Multiple choice (longer text)

When sixteen-year-old Kofi Mensah started playing the drums, his neighbours were not pleased. “I practised in our garage after school, and one man complained to my mum every week,” he laughs. “In the end we bought some old carpets and put them on the walls. It didn’t stop the noise completely, but he stopped knocking on our door.”

Kofi’s band, The Late Buses, began two years ago when he met guitarist Lena and singer Joel at a summer music club. “We weren’t the best players there,” says Kofi, “but we were the ones who kept playing after the teachers had gone home.” At first they only played songs by other bands. Then Joel brought a notebook full of his own songs. “Some of them were really bad,” Kofi admits. “But two or three were good, and we worked on those for months.”

Their first concert was at a school event, and it didn’t go well. Lena’s guitar stopped working after the first song, and they had to finish with just drums and singing. “I wanted the floor to open up,” Kofi says. “But afterwards lots of students told us they’d enjoyed it. They said it felt real.”

Since then, the band has played in cafés and at a local festival. They don’t earn much money, usually just enough to pay for petrol for Lena’s dad, who drives them and their equipment. Kofi says that’s fine. “We’re not doing it to get rich. We do it because when it goes well, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

The band are now recording their first songs in a friend’s bedroom studio. Kofi hopes to put them online before the summer, but he is careful not to promise too much. “We’ve all got exams this year,” he says. “School comes first. My mum made that very clear.”