Members
Simon Mosley: Drums, Bass, Guitars & Vocals

On Sunday the 25^th of November 2007, inside a freezing cold garage in a sleepy village on the Cornish coast a little known musician was about to redefine the meaning of the word band forever. Only Moses takes up the story himself:

“I moved to Cornwall nearly 10 years back, after touring as a drummer for quite a few years with various bands and solo artists. Really Id got a bit fed up with the business side of music and just wanted to rediscover what I loved about it, so when I first moved to Cornwall I decided to stop playing and just do a bit of computer music. I was trying to get back in touch with my creative side, which was the thing that attracted me to music in the first place.

After a few years I decided that it was time to start drumming again and got myself into a local cover band, who at that time were only rehearsing and had no plans to start gigging in the near future. This suited me down to the ground, as it gave me the chance to enjoy playing music again without the bother of all the business side of things.

When eventually the band did decide that they wanted to start playing live, the singer realized that it was just too much for him and quit the band. With gigs booked and no singer the rest of the band turned to me in hope that I would take his place. I tried to explain that yes ok I can do some backing vocals, but lead vocals that’s a whole different ball game. It entails the learning of words, singing in tune and being the focal point of the band. Its basically the complete opposite of everything that made me want to become a drummer in the first place……

Two weeks later I found myself at the front of the stage, in front of a small drum kit, a microphone and a folder full of lyrics, and you know what, I was loving it!

For nearly two years I was content with my role as a drumming front man, but after a while I got fed up with just playing covers and started writing my own material. Id always dabbled with a little bit of guitar playing, just enough so that I could communicate ideas with other musicians and so that I could busk a few tunes when the need arose, but this was the first time that Id actually sat down with a guitar and written songs that were half decent.

Eventually, due to line up changes, the cover band decided to call it a day and I was left band less. I was still doing lots of writing and considered starting another band to play my new material with, but just never got round to it. Then one Sunday morning I was watching Mobile Act Unsigned on T4 and it was really gearing me up to get my band started. So, just to see how my new songs would sound with drums I started playing along with my kick drum. This didn’t really satisfy my need though, so I turned my snare on its side and used a spare bass drum pedal to play that along with the kick. After a few minutes of faffing around, to my surprise it actually sounded pretty good. It was at that moment that I knew, the way in which I played music would never be the same again.”

One man bands have been around for an extremely long time in one form or another and it would be easy to label Only Moses as just another member of this category. However the way in which he approaches his music is somewhat different to that of other one man bands, in that he strives to fulfil all of the elements that we would commonly associate with a full modern band.

As he comes form a drumming background, his drum patterns are the kind of grooves that you would expect to come from a full kit player, rather than the simple time keeping thump of a traditional one man band.

His guitar playing, although fairly simple in its nature, encompasses elements of both rhythm and lead work, coupled with the root note bass style that we often associate with so many of todays bands.

His broad vocal style brings the whole sound together, whilst his lyrical content and commanding stage presence engages the audience to a level that you would never think possible of a band with less than four members.

Its always fun to watch the look of amazement on peoples faces as they are drawn into a venue by the sound of a full band, only to be greeted by Only Moses, one guy seamlessly doing all of the jobs that could only usually be accomplished by a minimum of three people.

Due to these factors Only Moses is truly one of a kind. He is the first of a new breed of modern one man bands. He certainly plays too many instruments to be classed as a soloist, yet he is alone on stage. Therefore he prefers to go by the label “full band with only one member”, a label which surely redefines the word band.