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Hey. Birchy. What's your earliest rock n' roll memories?

My earliest introduction to music would probably be the old Elvis movies on TV. and stuff like T-Rex, Bowie and The Sweet - the things that were in the charts when I was a kid.

What are some of your early musical inspirations?

The first music I really liked was 50's Rock'n'Roll - Elvis, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc., all that stuff.  There was a bit of a revival of 50's Rock'n'Roll in England just before Punk happened..!

Punk was a big thing for me as it happened just at the time in my life (early teens) when music starts to really mean something more than just music - the fashion the attitude!  My favourite band were always The Damned and they probably introduced me to lots of other music that I later came to love - the Stooges, MC5,   Doors and sixties Garage generally.

What was your first band?

I first started playing in bands when I was 14, still at school and not even old enough to be in most of the places we were playing!  They were just straight forward punk bands, noting of any note.

The origins of Gunfire Dance? 

We started in about 1983.  Me and Ozzie and a guitarist from one of the earlier punk bands I mentioned before, got together with the intention of doing something a bit different from all the horrible music that was going around - Punk had gone hardcore, there was a big Metal scene in Britain, horrible Goth bands…

What bands did you all collectively dig?

We loved the Heartbreakers, Damned, Motorhead , New York Dolls, Generation X.  The only contemporary bands around at the time that we liked were The Lords, Hanoi (although I did get tired of their records pretty quickly), and the Gun Club. In fact our original singer was a big fan of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and really the bands name came from that.   So it really pissed us off years later when we were lumped in with all those glam bands who put 'Gun' in their names

So, you didn't consider Gunfire a glam band?

Personally I hate the glam tag…  To me glam was the music that was in the charts when I was a kid, bands like I mentioned earlier T-Rex, Bowie, Sweet, etc.  We were a Rock'n'Roll band!   The Dolls were a Rock'n'Roll band.  It wouldn't have mattered what we wore, we played Rock'n'Roll!  Most of the '80's 'glam' bands were Rock bands, to me there's a big difference. Anyway back to Gunfire Dance…!

Over the next couple of years we shed the singer and the guitar player and met Jeff and then Ant.   That's when the band really started and we began to gig regularly outside of Birmingham. 

Me Ozzie and Jeff didn't actually grow up in Birmingham, we're from a town just outside called Walsall, it's quite a rough industrial town …even worse than Birmingham ha ha…I think we all had pretty normal working class upbringings.

Were you guys aware of the Grebos? Did Gunfire ever play with any of those bands?

Yeah I was aware of the Grebo movement.  I never really liked the Cult, Zodiac Mindwarp were good for a laugh, and I didn't mind Crazyhead!  Don't know if they got to the States, we played with them once, they were ok.

Did you like any of the bands from that era?

Probably the Bounty Hunters, the Threads album is great!  We were good mates with Glenn, Nick and Alan.  Dave always kinda kept his distance, probably due to the fact that Ant lived with his ex-wife!   Silly, really.  Soho Roses were a fun band, and I always thought the Dogs were great live before they had their record deal…!

What do you remember about when Gunfire Dance played at CBGB's?

My main memory of the CB's gig was speeding to the venue in a cab with Danny Nordahl's bass cabinet hanging out of the back.  Thought the Waldo's were great!   D Generation were, to me, like a slightly better version of the Manics.  Our set wasn't really our best.  As I remember we were all still jet lagged, it was strange going on last!  

How daunting was it, being produced by the guys from the Damned? I've been listening to this old Damned track called "The Limit Club", like, non-stop for months.

Why did Gunfire break-up?

The reason we split up when we did, I think, was basically we had hit a brick wall.  We had signed to Island Publishing in England but couldn't get a record deal.  We seemed to be doing ok over in the States but still we only had the Jeff Dahl single.   Plus the usual tensions started to appear in the band.  If someone had come along and given us a deal I'm sure everything would have been fine, we probably had enough songs for two or three albums (in fact there are some great songs that were never recorded in the studio and only exist on some dodgy live cassettes I have stashed away   somewhere.  But we had been struggling financially for years, and you can't carry on for ever with no backing!

Me and Ozzie came home from New York a few weeks before Jeff and Ant, we'd had enough but we did do a couple more gigs when they came home.  We had a gig booked in Birmingham with the Dogs D'Amour which we honoured and it was great!   We even kinda thought we could carry on, but Ant had decided he'd had enough.  Coincidentally it was the Dogs last gig too. 

We also reformed to play with New York loose when they first came over, which as I remember went well and was followed by a great party at mine and Ozzies' flat. 

Jeff and Ant had decided they wanted to move to New York and both saved for the next year or so to go.  Things didn't work out for Ant and he came back after a few months.  And, as you know, Jeff managed to find work and stayed.

All time highs of the band were probably the early Marquee gigs, packing the place out and being paid decent money.  Also me, Ozzie and Jeff lived together through it all and had a lot of fun for a lot of years.   Not forgetting the day the cheque from Island dropped through our letterbox….

