Golley Slater chief executive hits employees with his rhythm sticks

Chris Lovell may be widely recognised as the amiable chief executive of Golley Slater, but did you know that a terrifying secret lies in his not-too-distant past?

It would seem that Lovell’s path to marketing fame and fortune didn’t take the most conventional of routes, for in the early 1980s, when most of his contemporaries were working their way up the corporate ladder, Chris was hammering away on a drum kit, hoping to become the next Cozy Powell.

While the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene of the post-punk era was fronted by Iron Maiden, Saxon and the Tygers of Pang Tang, trailing in their wake was a Bristol-based quartet called Jaguar, whose biggest hit soared into the top 100 and featured Lovell on the drums.

In an interview with Sounds magazine, the rest of the band told how Lovell got the job as drummer because “he was making such a godawful row, giving him the job was the only way to make him stop”.

In the same interview, Lovell admits to telling the band’s Dutch fans (or should that be fan?) that Jaguar were going to “Rock their clogs off”. With such a great eye for catchy straplines, a career in advertising was inevitable.

The awful truth about Chris’s dark past was revealed on a Golley Slater staff away-day, when a dormant drum kit was soon being thrashed at by the chief executive, while a disbelieving team looked on.

“It wasn’t bad,” said one onlooker, “but it’s just as well he kept the day job.”