How we found success with our Nineties boy band – in our fifties...

Hanging out in Camden and supporting Blur at the height of Britpop... Michael Brown thought his band, Giant Killers, had made it, but then they were dramatically dropped from their record label. How surprising then it has been to be ‘rediscovered’ in midlife

Hit repeat: the band’s music has been given a new lease of life (Michael Brown/Paul Cox)

Like many young lads growing up in the North’s grittier outreaches, I had a dream. It will be a familiar one for those of a poetic persuasion with few outlets to express it. I worked in a factory in Grimsby, but I dreamed of moving to London and being in a band. And one day I just did it. Me and my best mate Jamie upped sticks, moved south and tried our Northern luck.

We nearly made it too. No, honestly we did. We landed two major record contracts, went on TV, heard our songs on the radio, and toured with bands like Blur, Squeeze and Nick Heyward. We were even a sticker in Smash Hits. 

And then we weren’t.