The story goes something like this...

I always used to sing, in choirs at school and all the rest, but I never took the time to learn an instrument. It seemed like too much effort, and instruments on offer at school were orchestral and very dull indeed. Punk, in 1977, meant that anyone could be in a band - ideas and energy were enough. Me and my mate Nigel were a two piece (bass and 'singing'), we got together with other like-minded individuals and we formed a band. There were various people involved at various times, but we settled into a three-piece outfit (Alan on guitar, Dave on drums) called the Sick Plimsolls. Our first set comprised a couple of Clash covers (Janie Jones and White Riot), a Pistols song (Pretty Vacant), a Beach Boys song (Surfin' USA), 'Cracked' by the legendary Tights (the only cover we kept throughout our short career) and four original songs. After our debut at the Flintstone Centre in Littlehampton (LA), West Sussex, we changed our name to the Beat. We had completed writing a set's worth of original songs so that's what we played, apart from the aforementioned. Then, in 1979, some other Beat got famous so we became the Heartstops, still a punky new wave band. We mostly played around the area we came from, a truly local band, but we had a strong following.

The Heartstops had to finish in 1980 when Alan the guitarist went to poly to do electronics. That left Dave the drummer and me, the singing bass playing songwriter. We decided to have a new band; initially, we were going to get two keyboard players and no guitarists but we ended up getting two of Dave's (Worthing) Art School mates, Simon on keyboards and Barry the guitarist. We wanted to be a bit modern(e), what with the new romantic thing going on and all, but old habits die hard and I've always written pop songs with proper tunes. Anyway, we didn't know what to call ourselves. Dave and I enjoyed the pop styling of Devo and he came up with a line from 'Come Back Jonee', and we became Jump in Your Datsun. None of the band were ever from Bognor, but we did have associations with the town. There's a certain amount of rivalry between LA and BR. Anyway, we quickly got a set together, all new songs, influenced a little by whatever we were into at the time, especially the Comsat Angels. We made our debut at Worthing Art College, and went onwards from there. We recorded two tracks on a compilation LP of Bognor area bands produced by Airship, a local recording studio ('Dead in Your Garden' and '17:5'). John Peel gave us quite a lot of airtime, Barry and I even met him, and memorably on one occasion he played 'Dead in Your Garden', said something highly complimentary, then said "As for the rest, I can only echo the words of George the Fifth, and say 'Bugger Bognor!'" I think we were the first people to make him swear on the radio. Amazingly, a couple of years later, someone played me a recording from the radio of this, not knowing I was in the band, mostly to impress with me with the song!

After a year, Dave went to Cornwall to study and Simon went (?) somewhere else. We struggled to replace them and this was when we needed someone good the most - Dave and Simon were both very good at what they did. Our second stable line-up of me and Barry, Jeff and Brian worked well for a time, but I was having less fun as we made more progress, and that in part was probably down to losing some friends from the band. Barry had left most of the creative stuff to me, but he was working very hard to get the band noticed. He got us gigs all over Brighton and London and we began to build a following. He dropped a tape of the two songs from the compilation into Paul Weller's house (big Jam fan, Barry) and that got us a support slot at their Brighton gig. That in turn got us loads of gigs and publicity, and we were attracting A&R interest when we played in London. We recorded a 9-song demo which was produced by the Cure's drummer Lol Tolhurst, and were then asked to demo a couple of songs for record companies so we went to London to record for possible single release DIYG and a new song, 'Boy Wonders'. I signed publishing for these with Summersongs Ltd, but this was the end rather than the beginning.

Despite this being our big chance, I didn't really feel it was the band I had wanted anymore, and Barry had worked very hard to get us where we were and was likely to get rewarded with 2% of each sale, compared to something like 12% for me. This bone of contention grew flesh and I left the band, taking the songs with me - no more Jump in Your Datsun. Barry and I didn't speak for a while after that - over two years, certainly. Then Dave came back from Cornwall, Alan from London, peace was made and we got together as the Datsun Brothers. Barry had learnt to sing and to write in the meantime, forming a band called 'Touch' - I'd continued to write and tried to learn guitar. We played one gig at Southampton Guildhall and then somehow ran out of time, began careers and stuff. Me, I never had much of a career until I became a scientist in the late eighties. Still, Barry and I kept the idea of the Datsun Brothers (Joe Datsun and Barry Datsun, obviously) going for a while, recording new songs into 1991. Then I got fed up with not singing in front of anybody, did some gigs with a guitar as Joe Datsun. Initially, these were half hour sets in some dodgy pub in Brighton or Worthing. Then I started to do other people's stuff, stopped writing, developed a set of songs to play, got a computer, started sequencing backing tracks, started playing longer sets for money, got a PA system, new guitars, and became one of those irritating pub singers.

In 1998 I was asked to write and record a song to celebrate the millennium in LA. 'A Place in the Sun' was released in May 2000, with two other songs of mine on the CD. I signed a publishing deal for the material, and I'm now writing and performing my own material as well as other people's. I was 40 in 2000, so for my party I reformed all my bands and played through a fifteen or so of my songs, ending with the single. The band ('No Ordinary Joe') appeared on local radio, local and national press and on Channel 4 too!

One thing leads to another, of course. My songwriting wires reconnected and more new songs followed. At the same time, I had acquired the ability and equipment to make good quality recordings of my songs, and a little panic about the fact that if I didn't get them out, they wouldn't really exist. I realised that the songs needed to have a life of their own, and that was probably my prime motivation all along. Now you can record yourself and put material out there for nothing, and I have. I completed an album in 2009, 'You Wouldn't Do That At Home', available through various outlets. I'm still writing and recording the follow-up, 'Don't Come Crying To Me', but have put video demos together and those are on YouTube.

Decent pop music? Pop music is about melodies, not technique. It doesn't matter how fast your fingers are moving, it matters where they're going. Pop music is a devalued term, but for me, the Clash, the Killers, Radiohead and Crowded House are just as pop as Abba. Which is why I play songs from them all.

So, now I play most weekends. Sometimes it's a really loud and lairy pub, and other times a small club tucked away in a southern backstreet somewhere. I go and do weddings and parties, too. I sing the songs I like, and no I don't know 'Mustang Sally', or anything at all by Phil Collins.

And I really enjoy it.