Colin Ivor Moulding (born 17 August 1955) is an English bassist, singer, and songwriter who was one of the core members of the rock band XTC. Though he was less prolific a songwriter than his bandmate Andy Partridge, Moulding wrote their first three charting UK singles: "Life Begins at the Hop" (1979), "Making Plans for Nigel" (1979) and "Generals and Majors" (1980). Life and career Moulding is self-taught as a bass player; he was learning rock riffs at the age of 15. He cites Andy Fraser of Free as an early musical influence, and has stated a preference for an intuitive approach to writing and playing rather than study. When writing songs Moulding has used guitars and keyboards rather than the bass guitar. Outside his work with XTC (and their alter-ego side project The Dukes of Stratosphear), Moulding released a non-charting solo single ("Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen" b/w "I Need Protection") in 1980 under the pseudonym "The Colonel". In 1986, David Gilmour approached Moulding over becoming Pink Floyd's new bass player following Roger Waters' departure. He turned it down as XTC were in the midst of recording Skylarking. He later played bass and co-produced one track on the 1994 Sam Phillips album Martinis and Bikinis, and in 2005, he contributed to Billy Sherwood's Pink Floyd tribute album Return to the Dark Side of the Moon, playing bass and singing lead vocal on "Brain Damage". In 1995, Moulding contributed bass on several tracks of French band L'Affaire Louis' Trio's album L'Homme aux mille vies. In February 2007, Partridge told music website Pitchfork Media that Moulding was "not interested in music any more, and doesn't want to write". Moulding concurred in having a recent loss of interest in music. In November 2008, he emerged for an interview about "Making Plans For Nigel" for an installment in the series of interviews by Todd Bernhardt. He gave a two-hour interview in December on the Todd Rundgren fansite, Rundgren Radio. Moulding made vocal contributions to a Billy Sherwood progressive rock album (The Prog Collective, August 2012), combining with Rick Wakeman on "Check Point Karma". He performed a lead vocal for the song "The Man Who Died Two Times" from the album In Extremis by the progressive rock band Days Between Stations (released 15 May 2013) and appears in the video for the song, released in June 2014. In 2012, he appeared on Sherwood's