LOCAL musician Rob Hayes will launch his first-ever album, Life and Other Short Stories, in London Street’s Sanctuary next week.

Born and raised in Basingstoke, Rob began studying The Hampshire Foundation Course in Theatre at QMC, performing with theatre workshops and amateur groups. During this time, he began learning guitar and started writing songs.

Rob explained: “I just wanted to bundle together a few songs that I’d written, and then record them myself, hoping to create something that people would really enjoy.

“Self-producing the album has allowed me the time for plenty of trial and error. I find a lot of good ideas come from making mistakes.

“The band consists of myself and Oli (Darren Oliver-Jones). It’s just the two of us when we’re playing at a gig so we thought we’d keep it just the two of us in the studio.

“I play a few instruments on the album and Oli takes care of all the percussion so we’ve been able to create quite a big and varied sound across the twelve tracks.”

He and Darren will celebrate the launch on Friday, November 28 with a musical party evening featuring some of their favourite performers - The Seasons in Shorthand, Grant Sharkey, Mike Page and Robyn Leate.

The launch event begins at 7.30pm and admission is free of charge.