I LOVE a good rock 'n' roll story, you could say I am a sucker for one.

Speaking to Gary Stringer, lead singer from Reef, he served up a tip top cracking tale.

Gary had mentioned the seminal album James Brown Live at The Apollo as an album which inspired me.

Then out of the blue or even left field he came up with a James Brown story.

He told me about when he was at the Fuji Festival in Japan.

He went to the toilet and while he was in there, the doors opened and three people came in.

One was James Brown and the other two were his bodyguards.They all stood next to Gary, so next to him was a bodyguard, then James Brown and then the other bodyguard.

Gary said he was so glad he had started otherwise he might have stopped due to who had entered the toilet area.

The young Gary Stringer, who grew up in Glastonbury, first realised music was important to him when he was 14-years-old.

He said: "Music was always around at birthdays, parties, funerals and at Christmas.

"My first real music experience came when I heard Bon Scott singing on the AC/DC album High Voltage.

"This album changed everything for me. I wasn't just the music AC/DC were making it was the album covers they felt and looked exciting, like they were from the wrong side of the tracks.

"It was this album which lead me onto the R&B music, the blues and people like Muddy Waters or Howling Wolf and onto James Brown when I heard James Brown Live at The Apollo.

"The album (High Voltage) led me and my friends to do our first gig at St Dunstan's School in Glastonbury.

"It was not long after this I left school and set out on the rock 'n' roll path which I am still doing today." Being a musician as I discovered from Gary, does come with a price.

The price he said was being selfish.

In response to a question asking him what did he think he had learnt about himself as a musician,

He explained: "Gee whizz that is a question. I am selfish, selfish with my time.

"As a musician you immerse yourself in music as that is the business of music.

"When you stop writing you want to lay up for a day or two.

"I have a lovely family and a family life but I can be selfish and self absorbed.

"This is as you have to look into yourself for feelings as that is the nature of being artistic.

"That is the price you pay for being emotional and you should not keep the door closed on keeping an eye on emotions.

Somerset County Gazette:

"This is how you stay connected to people as you want to find out about them as humans and what makes them tick."

Reef is enjoying its second incarnation in the sense it was first together from 1993-2003/4 and came back in 2010.

But the coming back as far as Gary was concerned had to be worth while, it had to mean something.

This was one of the reasons they tool two years to come up with their new album Revelations which was released in May this year.

Reef had not released an album for 18 years and Gary along with the other members of the band wanted it to be better than what they had done before.

He said: "I did not want us to become a heritage band where we went out every two years just playing all the hits.

"We wanted to be creative and keep moving forward.

"We had to do better than before and so the album stands up better and is better crafted than what we did 15-20 years ago."

One of the aspects of doing it a second time is Gary does not take anything for granted.

He said: "This time around we don't take anything for granted.

"When you are 18 years old you take everything for granted such as touring the USA, Spain or Sweden or Japan.

"Now when we got signed by earMUSIC it shows a level of trust. They believe we are good enough to sign and allow to make another record.

"Speaking for myself I value every second I am singing."

You can see Reef at the Cheese & Grain in Frome on November 1.