By John Murray

A GLASGOW drummer beat coronavirus to reveal the thought of catching the disease had him more out of tune.

Musician, Craig Clark, was in England on a March UK tour with his band, Sweaty Palms, when the pandemic took centre stage.

The 43-year old said: “We’d toured the north and we were just about to head down south and do out London and Portsmouth when it was getting to the stage it was all over the news and they were about to impose the lockdown and we were wondering whether we should go and finish the tour or not.”

The consummate professionals decided the show must go on but the decision could have been a curtain closer.

“We decided to just do it anyways and then as soon as the tour was over I got back to my house and became ill within two days.”

Clark only suffered mild symptoms but admitted, due to his asthmatic condition, that the fear of catching Covid 19 was worse the disease itself.

“I was more scared when I was out and about on the road and I was like I don’t know how this is going to affect me cause I’ve got asthma and it was on the radio how it was killing people with asthma.

“I was in this tour van thinking to myself we are in the top high risk because we were going from city to city into busy rooms of a 100 to 200 sweaty people breathing and stuff so I was really quite scared about what it was going to do to me.”

Craig’s story struck a chord with singer Molly Gribble and guitarist, John Martin with the group, Fuzzy Lop.

John said: “We’ve both had Covid. We both tested positive at the start of October. We’ve only been fine the last two weeks but we both survived so we’re alright.”

Thankfully, Molly and Jordan only had mild symptoms.

Jordan said: “I canny really smell. I think Molly’s the better one, she can smell.”

Molly said. “I’m fine. I think we’re going to survive the apocalypse.”

As anyone who is anyone on the Glasgow band scene will note it’s a good job Craig pulled through because drummers are in short supply.

Sweaty Palms have had a rich ensemble of different stick men over the years, including Craig’s brother, Dave Clark, aka, the dance music legend, Sparky.

Dave told UWS News he’d not been up too much this year but plans to release a number of records from the many different projects he’s been involved with over the years.

“I’m releasing a lot of music so Kubler Ross album is going to be released at the start of next year, I’ve got a weird album of old cassette recordings that I made from the age of about 19 to 22 coming out, weirdly, as an album and that’s it. I’ve not really been playing in any bands or gigging or anything like that and I don’t really have any plans to.”