I was 15 years old, and my close friend Clive Franks, who I went to school with, was already working for a music publisher, Dick James. He was being promoted and needed to find someone to fill the role, which was actually ‘office boy’.
So I went along for an interview, passed, and became the office boy for the Beatles music publisher, which was extremely exciting.
There was a bit of a progression, from office boy to disc cutter. I was cutting demo discs for Elton John and the Beatles. Then I went to assistant engineer in a small recording studio and from there to studio engineer. I became good friends with Elton John and went to work in A&R at the record company, which we started as DJM. I worked there for five years and went on to tour with Elton.