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Across Merseyside tonight dozens of bands play their gigs, dreaming of a record deal.

Meanwhile Lee Barker, signed to a prestigious American indie label, sits at home in Maghull and dreams of walking down Bold Street.

Fourteen years ago Lee began to suffer from panic attacks. Bit by bit, the talented 24-year-old music graduate withdrew from the world, until the only place he felt safe was his home.

He has been there ever since, but this year, much to his amazement, his songs were picked up by Sleepy Records and now his debut, How To Swim And Live, is getting rave reviews around the world.

“I used to love wandering round the city centre,” explains Lee, 37. “I remember walking down Bold Street, meeting friends, going into Quiggins. I took it all for granted.

“I used to go into the city centre all the time and to me it felt like a magical place bursting with life and creativity if you only knew where to look and the places to go. Now I haven’t been there for more than 10 years. It feels like another world.”

Lee studied music and played in various bands, doing gigs around the city and working in Our Price in Birkenhead. On the train to work one day, his life changed forever.

“When we were under the Mersey we suddenly stopped. The lights went off. I started to feel anxious. I could feel my heart racing. After what felt like forever, it started up again. I looked around and everyone else had carried on reading their newspapers. I tried to put it to the back of my mind.

“Then the next time I got on the train exactly the same thing happened – it stopped, I panicked.

“After that I tried getting a taxi through the tunnel, but it started to happen there, too. My bosses were really good and they let me move to the Liverpool shop, but then even that got too much. I had to give up my job. My world was getting smaller, until I just couldn’t go out.

“From then nothing was level, nothing was simple and all was tainted with its colour. My outlook and all around me became attached to it and all I did from morning til night was aimed at placating the fear and allowing it to sit quietly at the back of my mind.”

But, using his passion for music, Lee began writing songs and teaching himself how to play and record them at home.

“I’ve always been a creative type of person so it was fortunate when I started having panics that I could use that creativity. When I've had a break from writing songs or creating in some way, it’s then that I feel the most lost.”

After painstakingly recording every instrument himself, Lee played some of the songs he’d recorded to a friend.

“My mate said: ‘It’s good that, you want to get yourself a little name; get yourself on the internet’,” laughs Lee. “I don’t think he realised how patronising it sounded, he didn’t mean it like that, but I thought it was funny, so I called the project Little Name.

“All the instruments are me and I had no goals for Little Name other than to put the songs on the internet and see what, if anything at all, happened. I never really thought anyone would listen to them.”

Within days of putting the tracks up on the internet he was inundated with people wanting to know more.

“People started contacting me, saying they’d heard the songs and asking for CDs. I was amazed.”

One of them was Ann Tabor, who runs Sleepy Records.

“She asked me to send over more of what I’d done,” says Lee. “I was flattered that someone was interested in the music I’d been making in my house.”

Ann offered Lee a record deal, distributing his debut album and promoting it across America.

“To find someone who will believe in you to that extent is more than I could have ever imagined,” grins Lee. “She was taking a chance on me, and I can’t explain how grateful I am for that. The funny thing is I’ve never spoken to her, not even on the phone. It’s all been done by email.”

Lee has become something of an expert on the internet. He buys everything online – food, clothes, music.

“When shopping came online it was like I was able to join the world again.”

He even met his girlfriend online.

“We met on a Belle and Sebastian forum,” he blushes. “We were friends online for ages, and then we started talking about meeting.

“I’m so lucky to have people around me who understand, who have supported me. But it’s a hard thing to explain.

“If you’re scared of pigeons you can try to avoid them, you don’t go to Leicester Square. But it’s not the pigeons that you’re really afraid of, it’s the anxiety they bring on. I’m not frightened of going outside, what I panic about is the feeling of anxiety that it will bring. But I can’t figure out how to stop it happening.”

One day Lee hopes to conquer his fears and be free to leave his house.

“I’d love to go into Liverpool, to see the regeneration and the new buildings – I’ve never seen FACT, the new skyline and all the venues and possibilities that are teaming from the streets that used to be so barren,” he says wistfully.

“I miss the feeling that endless things were possible that I used to feel as I walked around.”

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Imagine the scenario: Stuart Murdoch circa 2000 enters a small café and orders an Americano. A 1978 Elvis Costello sits in a black suit at a nearby table with legs crossed sipping a cup of hot tea. Murdoch is served his drink and joins Costello. Nearby a Sarah Records rep sits observing the two, who discuss joining forces to release an album in 2007. That album is to be titled How To Swim And Live and the moniker will be Little Name.

It is easy to desire a backing band somewhere between Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura fronted by an early Elvis Costello and now that desire has be fulfilled. How To Swim And Live encompasses this interesting combination from the earliest notes of “For The Attention Of” to the final moments of “You Tear My Love Apart.” More...

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Little Name is FINALLY out with his debut album, “How to swim and live”, after teasing us for a long time with one perfect pop song after another on his website and his myspace. Some of you may remember the title track, which was featured on our own Eardrums Mixtape #10, “Sweet Harmony” earlier this year.

Behind Little Name stands Lee Barker from Liverpool, and although it sounds like he is accompanied by an orchestra of trumpets, piano, guitars, bass, drums, glockenspiels, strings and organs, he does it all by himself. In the album credits, we can read that he has had some help with the female backing vocals on a few tracks, and I would be very surprised if he hadn’t. The overall aestethics of the project is also impressive, - the sweet 60-inspired sound fits the packing of the cd perfectly with photos from the same period and nice informative texts on the cover about the positive effects of swimming.More...