Sylvia was so much fun to record with. She loved anything unconventional, and no idea was too crazy. Skunk Anansie worked by two mottos: ‘leave your ego at the door’ and ‘you never know until you try’. That way, everyone was free to criticise anyone else’s contribution, and no one was allowed to kill an idea without trying it first. Some things sound awful in your head, but when they hit the air magic flies into them. We always worked hard on the groove so our music wouldn’t sound disparate. Cass used to say that we weren’t about being ‘clever bollocks’, until Robbie (the drum virtuoso) proved him wrong when he wrote ‘Fuck you jazz cts’ out in Morse code and then played it for fun. I call that very clever bollocks!

To my mind, it also stands out because it was mixed by the great Andy Wallace. We were obsessed with every record he mixed or produced. He was our idol. How did lil’ ole Skunk get to work with such an American legend? This was the man who had mixed Run DMC’s Raising Hell and Nirvana’s album Nevermind. Quite simply, Leigh did it. Years before, when she was starting out in the industry, working for the Rolling Stones’ booking agents, Leigh had spotted Andy’s home address on the office's Rolodex and had copied it down. When we got our first record deal, every time we had a gig she would send him a flyer, even though she knew he probably wouldn’t come. This was a piece of genius foresight because he later told us how it had sparked his curiosity. ‘I kept getting these red flyers from this English band that looked cool,’ he said, so by the time we had an American record deal, he took the meeting. He wanted to be involved, so that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship!

And then, catastrophe struck: Long John Baldry had a huge hit single. Obviously, this would usually have been the cause of great rejoicing, but ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’ was an appalling record, a syrupy, middle-of-the-road, Housewives’ Choice ballad. It was a million miles from the kind of music John should have been making, and it was Number One for weeks, never off the radio. I’d say I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I knew exactly what he was thinking, and I couldn’t really blame him. He’d been slogging around for years and this was the first time he’d made any money. The blues cellars stopped booking us and we started playing the supper clubs, which paid better. Often we’d play two a night. They weren’t interested in John’s pivotal role in the British blues boom or his mastery of the 12-string guitar. They just wanted to see someone who’d been on television. Occasionally, I got the feeling they weren’t that interested in music, full stop. In some clubs, if you played over your allotted time, they’d simply close the curtains on you, mid-song. On the plus side, at least the supper club audiences enjoyed ‘The Threshing Machine’ more than the mods did.

Sixty years on, it’s hard to explain how revolutionary and shocking rock and roll seemed. Not just the music: the whole culture it represented, the clothes and the films and the attitude. It felt like the first thing that teenagers really owned, that was aimed exclusively at us, that made us feel different from our parents, that made us feel we could achieve something. It’s also hard to explain the extent to which the older generation despised it. Take every example of moral panic pop music has provoked since – punk and gangster rap, mods and rockers and heavy metal – then add them all together and double it: that’s how much outrage rock and roll caused. People fucking hated it.

The next day, we arrived at DJM to discover that the Daily Express had published an article helpfully explaining that our song had lost because it was self-evidently the worst of the lot. Dick wearily conceded that perhaps it might be better if we stopped wasting everybody’s time and made our own album instead. If Philips wouldn’t release it, then he would hire a press and promotions guy and start his own record label after all.

So we were sequestered in the little DJM studio, with Steve Brown producing and Clive Franks operating the tape machine. Clive was the guy who recorded The Troggs Tape; years later, he ended up co-producing some of my albums, and he still works with me today, doing the sound engineering for my live shows. We collectively threw everything we could at the new songs. Psychedelic sound effects, harpsichords, backwards guitar solos courtesy of Caleb, flutes, bongos, stereo panning, improvised jazz interludes, trick endings where the songs faded out then suddenly back in again, the sound of Clive whistling. If you listened carefully, you could hear the kitchen sink being dragged into the studio. We might have been better off had we realized less is sometimes more, but you don’t think like that when you’re making your first album. There’s a faint voice at the back of your mind telling you that you might never make another, so you may as well try everything while you have the chance. But, God, it was so much fun, such an adventure. The album was called Empty Sky. It came out on Dick’s new DJM label on 6 June 1969. I can remember listening back to the title track and thinking it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard in my life.