Simon "Rat" Taylor

Star Wars fanatic Rat is probably one of the most honest guitarists you could meet. Without any pretensions, his interest is in what his playing can bring to the band and their performances. Steve and Stag provide the solid foundations, Kev and Ritchie provide the aesthetic appeal of the façade while Rat adds the essential rhythm parts along with his own lead figures, without which, the whole thing would collapse.

Rat is an out and out metaller and his love of Iron Maiden is well known - to the point where he gets christmas and birthday cards from them. He reckons he's seen them about 32 times now (!!!!). However Rattle isnt too sure if he would fancy playing with them though as " … they probably work too hard."

Rat started his playing career at the age of 15 and joined his first real band when he was 18, playing covers in the local pubs. He then joined 'Snowblynde' doing original material. Snowblynde changed their name to 'Horrorscope' and played on the London scene for about 5 years including gigs at the Marquee and Mean Fiddler. They released a self financed CD/tape which attracted interest from some record labels. However, nothing worked out, so Rat decided to flee from London to the relative calm of Hemsby in rural Norfolk ('Where the hell is Hemsby?' ~ Anon) After a break of about 1 and 1/2 years Rat took up his guitar in anger once again and joined the Docs. Rat has been a Doc for over four years now and loves every minute of it.

Lastly, when asked what advice he would give any budding musician, he said "Enjoy it. Don't worry about being superstars, just do your best, have fun and enjoy". A pretty good philosophy for life don't you think?