The Booze Brothers Band of Puppets

By this point I was on a foam ration. What I was using to make the heads is called reticulated foam, and I was having to order it from America. I decided to only make the heads first (the fun bit) and I would make all the bodies later out of a cheaper material. (Which I would find on good old Norwich City Market!) It would mean living with near life-size decapitated heads of my friends, but once you have one severed head, multiples doesn't really phase you anymore.

'Bossy' and old 'Deep Pockets': Easily recognizable.

I was making these puppets in secrecy, only my family knew what I was planning. They found out because my home was littered with fluff, stuffing and foam, telling them I had taken up sofa butchery seemed pointlessly far fetched. It was handy to have a third party to show the concepts too, they recognized each of the puppets instantly which was encouraging - and somewhat of a relief.

Mike 'The Chalk' White... he's not really this bald in real life!

Next, I did Mike and my brother Martin in puppet head form. That's guitar and Bass guitar player, I enjoyed making these two puppets and I think they came out the best. (Martins puppet always makes me smile!) I found them the easiest to plan, and I only went through 2 sketches to draw a design I was sure looked like them both. Other people would prove to be much more of a challenge.

Martin: The face of Bass.

I started to consider colour as well as shape pairings. They would all have to share screen time together in the music videos, so was there a danger they would clash? In the Muppet Show all the characters are very brightly coloured, but then, they are all monsters and animals. I thought I don't really want the band to look too garish as it was supposed to be more of a real representation. People are mostly creatures of habit, so they tended to wear the same stuff all the time. Particularly in the band.

Every gig we do, we turn up, lift all the gear from the car park (more often than not in the rain) into the venue and set up. Jumping about under the lights for 2 hours and then reverse the process to pack down. This tends to leave you muddy, dusty, sweaty or scuffed, sometimes a combination of all four. Wearing your best shoes and shirt is not really an option. I have it on good authority that both Mark and Chris have only washed their performance suits twice in 14 years (a reason I always turn down a lift from those guys. Small car, 14 years of funk. Drunk or not, you're gonna smell that.) This means that most of the group have a bank of 2 to 3 t-shirts/shirts they wear all the time. Going back and reviewing the old film footage again, I could pick out distinguishing uniforms for everyone. A few artistic tweaks in colour and I thought I could kit everyone out relatively accurately.

Our band has had several members drift through the original core guys over the years. Chris, Mark, Mike, Martin and I are from the original lineup. Chris' brother Tim was a guitar player, and he left to live in Canada and was replaced by JP.

Kevin Ellis: The Man.

John Bacon: The New Man (and Chalk, Rockin)

Kevin Ellis was our sax player for a good number of years and now we are lucky to have John Bacon filling those big sax-shoes. Kevin still plays with us regularly when John is unavailable, and we all have fond memories of Tim being in the band. I began to feel guilty leaving these guys out. I started to worry that using old audio of Kevin on sax would be wrong to show John playing, and vice-versa. Possibly worrying a bit too much, but I know how I would feel if the role was reversed. I would have to make those guys too. I made John and Kevin at the same time, similar structures but they have very different looking puppets, as obviously, they are very different guys.

A 'Young' James Phillippo

JP was another fun puppet to make, his is the only puppet to be made with this shaped head. His features went through several attempts to get what was in my mind, onto the physical face. James is always smiling and I wanted him to have a younger appearance (being the youngest and newest member) I always knew I would fit his puppet up in his trademark red and white lumberjack shirt, and I found a tea towel that was perfect. His finished puppet looks really bright and colourful which makes him look newer than everyone else, which was a great happy accident.

Drummer, brain pre-removed.

My counterpart was a very different prospect. I don't know if you have ever tried any kind of self portrait, but learning to have a sense of humour about yourself is something I found a bit difficult. I ended up making my own puppet design from scratch, and basing it on something I'd seen on the Muppet Show. I wanted to make me a little different from everyone else as you don't really see me much because I'm hidden away behind the drums. I decided that my chinless appearance would benefit from being like Beaker from the Muppet Show. Once I had an old pair of my glasses glued on, the likeness I have to say, was unfortunately, spot on.

JP, Martin, Mark, Steve, Chris, John & Mike. 7 heads are better than none.