A FOUNDER member of Dire Straits and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez’s former drummer, Pick Withers is used to working with talented musicians.

For his latest show, he’s joined forces with some up and coming Merseyside talent to showcase just how strong the local scene is at the moment.

“We moved up to Wirral to help my daughter out when her husband died,” explains Pick.

“She’d lived up here since she was married, and our three grandchildren were settled here, so it made sense for us to come up and lend a hand.”

That was three years ago, and in the time that followed, Pick started working with local musicians and was impressed at their talent and dedication.

“My daughter works at a school, and they asked me to judge a battle of the bands,” he chuckles.

“I went along, not expecting much, but I was surprised at how many young people there were playing instruments.

“I’ve worked in the industry for a long time, and increasingly I was hearing about bands who’d turn up to the studio not knowing how to play their instruments and singers who wanted to do the track once and get the producer to repair it so it sounded half decent.”

Pick knows a thing or two about recording – before founding Dire Straits he was the house drummer at Rockfield Studios in Wales, where he worked with Andy Fairweather-Low, Bert Jansch, Dave Edmonds and Nick Lowe.

“If you’re not careful you can get cynical about the music industry,” he explains.

“But working with these young people has shown me that not everyone wants to mime their songs or just do a dance routine. There are some really talented musicians.”