Sometimes you figure out what you want by first establishing what you don’t want.

Ian Parton knew he wanted to make music, but also knew he didn’t want to form an Oasis-style, “lads, lads, lads” type of band. To that end, in the late 90s, he began recording by himself at home in Brighton (the one in the UK), employing a kitchen sink method of sampling from all kinds of records and throwing everything together to see what worked.

He did all this in his spare time since his day job involved working on true crime documentaries. But the pull of music is strong, and the stench of death is exhausting. So during Parton’s off hours he would lay down a drum track, overdub some bass and guitar, and break out the stacks of old vinyl. He used a modular approach, recording bits and pieces onto cassette tapes with a 4-track recorder and then mixing and matching the bits and pieces, trying out different combinations, discarding what he didn’t like until he had a finished song.

A tiny indie label released a few of these songs on an EP in 2000 and received the stamp of approval from underground radio’s éminence grise, DJ John Peel. This eventually led to the recording of a full-length album in 2004, recorded at his parents’ home in Swansea (Wales) whenever they were out of the house.

For the track “Ladyflash,” Parton ended up using samples from eleven different songs, with artists ranging from the well known (Nancy Sinatra, The Partridge Family, Archie Bell & The Drells) to the obscure (Afrique, Davy DMX, Carol Kay — not the famous bassist). After Ian compiled finished mixes for all the songs, his brother Gareth, a sound engineer, added production touches, and soon they had enough songs for the full-length debut of The Go! Team, titled Thunder, Lightning, Strike.

Now, Ian made music for the love of the game, not for huge sales or fame, and he didn’t expect anything beyond some modest attention from his homemade project. But much to his surprise, Thunder, Lightning, Strike was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize in 2005 (roughly, the UK equivalent of an Album Of The Year Grammy) and “Ladyflash” reached #26 on the UK Chart (#4 on the Indie chart).

Unfortunately, suddenly being thrust into the spotlight also brought the attention of copyright holders. Because he didn’t plan on many people hearing the album, Ian never cleared the copyrights. This, of course, posed a problem. So he and his brother sat down with a musicologist and reworked or replaced what they had to so that litigation didn’t bankrupt them or bury the album.

A Mercury-nominated album requires a tour to keep the promotional energy rolling, so once Ian cleared up the copyright kerfuffle, he had to put together a band to become The Go! Team. In order to avoid the “lads” aspect, he made it multi-gender, multi-racial, and all-inclusive, again finding what he wanted by establishing what he didn’t want.

Time to rock the microphone.