The other guys in the band…ah!  Well as I sad earlier the three of us lived together for a good few years and me and Ozzie have known each other since we were about 11 years old so I guess we were almost like brothers.   And like brothers you rub each other up the wrong way sometimes but you are stuck with each other, ha ha.   We ate baked beans everyday and in winter slept in front of the gas fire in sleeping bags because our bedrooms were too cold.   But I spent some of the best years of my life with those guys and I love them all.  It's kinda like we were in the trenches together - it certainly smelt like that sometimes!  

Was Ant in any other groups, besides  Steppin' Razors?

No. Ant didn't do anything before Steppin' Razors, apart from doing one gig with the same line up that was to become the Steppin' Razors as  the Evil Boys, playing lots of 60's Garage covers.  

The guitarist in the Razors was Mark Filipino (Barrows), who had previously played in the Filipinos.  They released a couple of albums in the UK in the early '90's, and toured with Thee Hypnotics.  Mark had been a friend for a while and I think there had even been talk of him joining Gunfire Dance on second guitar at one point.   (What a band that would have been)  Steppin' Razors initially got together because Tyla had wanted a new touring band.   Jay, a friend of ours, who was playing with Tyla and had previously played with Peter Perret,  recommended us. 

What was it like playing with Tyla?

We met up with Tyla at one of his acoustic shows and he gave us some stuff to learn, while he went off to Europe to do something for a couple of months, saying he'd be in touch when he got back.   We asked Ant to help us out with rehearsals and we started doing some of our old stuff, like Blue and Break it Up and it sounded great!  For whatever reason the Tyla thing never happened and we decide to stick together with Mark as the Steppin' Razors.  

The thing that was great about being in Steppin' Razors was not belonging to any kind of scene…!  It was a nastier, harder sound and the songs were much more open ended, with freer playing.

What was Ant like?

Ant was a truly lovely guy, very placcid with the naivety of a school kid - very different to the person most people saw on stage.  He was loved by pretty much everyone he ever met.   Ironically he hardly ever said anything negative.  As he is no longer here I think the things that haunted him are probably best left unsaid.   A friend was trying to talk him into maybe releasing some of his lyrics and writings but sadly that will now never see the light of day. 

What music are you currently digging?

Music that I listen to for my own pleasure, I'll just make a list:  Bo Didley, Link Wray, Howlin' Wolf, The Stones, Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls, Beasts of Bourbon, New Christs, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Scientists, Gun Club, Saints, Green On Red, Captain Beefheart, Doors, Johnny Cash and anything on Sun and Chess Records.  

Who is Jez Miller? Didn't you play in the reconstituted Lords with him?

Jez is an old friend of ours, from years back.  Originally Brian had asked Steppin' Razors to back him but before it happened the band broke up, due to Ants condition at the time and Mark's inability to live by the same clock as the rest of the world.   So me and Oz thought 'fuck it' we phoned Brian and told him we'd do it with Jez.  We did that for about two years. - just playing old Lords stuff, a few songs from the first Damned album and some of Brian's solo stuff.   I thought we could have been a great band, gradually starting to do new songs but then Brian had the 'great' idea of doing the Lords with two singers and, obviously, Dave on bass.   He still wanted to keep the Brian James thing going but to me it was ridiculous as the only real difference would have been the bass player.  So Oz and Jez did a European tour as the Lords but it wasn't happening and the three of us decided to do our own thing.   Originally we had an other guitar player but decided it worked better as a three piece. 

What do you do currently?

Nowadays I am married to my wife, Linda, and have a son Jackson who is two years old.  I don't work at the moment - I'm a stay at home dad, although sometimes it's harder than working.   For fun I still like to drink and play music.  No drugs these days though - getting too old for that! 

Evil Boy Records are based here in Birmingham , I think Oz met the guy who runs the label through his work.  He just happened to mention he was interested in putting some stuff out. 

What was the Ant memorial like?

The tribute show went great, we did two sets.  First a straight forward Gunfire Dance set with Jez singing with me, Oz and Jeff, then we did a second set of covers.   Mark from the Razors joined in on guitar, with various singers.  Dave Tregunna did Method To My Madness and said a few words for Stiv and Ant.  Brigitte an Brian were both hinting at coming to play for whatever reasons couldn't make it in the end.

When can we expect a Headhunters full-length?

Mmm…?  Who knows, there is a Headhunters Myspace page with some tracks we recorded on there.  Other than that I don't know at the moment, we're all in our forties and I don't think anybodies going to give us a record deal.   If someone wanted to pay for us to record an album we would, but I won't hold my breath. 

Plans for the new year?

I started playing with some mates in Birmingham , writing songs and playing just for fun really.  We're called the Black Bombers.  Also I played in a band called Horse Feathers for some years, they're kinda like a mixture of the Bad Seeds and Calexico.   A few people send we were like the bar band from Dusk til Dawn, haha.  We're thinking of starting that up again next year - just for fun.

-FIN-

www.Evilboy Records.com

The Headhunters

Gunfire Dance