Hi there,

Hope you're all well, and that you all enjoyed the little glimpse of my new rap / R&B album last week. That was just a little teaser, just a taster of what is to come when the record hits the shops in the next few weeks.

Some of the lads at training have been laying into me for doing the album, but I think it is important to have a life outside football.
Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole have their gangster film to keep them busy; Wayne Rooney has his new baby to fill his time; David James has to save the environment; David Beckham has Scientology.

If I didn't have my music, if I just had football to think about 24/7, I think I'd go insane.

I'd turn into some right sad, lonely hermit. A proper football geek. I'd probably start wearing spectacles and never take my tracksuit off.

Come back from training and immediately sit down to watch repeats of the previous weekend's games from the Argentinean second division.

Basically, without another hobby, I'd turn into Arsene Wenger ' and I don't think that's very healthy at all.

So, for me, I think it's a good thing that I have been spending my free time working on my album. Unfortunately, The Gaffer did not. He called me into his office at the end of training on Monday and told me that he had heard the rumours and he was concerned it was affecting my football.

He told me that my attitude stank, that I was lazy and unfocused and disrupting team harmony.

I started to think thinks weren't looking good for the P-Bell. He was really laying into me, telling me that I had to pull my finger out and start concentrating on my football, that he only had room for players who were pulling in the right direction.
But then I sensed the turning point. "Pharrell," the Gaffer said. "You've got your head in the clouds with this music thing. Give it up. You're never going to make it."

"What do you mean, I'm never going to make it?" I asked. "Have you even heard my music?"

"I don't need to, Pharrell," he says. "I've heard a few of the lads talking about it in the dressing room. They say your music is like your football: clumsy, aggressive and dull."

"That's bullshit."

"Look, Pharrell, you're head's not been in the game for a few weeks now. I can't have any passengers in this squad. What I'm saying is, it's your football or the music. Your choice. I'm giving you an ultimatum."

It wasn't looking good. All I could think about was my £25k-a-week contract. There was no way I could give that up. I'd worked too hard.

But walking away from my music, that would have been criminal. It was like asking Rolf Harris to choose between his art and Animal Hospital.

"Here," I pulled a demo copy of "Single, Sexy, Free" out of my bag. It was a long-shot, but my last hope. "Have a listen to this."

So, The Gaffer is sat there in his leather swivel chair, his feet up on the mahogany desk, as those soft, sweet, melodic beats and sincere, heartfelt lyrics belt out from his CD player - and all I'm thinking of is how I've just blown the best contract I've ever signed. It's the longest three-and-a-half minutes of my life. Finally, the Gaffer takes down his feet, sits up straight and looks me in the eye.

"Pharrell," he says, "that was PHAT! Completely bad-ass. I mean, dude, that was bitchin'."

"Er, thanks," I says.

"Single, Sexy, Free is Da Bomb! P-Bell, you are gangsta!"

It turns out that the Gaffer is a massive Boyz-II-Men and 3T fan, too, just like me. At least, he seems to know all the songs when I sing them to him as we sit there in his office and talk classic R&B for the next hour.

I've got to admit, it does seem a bit odd that a 55-year-old Welshman with a moustache and beer-belly would be a big R&B fan, but when these raw beats get you there is nothing you can do about it.

So, I walk out of his office with my '25k-a-week contract still in tact. And not only that, the Gaffer has also promised that he will allow me all the time I need to put the finishing touches to my album - and go off and spend time on the promotion and marketing when it comes out in a couple of weeks time.

If the press want to know why I'm not in the squad or why I've not been seen much around the training ground, he says he will just make up some little injury and say I've been doing some private work with the masseur (which I have, but he needn't know that).

Absolutely sweet. The P-Bell has fallen on his feet again.

Until next time,
PB

So, last week I mentioned that I would be giving you all the low-down on my debut rap / R&B album, "Single, Sexy, Free", which will be released early next month. Monday, December 14 - put it in your diaries!

I have been into my music for a long time now. You could almost say that it has been as big a part of my life as football. As a kid, I remember my mum would always have music playing around the house. I guess I must have absorbed some of that; it must have rubbed off on me somehow.

Until I was about eleven years-of-age, I actually wanted to be a pop star when I grew up, even more so than a top Premier League footballer. I even went to music lessons at school, despite the fact that the only instrument they had left was the flute.

After three years, I worked out that although I could play a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Greensleeves, it was never going to be of much use in the world of R&B.

It was about this point that I started to get more interested in football and music sort of went on the backburner for a while as my career took off in the Premier League.

But recently I have started to get itchy feet and have really fancied getting back into music in a big way. So I asked a DJ friend of mine to help me out, to hook me up with some people to see how far I can take this thing.

Of course, I'm still in the prime of my footballing career and there is no way I am thinking of jacking it all in. You don�t walk away from a £25k-a-week contract just like that.
But you have to realise something: Pharrell Bell is a born ACHIEVER. Even though I have reached the very top as a professional footballer, that isn't enough for me. Pharrell Bell does not rest on his laurels. He has to move on, to try to reach the glorious snow-capped peak of another mountainous achievement.

It's like Lance Armstrong. He was the best cyclist ever. Won the Tour de France a hatful of times. What did he do once he had retired? Started marathon running - and ran 2h 46m.
That's the sort of character I am. Never satisfied. Always pushing myself on to bigger and better things. And that's really the difference between Average Joes like you, and colossal figures like Lance and me.

