Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He spent his boyhood on a council housing estate.

When he wasn't busy dreading his birthdays, dodging kids who wanted to kill him in a game of toy fights,
working with his country-and-western singer dad, obsessing over God, origami, sex or Scottish football cards, he was developing a sugar addiction, playing guitar and descending into madness.

While he didn't manage to figure out who he was meant to be, the first twenty years of his life - before he took a chance, packed his guitar and boarded a train to London - did, for better or worse, shape who he would become.