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The late in life revelation that meant The Farms Keith Mullin is no longer 'hiding stuff'

The Farm guitarist also told the story of how he came to own his first instrument

[The Farm toured with the Happy Mondays earlier this year]

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The Farm toured with the Happy Mondays earlier this year(Image: Kieran Frost/Redferns)

Often ranked as one of Liverpool favourite bands, The Farm are an enduring part of the city's musical landscape who have been breaking barriers and forging their own path for decades. The ECHO spoke to lead guitarist Keith Mullin, who opened up on his love for music, how it helped him to "make sense of the world", and the unsual story behind how he came to own his first guitar.

Ketih said: "I grew up in the border between Bootle and Waterloo, so I was in that little enclave that they call Seaforth, which was kind of in between those two places.

"I was living in a maisonette, so I was from that kind of working class north Liverpool background. My dad was a joiner and he worked in the building trade and my granddads worked at Cammell Laird, on the ships."

Keith's introduction to music was not unlike that of The Beatles from a generation or two earlier, owing much to Liverpool's status as a major port.

"My dad was a huge record collector and so was my uncle Arthur. He was a merchant seaman, you could probably call him one of the Cunard Yanks, because he brought back jazz and skiffle records from America. When hed be docked in New York, he'd get off the boat and go to buy whatever vinyl that you couldnt get in England and bring it back home.

"For me, music was very much a household thing, certain members of the family would be into certain types of music. If we had a house party, or we went to a party at my nan's in Kirkdale, the instruments would come out and people sung and played old songs."

[Keith Mullin of The Farm at Rewind Scotland Festival 2023 ]

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Keith Mullin of The Farm at Rewind Scotland Festival 2023 (Image: Lorne Thomson/Redferns)

While he had grown up around music throughout his childhood, it wasn't until he was 12 that his own musical ability started to emerge.

He said: "My first-ever guitar was given to me by my dad. Hed been paid that particular week, but the club owner who was paying him didnt have enough money, so gave him a guitar instead, part of his payment for his work hed done that week was this Hfner President guitar, which he then came in and just gave to me and said 'that's yours' and I was mesmerised, it was this most amazing piece of technology.

"I got shown a few chords and I just became obsessed with it from there, and then continued to I learn how to play by ear by watching other people showing me things. I couldnt read music or anything like that. I didnt even know the names of chords. I got shown shapes, and I learned all that later.

"I got into new wave, punk, ska and reggae, because I used to go to the record shops like Crown Records and ask them what they had on import when I realized that you could buy records from different countries."

[Keith Mullin]

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Keith playing with the band at the Astoria in London in 1990(Image: Glyn Howells/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A late life diagnosis of ADHD and autism has caused Keith to look back on his youth and see it in a different way, although he is unfuffled by the new information.

"Im 65 now, so you get to the point where you think, 'Oh, well, you know, Ive got this far, Im not really that bothered.' But I think the first thing you go through is acceptance.

"You have to begin to accept it, because you have to begin to look at yourself and understand yourself in a slightly different way. You're no longer continuously feeling like youre hiding stuff, sometimes you just dont get the joke when someones telling a joke.

"Music became a place where I could make sense of the world and my place within it, music made complete sense to me. So, I just kind of followed that path and that route."

Keith left school at 16, but it was ten years later, in 1985 that his big break in the industry came about. He said: "The Farm had been going for about three years, so I was very much aware of the band because we were all part of that same culture, I mean, in Liverpool at that time, youre all interested in fashion, music, and football.

"Peter [Hooton] and Steve [Grimes] were looking for a guitarist, and it was a mutual friend that suggested to Peter that had said 'Look, theres a lad by ours who looks the part, who plays guitar and hes, apparently, you know, hes really good. You might want to give him a go.'

"And, so, they came down to mine, and I just played them a load of stuff on the guitar, and talked about the music. And they liked me. Then I think it was 1985 that I played my first ever gig with them in Merlin's Cave in London."

[The Farm ]

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The Farm rose to fame in the 1980s(Image: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images)

In the years that followed, the band achieved significant commercial success as they toured the world and released a number of top 10 tracks including the likes of Groovy Train and their album, Spartacus, which secured number one spot following its release.

In fact, it is that album in particular that Keith remembers most fondly.

He said: "It has to be that one moment, that period, that one year, when we released Spartacus. That was a culmination of all of the years work that we did. We completely did something that we werent really supposed to do, in terms of the resources that we had. We were taking on major record labels and out-selling most of the bands out there from a small office in Wood Street."

He added: "We were kind of part of a wave of new culture and creatives in the city that were basically doing it themselves. And thats what we were doing it. And it culminated in the album Spartacus, which went to number one."

Following a hiatus, the band returned in the mid 2000s and have continued to tour in the years that followed. Last year The Farm released their first album in decades with Let The Music (Take Control).

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