So, over the past few months I have been writing myself a bunch of songs. They are really personal to me, you know. Like all the best songs, the lyrics really come from the heart and I have drawn my inspiration from the classic artists: Boyz II Men, 3T, Craig David, Mariah Carey.

Once I had my lyrics perfected, I hit the studio with a producer and some musicians and we laid down some tracks. I'm well pleased with the results. I think it is some really cutting-edge stuff that is going to take the music industry by storm.

Although the producer and I are still making a few last-minute tweaks to the album, I really wanted to share a little piece of it with my thousands of loyal fans here at ESPN Soccernet as a thank you for coming back and reading my blog every week.

So here are the lyrics to the title track of the album, "Single, Sexy, Free".

I'm a single kinda person.
I get on with my life on the pitch,
But I like dancing on a Sunday, girl
And in the week I like to see my bitch.
Ooh, I like to contemplate girls.
My mind gets straight in a whirl.
Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!
Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

I'm not too fond of Groupies,
And I really hate Guns,
But I'm happy once again,
When I just think back to those nightclubs,
Boom boom shake da boom-boom-boom!

I know it is difficult to picture the song in your head without the music, but what do you reckon? It's got a definite groove to it, don't you think? And the dancefloors are going to go wild when you hear my flute solo in the middle.

Like I said, however quickly the album takes off, it isn�t going to affect my football career at the moment. But I wanted to show the world that I am more than just a top Premier League star, that I have hidden depths that are waiting to be explored.

And when you see and hear a musical talent like mine, it just puts into ridiculous perspective it is that shows like The X-Factor are promoting talentless nobodies like the Jedward twins.

It actually makes me sick just thinking about it.

Until next week,

PB.

Alright, P-Bell fans? Hope life is treating you all well?

You know, every week at the bottom of the blog I read the comments from you Average Joes and it really reminds me that there is a whole other world out there that I don't really know about.

I have been a top Premier League footballer all my adult life. It is all I know. Mine is a very sheltered existence; I don't know anything about what happens outside of my world.

And so it would be great for you guys to let me know a little about what it is that you do. What makes my readers tick? What are your hopes and dreams? I'm really interested to hear what beats inside the heart of the man on the street - because your lives are as alien to me as, well, an alien.

I think hearing about your boring, everyday lives will help me gain a better perspective on things, you know what I mean?

>>P-Bell, I've just lost my 12,000-a-year job as a pen-pusher in a biscuit factory because I turned up to work loaded on vodka-Red Bulls and told my boss I wanted to puke in his shoes. Now I can't afford to make rent on my squalid bed-sit so I'm going to have to go back and live with my mom and my mom's house only has one bedroom.

Reading sob-stories like that is really going to help me feel better about myself, so fire them over.

Anyway, let's jump into a chauffeur-driven BMW 4x4 and take a speed-limit-disrespecting jaunt back into my world.

The lads came into training on Thursday in stitches after watching Liverpool make another massive balls-up on the TV the night before. Rafa Benitez's side are fast becoming the joke of the season - and frankly, I'm loving it.

As a Premier League footballer, I am continually hearing that I am supposed to have respect and compassion for my fellow professionals.

Apparently, I am supposed to be sympathetic when a rival club struggles pathetically for form; console an opposition player after he has had a shocker; feel bad for managers when they get the boot.

Well, to be honest, I don't. I love it. I love watching fellow pros struggle. If I'm being honest, I don't even feel bad for them when they get injured. I know I'm supposed to feel sorry for them - but I don't.

So watching Liverpool struggle has been a massive joy to me. At the moment, their lads look to be sticking together; they look to have been getting their heads down and keeping out of the newspapers.

But I can guarantee that sooner or later, the cracks are going to begin to show and that's when it starts to get really interesting. You've got to understand that us top Premier League stars are under enormous pressure - when results don't go our way, that pressure only builds and builds and builds.

It's like a timebomb waiting to go off. I give it one more bad result, and there is going to be a bust-up at Anfield of Biblical proportions.

The most likely place is the training ground. The frustration will get too much for one poor lad and he'll go in hard through the back of someone he doesn't think has been pulling his weight (most likely one of the foreign boys) - and it will spark a right brawl.

Players rolling on the floor; lads sprinting 50 yards to join in; expletives and obscenities echoing off the trees in the frosty morning air; boots and fists and knees and elbows flying around in one big ball of furious frustration.

And Rafa Benitez will be stood on the sideline, watching it all unfold, clipboard in one hand, the other gently stroking his beard. His face will look like thunder, but he'll be grinning manically it on the inside - because nothing clears the air like a good, old fashioned brawl.

Believe me, you wouldn't believe some of the brawls I have witnessed behind closed doors at Premier League training grounds. Fights that would make the UFC look like a Girl Guides convention.

And they have always worked wonders for squad morale. It's amazing. One minute the entire squad are going at it like an old-school WWF Royal Rumble, the next they are hugging each other in the showers as they wash the blood out from under their fingernails.

Let me tell you, this is coming at Liverpool. And you'll know exactly when it has happened, because Rafa Benitez will stand in front of the television cameras a couple of days later and declare that although a couple of players have "picked up minor injuries in training, the squad have had a meeting to clear the air and are feeling confident again".

Next game, they will go out and stuff someone 4-0 and everything will be back on track. You just wait.

Thanks again for all the messages of support at the bottom of last week's blog. Someone called Esizzle left a comment asking about my forthcoming rap album. I don't have time to tell you about it this week, but I will let you know all the details in next week's instalment.

Until then, be cool,

P-Bell