LIFE could have been very different for Tom Bromley. After university, he was in a band called Cab. They were a straight rock outfit, and good enough to attract the music industry's attention. But nothing came of it. "It was all those musical differences: we wanted to go in different directions."

Had Cab fared better, Tom might now be fighting off the groupies on a world tour, rather than pursuing that most solitary occupation: novelist. But he is not wracked by regrets.

"Although I enjoyed writing lyrics, it wasn't the right way for me to write. It was too constricted," he said.

The switch from songs to stories has been a fruitful one. His first novel, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, has just been published. And, as the title suggests, music is a central theme.

It has been Tom's passion for as long as he can remember. He spent a "nice, ordinary childhood" in York listening to, playing and writing pop music.

"When I was very young I used to listen to the Top 40 on a Sunday evening. I sat there religiously and wrote the Top 40 down," he said.

"I used to have stacks and stacks of these pieces of paper, written in all different colours, from when I was about five or six."

The first record he bought was suitably embarrassing: Showaddywaddy's 1978 hit Pretty Little Angel Eyes. By the time he was performing, as both lead and bass guitarist, his tastes had switched to Tears For Fears and stadium rock bands, and today "I'm a really horrible Bob Dylan fan". He's now in an "acoustic/folksy" duo called Pare.

Tom went to Huntington School and was in the same year as the lads who went on to become Shed 7.

"They had a band called Broccoli Haven. I was in the other band in the year which was even worse: The Pulse."

By sixth form he was in a band called Heartland, with future Sheds guitar wizard Paul Banks. "It was pretty terrible because I liked Tears For Fears, the drummer liked The Alarm and Banksy was a huge Simple Minds fan.

"Stadium rock never goes down very well in the back room of a pub. You need a stadium."

Heartland also performed in York's Battle Of The Bands 1990, coming last in their heat. There were extenuating circumstances; they were late on stage. "We lost our bass player in the snooker hall, and were docked marks. I did feel that was vaguely rock'n'roll."

He was pleased but not surprised that Shed 7 went on to have such success. "Banksy was always a really, really good guitarist. He never did any work at school because he said he was going to be a rock star. And he was."

In the meantime, Tom went to Oxford University to read politics. He never felt as though he fully fitted in: "I tended to slip out and not do all the Oxfordy kind of things, like rowing. I always felt uncomfortable with the rugby lads. I used to go to Glastonbury rather than end of term balls."

After Cab's split, he decided to concentrate on fiction, and wrote a first novel which "should be put in a drawer and never shown to anyone at all".

Then came Crazy Little Thing Called Love. This tells the story of Will Harding, a young Brighton-based bass player who embarks on a rock'n'roll journey with new band Double Top. If performing on stage was not enough to make him sick with nerves, there's the small matter of falling in love with Lauren, the band's sassy, sexy photographer.

Will's emotional and musical journey is fraught, funny and engaging. Set against the 1992 election campaign, with the Labour Party apparently poised to topple the Tories, it is also a story of hopes dashed.

So is Will really Tom? "Inevitably with your first book, the main character is autobiographical," he says. "But he's mainly fictional, as are all the characters. If you're a good writer, all the characters should be a composites and have the elements of different people."

Written in the pared-down style of one of his literary heroes, Nick Hornby, the book is also unashamedly romantic. "If your book is a romantic comedy, I think the romance should be as important as the comedy."

Have his family read the book? "My mum liked it. My dad still hasn't read it. He's saying, 'I'm going to go into a bookshop and buy a copy'."

Now living in London, Tom works part time as a copywriter for a publishers while writing his second novel. But he still gets up to York when he can, and always makes a point of seeing his beloved York City.

To promote the book, his musical duo, Pare, are performing in Borders on Davygate this Saturday at 12.30pm.

"We do this thing in Borders on Saturday lunchtime so we can go and watch the match in the afternoon," he said.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Tom Bromley is published by Pan, price £5.99

Updated: 09:58 Wednesday, April 10, 2002