chris peken

"I’ve been lucky, the impact of the war on drugs on me has not been outwardly huge – the main effect on me was hiding who I am – I still do to some extent but my work has let my inner and outer selves come much closer together. Yoga has been really essential to me and that process of “not hiding”. I started because I thought it was varied enough that I’d never get bored. But the real challenge is that it demands a level of honesty that then starts to infiltrate the rest of your life."

"Music was like religion to me. And that opened up my mind, like when I was playing punk rock and I was listening to bebop too, because bebop still freaks me out. What is it? What is bebop? What do they do? Where do they get that from? I was playing punk rock and I was listening to bebop…and they came together in the Laughing Clowns."

"It’s been a fantasy forever to learn how to ride a bike; but when you get kicked at home and then money is tight and then you have a drug habit, there is no money to buy a bike. There just isn’t. I had always made money available for things that were compulsory…but not for chasing dreams…so now i just went and bought a motor bike!"