Why I'm jealous of my drummer mate Dan

I've got a confession to make,

. I'm jealous of my mate. Dan Worton – drummer in my band, Ned's Atomic Dustbin – has got a new project, called Bouncing Bomb.

I'm not going to extol the virtues of his formidably talented band right here, good as they are – I'll leave that to the Express & Star's unsigned bands specialist, Chrissy Symmons, who'll doubtless do just that. I am, however, going to tell you why I'm so damn jealous of Dan.

Dan and I toured the world together. We enjoyed incredible highs and found ourselves in the most unlikely situations during a glorious era that spanned the late eighties and early nineties. More recently, we've enjoyed playing those songs that were the soundtrack to our youth and sampled that adrenalin kick all over again.

Together, with our band mates Alex, Rat and Matt, we were lucky to have experienced the sort of days that few others do. We wondered what to do with bizarre gifts from Japanese fans and dreamt up 80 something different T-shirt designs while playing the best part of 1,000 shows in seven absurdly-busy years.

We drank too many 'Hurricanes' at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, too many pints of Guinness on the Emerald Isle, bruised and bamboozled the camera men on Top of the Pops and marvelled at the fact that our music was used in a Mike Myers film and video games for PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

Oh, and we played festivals, had hits and met our heroes before shuffling off into the great indie rock graveyard in the sky. Such were the dreams of the everyday Stourbridge youth.

When Ned's split, the cold, harsh realities of the 'real world' intruded. We got jobs, got married, settled down, had kids. Some of us became respectable. But none of us lost that sheer, unadulterated passion for music. We wanted to be in a band because we loved it – not to be famous, to fly around the world or make a fiscal fortune. Nothing changed. It's the same to this day.

And Dan, damn him, has found a way to keep on doing it. Yes, he has to make ends meet and so these days he teaches. You can probably guess what he teaches: music. He started his own school and it's a huge success.

But he has also created time to do the thing he loves: to write new songs and record an album. And so he's now looking forward to the priceless highs that we enjoyed in our early days together. Dan's band will release their debut album, Everything, on Monday preceded by a launch party gig tomorrow.

Dan's put together a band with songwriter Kerry Duffy (vocals/guitar) and their record was engineered by Jessica Corcoran (Shed 7, Mega City 4, Power of Dreams, Ned's) and mixed by legendary producer Tim Palmer (Bowie, Pearl Jam, Robert Plant, Ozzy and Blue October).

Their live line-up will be completed by master guitar man Martin Warlow and a talented young drummer, Joe Wood.

None of us can turn back the clocks, tempting though that might seem when we're crawling through the traffic at 8am on a Monday morning. But we can shape our future. And that's just what Dan's doing. He's in it for the love of it – and there's no better reason.