A Life in the Day

Josh Sheard, student and bluegrass troubadour

Josh Sheard, 23, is one half of the band Spirit of John with Adam Richards.

“I get out of bed at half six on a weekday, or about 11:40 on a weekend. 

Monday to Friday, I exit my bed via the left hand side while on my days of leisure; I usually leave towards the right. When my mobile phone alarm rings, I get up and have a coffee with lots of sugar.

I have to shower as soon as I wake because I can’t do anything until I’ve washed my filthy night-time body of grease. My Head & Shoulders shampoo also acts as shower gel because I’m too lazy to swap the bottle. I’ll have terrible skin when I’m older, but fantastic body hair.

For breakfast I have toast with marmalade, I never do cereal because I don’t rate milk - maybe I’m lactose intolerant or something. I usually have a banana because apples give me a headache.

If I’m gigging that night I usually practice on my own before going to Adam’s house. He always greats me with a coffee because he knows how to make a proper brew. After we left school, Adam and I sort of lost touch with each other. 

One day, soon after splitting up with my girlfriend, I got a call from him. I’d already agreed to my first live gig and we got talking about music. He was quite heavily into jazz but had just bought a cheap Chinese double bass. I played him Warlords and Boughs and he played me some of his stuff. We played the gig together and people responded really positively. We thought, “Right, this is it. We’re a band now.”

I like to practice in the bathroom. I go in there with an acoustic guitar and go through the set two or three times. I prefer the acoustics in the bathroom and I don’t have to sing as loud. Everything sounds better in the bathroom. 

"The animal in me just wants to have

 a 99p pint and get hammered"

For dinner I generally have soup. Heinz tomato soup is one of life’s perfect ingredients. Some tomato soup tastes like stomach bile, but theirs is just right.

I like to have some kind of sound around me all the time. I’ve just bought a new CD player and am rediscovering old CDs and hearing parts of the music I never knew existed. 

My grandma introduced me to a lot of music. She had a lot of Elvis, and the biggest country music collection I’ve ever seen, she had everything from Johnny Cash to Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton. It breaks my heart that she sold it all for £100 to a record collector.

I’ve been playing bluegrass stuff since I was about 14. Some of Spirit of John’s songs have been with me for years but I hadn’t done anything with them. Because of Adam’s musical background, he can pick up new stuff straight away, but it takes me a while to learn stuff. I’m a good pop songwriter but when it comes to the intricacies of a song, Adam’s your man.

I live about a 20-minute drive from Huddersfield University, where I’m studying industrial design. I always get there early and I like the routine. The nearest coffee shop knows my usual order of a regular latte and I always follow the same route.

I’m quite good at design; I think I have a natural feel for it. It’s a cringe-worthy phrase but I can think outside the box. I’ve entered a few competitions with my products and got credit for a hospital hand cleaner that could reduce MRSA and ecoli.

My life is juxtaposition, really. The music I play is very old sounding and rustic while the design stuff is really expensive and high technology. To do a degree that matched the band, I’d be doing fine art or something.

Uncle Ben’s bags of rice have become increasingly common at teatime. I like cooking but don’t have the time, money or ingredients available to actually get round to it. Uncle Ben’s are great, two minutes and you’re laughing. I only tend to give myself half an hour to eat, and then I have to get on with what I’m doing.

I tend to stay in during the first part of the week. My sister and me can never agree what to watch on TV and so we often fall out about it. If I’ve got the lounge to myself I put on a Sopranos or The Wire DVD. Broadcast television doesn’t grab me anymore. 

I’m trying to become a more rounded individual and read more. If I had more time, I’d just sit at my window all day and read. My friend has just given me the new Simon Felix novel so I’ll give that a go.

Thursday to Saturday I go out at night to see people. There’s a pub called The Grove in Huddersfield that sells ale from around the world and there’s a particularly nice Mongolian one. The atmosphere is really relaxed and I feel more comfortable there than a jakey pub in town. Then again, the animal in me just wants to go to Wetherspoons, have a 99p pint and get hammered.

We gig mostly at weekends. Quite a few people have heard of us now around Leeds. Through word of mouth we got on the cover of Sandman magazine. I don’t want to be this big rock band that tours the world playing stadiums, I’m happy with little venues where you can talk to people afterwards.

For 25 minutes you’ve entertained an audience and some people come up to us after really gushing. It leaves a little lump in your throat when people are that nice to you and makes it all worthwhile.

Our name, Spirit of John, comes from school. I don’t want to be a dickhead, but I don’t want to give away all the details from where it originates because that is between Adam and me. We weren’t the dead popular rugby-playing smart kids who went clubbing at 14. We thought we were above all that and created a world of our own. That’s where John came in.

I go to bed late. If I’m not gigging I get tired about half ten. I’m usually in bed just after midnight but stay awake thinking for hours. Mostly I think of how I really do need to improve my sleeping habits.”