Writing a foreword to a book entitled “How to Steal from Banks” is bad enough! You would imagine it dwelling on John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Bonnie and Clyde. But writing it for an author who has actually tried to kill you with a blunt instrument is very hard on me, motivationally…. By the way, the blunt instrument was a jet ski! Moreover, this author is an obsessive, overly energised, tragically optimistic, enthusiastically overbearing über-creator; a master planner who carelessly sweeps aside all small details in favour of the greater scheme.

In addition he’s a keyboard player with far too many samples and synthesizers. As a piano player, I am naturally distrustful of anyone who uses synthesisers, anyway. Using them as coasters for the large vats of insanely wonderful red wine he serves continually is his only redemption in a string of otherwise technological abuses. He can actually build a computer, he can build a rope bridge, he can fix almost anything in or on a car, and he can wire a network and understand HTML. He practically built his studio, and really did build his Disneyland-like backyard.

There is faint hope for a technical underachiever like me in the fact that he is an atrocious tennis player, and that he doesn’t actually write real full-length songs very often. But if you add everything up, and throw in the attempted murder charge, there seems scant reason for me to be positive or encouraging.

The truth is that he is a very persuasive fellow. And he does have damn good ideas. He has one every 90 seconds, which is extremely wearing on those around him. But he pulls an amazing number of them off. Look at this book, for instance. There are some really great secrets and hints in here, as well as the ultimate dose of “Mills power”.

In full flight, he’s a wonder to behold. I’ve seen him in many sorts of situations: in the studio, at intense meetings with tough executives, on the tennis court and, my personal favourite, at LUNCH! To all situations he brings a sense of foreboding, an avalanche of anticipation, a precipice of danger and a tidal wave of sheer brute force and volume.

For all that, he apparently has a gentler side. I’ve never personally witnessed it, but his wife is a sweet, fairly sympathetic soul, swathed in patience and motherhood… so he can’t be all that impossible to live with.

This is a great Mills book. What that means, exactly, is obviously very personally interpretive. It has to do with your perception of his perspective. Those of us who are blessed to know him and to have had more than a handful of adventures with him, usually led by him, will know just how much really good Mills is in this book. For the rest of you, you must be satisfied with searching for the man within the pages. He is fairly self-evident, and you will have a wonderful ride doing it. And when you finally get to know him, he’s worth knowing!

My final observation is that a musician’s personality - nay, even SOUL, if you will - can be seen in the way he plays his instrument. Mills plays with powerhouse force and volume. He plays too many notes, and doesn’t always get them in anywhere near the right order. But, at the end of the song, you’ve been very happy that he’s been involved. Somehow the song has moved along with considerably more vim and vigour than previously. It certainly hasn’t stopped to ask permission or solicit opinions. It has soared ahead from beginning to end, with a certain jostling inevitability.

There you have the measure of the player… and of the man!