Former Art Attack man Neil Buchanan on his love for rock music and New Brighton memories

Jul 21 2010 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

ART Attack man Neil Buchanan has hung up his pencil to go back to rock music – and he’s coming to New Brighton on Saturday.

Aintree-born Neil was fresh out of college when he formed band Marseille with four friends.

They toured the USA in the 1980s with their own brand of melodic rock and played alongside Judas Priest and Whitesnake.

But the dream turned sour after their management company went bust and Neil ended up back on the dole in Liverpool.

His big break came when he answered an advert in Melody Maker looking for entertainers for a Saturday TV show.

Scribbling down some caricatures, he won over the producers and it led to stints on Number 73 and Motormouth.

Neil later came up with the idea for Art Attack and, with more than 500 episodes under his belt, the rest is television history.

But he admits going back to music is a dream come true.

Father-of-two Neil, who says he’s “40-something”, told Liveguide: “I was sitting in my studio at home and it just came to me. I thought that I’d said what I needed to say.

“Art Attack will play forever all over the world and that freed me up to pursue my first love, which was music.

“It coincided with a time 18 months ago when we’d all had a little nostalgia buzz and got back in touch.

“We decided to get together and have some fun and got bitten by the bug again.

“It was a concern that that the Art Attack crowd wouldn’t like the rock music guy and that the rockers wouldn’t like the guy off the telly but at every gig we’ve had a meeting of those two different worlds.

“At one some rockers came wearing the red Art Attack sweaters but the logo said Marseille.”