Five Minutes Alone - Bruce Soord

The Pineapple Thief prog mastermind on his early days, overcoming obstacles and the power of self-belief

- Rob Laing

I got my first real six-string…

“My first guitar was a crap nylon string thing from a music shop… back when there used to be music shops in every town. Yeovil had about three. I saved up £30, and this would have been 1986 or 1987, and it was terrible. It took me months to tune it up. I’d got in with some mates at school and they were already musicians. My best mate played sax and a bit of keyboards, my other mate was a Grade 8 violinist and they wanted to start a band. I didn’t have any musicians in my family and my dad said, ‘What have you wasted your money on that for?!’ I thought, ‘That’s it, I’m not going to give up.’ My first electric was an equally hideous Marlin Sidewinder in sparkly purple with a locking trem.”

Super Strat…