had started playing music in the first place. It restored old friendships, rebuilt my confidence and showed me that a band did not have to be relentlessly complicated or artistically all-consuming to be worthwhile.

The project gave me exactly what I needed at the time and, perhaps because of that, helped me recognise when I was ready to move on.