They are the vital link in my performance environment

I have just been away for a few months, Hong Kong, Israel, Paris, Portugal, Belgium, Barcelona, Ibiza, Ireland and I can tell you my in-ears were right here inside my skull for most of that travelling, protecting my hearing in the largest loudest nightclubs on the planet, monitoring my recording of music and sound effects and attenuating the noise and boredom of long haul flights.
I normally won’t sing, record or play music without them so they are the vital link in my performance environment.
They enhance my precious relationship with music in a similar way to that of one of my treasured vintage Steinberger guitars.
Even at times in my somewhat crazy lifestyle where I find myself in a party setting and there in the midst of celebration I have inadvertently inhaled, insufflated or otherwise imbibed some psychoactive consumable material which have left me in a delicate state of mental trauma or other exhaustion, or the symptoms of Jet-Lag leave me wide awake in a city where all sane people are sleeping, I need only to turn to my in-ears and my iPod and I am safely cocooned and transported forwards in time to greener pastures.
Needless to say, my in ears are one of my prized possessions, and there is a lot of love for Thomas and the work that he does in our band family.
I did examine them carefully this week on the my final flight home with the thought in mind that perhaps some piece may need replacing, so it is funny you should write now, but I came to the conclusion that other than the sliding catch on the outside of the case, which broke off under pressure on the trip, everything else is as new. They’ve been pretty well looked after!
When I was in Ibiza I met musicians cursing the days they played in superclubs with no hearing protection, the movie “It’s all gone Pete Tong” sums this up nicely – if you haven’t seen it you should.

Matt Bowden – Starboy

With courtesy by Starboy - Matt Bowden