The other Little Angel to make it to Scarborough People was drummer Mark Richardson who joined the band later in their career.

Again it was another honest interview detailing his rise to success and rock and roll excess.

AS THE drummer with one of Scarborough’s biggest bands, Little Angels, Mark Richardson has known rock ‘n’ roll success and excess and survived to tell the tale. Now with the band Feeder, he talks to reporter IAN DUNCAN about helping to save the Beached Festival and being spoonfed £40,000-a-bottle balsamic vinegar by Pavarotti.

MARK Richardson has been hitting drums since the age of three – after he was given a toy drum – and has not looked back since.

Born in Leeds, he lived in Harrogate, Scotland and Whitby before moving to Scarborough at the age of 16 to go to college.

Having played in a number of bands since the age of 14, he knew he needed to find the hottest band in the town and somehow join them.

His career choices ranged from rugby and golf to joining either the RAF or the police, but he chose to become a musician.

He said: “I chose music. If I decide to do something I just do it. I found out who were the most happening band, Little Angels, and forced myself on them. I started lifting their gear for them and helping out at gigs.”

The band was starting to get attention from the music industry and had just changed their name from Mr Thrud. They had signed a management deal and people were travelling from as far away as York to see them.

He said: “They were the Scarborough music scene. I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon and hanging onto their coattails and hoping it would rub off.”

Two years later, in 1988, the band held auditions in London for a new drummer, but they advised him not to try because he was not good enough.

He said: “But I went anyway. I didn’t get it, I just wanted the experience of what playing in a London audition would be like. What it did do was make them sit up and take notice.

“When the job came up again I was the one they rang. They decided that they wanted a Scarborough lad with the same sense of humour.”

He joined the band in December 1991 and they were about to record the next album, Jam, but he did not play on the recording.

“They were up front about it,” he said. “They needed someone who’d been in the business and could come into the studio and give them what they needed, which I couldn’t do.”

The drummer in question was Pete Thomas, who had worked with Elvis Costello, and Mark used it as a learning experience.

He said: “I used it as my apprenticeship and picked his brains. I had two choices, I could throw my toys out of my pram, and probably have to leave, and they’d get somebody else, or behave and be mature about it and just accept it, which is what I did.

“It was the third album, it had to be a great record, it had to be strong in every area. If I’d played the drums on that record it wouldn’t have been as strong.

“It’s hard to explain, a lot of bands in their position would’ve hired somebody else but, to their credit, they hired somebody with their personality.”

He added watching and learning from a more experienced drummer was invaluable and it taught him how to play properly. He said: “It really cemented my groove.”

Mark said when you are in a band you have to live with the other band members 24 hours a day, and it was like an extended family.

And after a couple of warm-up concerts in London and Sheffield he was playing a stadium gig at Manchester’s Maine Road, supporting Bryan Adams, in front of an audience of 60,000 people.

He said: “It was terrifying. If you can imagine all I’d played before was Victoria’s, as it was then, or the Pickwick. The biggest thing was the sixth form college with 16 people watching. It was a baptism by fire.”

They later supported bands such as Bon Jovi and Van Halen. He said: “We had a few cosy nights with Eddie Van Halen which was awesome. The Bon Jovi shows were humongous.

“Van Halen’s first album was one of the first albums I’d got into and we are on stage to do a soundcheck and Michael Anthony walks in and waves to us and I’m thinking how did we get here.”

He added because of the fame he faced a certain amount of resentment from former friends when he returned home. He said: “If you offer to buy a pint you are flashing your money around.”

But after two years touring Little Angels had split up and the following year Mark joined Skunk Anansie and joined Feeder at the beginning of 2002.

He said the last Skunk Anansie album was recorded at the studios which were previously used by The Mamas And The Papas and Bob Dylan and was in the middle of nowhere.

But his strangest experiences were meeting the Dalai Lama and Luciano Pavarotti. He said: “We played for Nelson Mandela on his 80th birthday.

“Pavarotti spoonfed me his own £40,000 a bottle balsamic vinegar. It was bloody good but I wouldn’t pay £40,000 for it, I wouldn’t have paid 40 quid for it, £4.99 maybe.”

Since joining Little Angels Mark experienced the excesses that the music industry had to offer. He said: “You are 21, and it’s handed to you on a plate, you don’t say no.

“When a well known rock star beckons you into a side room, and is offering you a line of coke, you don’t say no.”

But he realised it could not continue. He said: “I’m not Ozzy. Everyone has their limits and I overdid it. Towards the end of Skunk Anansie, in 2000, I decided that’s when I’d had enough.”

He said, like a lot of people, he had been using drink and drugs to cope with problems in his life but the problems did not go away.

“Sometimes we chose to deal with problems in the wrong way,” he said. “I was having a tough time and instead of facing my problems I was running away from them. The problem is when we wake up the problems are still there.

“I decided to knock it on the head, but I couldn’t stop on my own and I asked for help. I haven’t had a drink or drug for four years and I love it that way.”

His current band Feeder have just finished recording their latest album and it is about to be remixed. Mark said it should be released early next year and the band would probably be touring until the summer of 2009 to promote it.

He originally was offered the job after the death of the original drummer Jon Lee in 2002. He said:“They supported Skunk Anansie and we’d become good friends. I was somebody they knew and they were comfortable with it which is important in a hard working band.”

Mark now lives in Guildford and recently helped out at the Beached Festival with his girlfriend’s band Imma. He said: “It was nice to be involved with the Beached Festival this year.”

He added he arranged a meeting with organisers and the sponsors, JD and Kswiss, which resulted in the sponsorship deal. He said: “It’s looking good for next year.

“I think it’s important for Scarborough, when somebody’s making an effort that big, it’s a really good thing for the town. It grows and grows, year in year out. It would be an incredible shame because of a lack of help it would fold.”

He added that he hoped one year he could persuade Feeder to play the festival.

Question time:

Starsign: Gemini

Favourite film: Garden State, it has just taken over from Withnail and I

Favourite TV show: Heroes

Favourite CD: I will be listening to a lot of new CDs when I am on tour, especially the Foo Fighters

Favourite holiday destination: The Maldives

Favourite part of Scarborough: Peasholm Park area

If you could invite any two people to dinner, who would they be: Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.

Ambition: Musically, to continue to be grateful and appreciate my job and career, I don’t ever want to get complacent

From the Scarborough Evening News on Tuesday, August 21, 2007.