After 15 years together, any band is sure to have a few good stories they can wheel out to entertain you, but St Albans band The Pocket Gods have a doozy – they were discovered by John Peel.

“I sent him a song I’d recorded which I thought he might like,“ recalls Mark Christopher Lee, from Sandridge. “It was called Ballad of the Peshwari Naan and was written about my local Asian restaurant in Huddersfield. Two years later, I got an answerphone message from him. I played it back and thought it was a wind-up but he called back several times, including once when I was in St Albans on market day – I had to go into Woolworths and buy a pen so I could take his address down so I could send him some more songs!” 

Sadly, the great DJ died a month or so afterwards, but The Pocket Gods were still featured quite a lot on his successor Huw Stephens’ show on Radio 1, and also got a mention in the biography of John Peel that later came out, Margrave of the Marshes.

Fifteen years later, and the band have released 25 albums, the latest of which is In Search of the Divine, a “psychedelic pop shoe-gazing search into the unknown,“ says Mark.

“Listen to it and you just might find the meaning of life!“

  • The Pocket Gods play Water Rats, Kings Cross on Thursday, May 16 at 8pm. In Search of the Divine is out now from BASCA. Details: www.markchristopherlee.com