SEEDS OF 77 are a relatively new band, having only been together since 2018, but their members have all been performing music for some time. The band was initially put together by guitarist / bassist Finn Panton, who has been playing since 1977 in bands such as The Public Heirs, The Eyes, Headhunters, Wicked Kitchen Staff, Trash County Dominators, Junior Manson Slags, the infamous Fuck All Else To Do and, most recently, Menace… The chances are, that if you've been a regular gig-goer over the past 40 years, you will have seen one of his bands along the way! Lead vocals are provided by Vince Mahon who many of you will already know from Morgellons, while second vocalist Michi Sinn (Michelle) has already been in several bands with Finn before now, most notably Junior Manson Slags. Additionally, Neil Harris plays drums, Richard Sheldrake plays guitar and the most recent member is Simon Daniels on keyboards.
Although some have been confused by the bands’ name (misconstruing it as some sort of tribute band) the idea behind the project was to go back to the original ‘here’s three chords, now form a band’ challenge that inspired the original punk movement, to see what a current band could do with them. Although hampered by the recent lock-downs and Finn’s health issues, the results have been highly impressive. Their album, ‘Lockdown Breakout’, released in conjunction with the Sound of the Suburbs label / record shop, was recorded in separate pieces while the band members were still in isolation but, despite the less than ideal situation, the individual recordings have come together in impressive style. What they’ve managed to produce is an album that’s not exactly traditional Punk Rock, but certainly embraces the spirit, ingenuity and integrity of the original movement. There’s plenty of great tunes, lots of energy and a real sense of creativity within this record, even with the limitations they had to deal with. Trust me, each time you hear this album will make you love it more and more.
With the lockdown of music venues being relaxed, Seeds of 77 finally get to play a launch party for the LP (already postponed twice) at the Hope & Anchor, although with the venue trying to catch-up with all of its’ other outstanding gigs, this one takes place on a Sunday afternoon… quite a civilised time for it, as it turns out. Having made some arrangements, I arrive early to have a chat with Finn before the gig and, since I’ve seen him in quite a few bands over the years, I decide to try and make some sense of it…
Although some have been confused by the bands’ name (misconstruing it as some sort of tribute band) the idea behind the project was to go back to the original ‘here’s three chords, now form a band’ challenge that inspired the original punk movement, to see what a current band could do with them. Although hampered by the recent lock-downs and Finn’s health issues, the results have been highly impressive. Their album, ‘Lockdown Breakout’, released in conjunction with the Sound of the Suburbs label / record shop, was recorded in separate pieces while the band members were still in isolation but, despite the less than ideal situation, the individual recordings have come together in impressive style. What they’ve managed to produce is an album that’s not exactly traditional Punk Rock, but certainly embraces the spirit, ingenuity and integrity of the original movement. There’s plenty of great tunes, lots of energy and a real sense of creativity within this record, even with the limitations they had to deal with. Trust me, each time you hear this album will make you love it more and more.
With the lockdown of music venues being relaxed, Seeds of 77 finally get to play a launch party for the LP (already postponed twice) at the Hope & Anchor, although with the venue trying to catch-up with all of its’ other outstanding gigs, this one takes place on a Sunday afternoon… quite a civilised time for it, as it turns out. Having made some arrangements, I arrive early to have a chat with Finn before the gig and, since I’ve seen him in quite a few bands over the years, I decide to try and make some sense of it…
So, the first band you played in was The Eyes, who released two singles on the Raw label during 1978…
‘Well, the first band I actually played in were called Lysander, while I was still at school, but we were just playing rock’n’roll covers and stuff like that. However that eventually turned into The Public Heirs, who were a punk band in 1977 even though we only played locally and didn’t get to release anything until a lot later on. We lived in Portsmouth and the first gig we got booked to play was at a wedding, so obviously that didn’t go well! A local crew of lads came in, started grabbing all the food and throwing it at us… after that they became our ardent supporters! We recorded a few tracks, but they didn’t get released until five or six years ago, when an American label released two songs as a 7” single (‘Broken Down’ / ‘New Wave’ on Projectile Platters.) That version of The Public Heirs only lasted until 1978, although we sort-of reformed during the Eighties and released a couple of records on the Quiet label, although it was pretty different stuff to what we were playing back in ’77. But anyway, The Eyes were also from Portsmouth and had already released their first single, ‘I Like It’, on Raw records. They’d been together for a few years by then and were more of a Rock or Glam band really, but were trying to fit-in with the Punk thing. They were looking for a new guitarist, so they came down to one of the Public Heirs gigs to watch me and then went back to their manager to make their report… At the next gig, they all came down to check me out and it was an amazing gig, but it all ended-up in a mass brawl which wasn’t ideal. The Eyes rescued me and put me in their van, where they then asked me to join them. The Public Heirs were splitting-up anyway, so I said yes. Then they told me, We’re going on tour to Germany next week, can you learn the set by then? Somehow I managed to just-about do that and I was in! As I said, they’d already released their first single on Raw before I joined the band, but I did play on the second one which was called ‘Once in a Lifetime’… I just played some punky guitar on the b-side which was a cover of ‘Hello, I Love You’. When that came out, I think the band were expecting to get signed by a bigger label but apparently the label that they’d been talking to decided to sign The Soft Boys instead, and after that The Eyes just seemed to fizzle-out…’
‘Well, the first band I actually played in were called Lysander, while I was still at school, but we were just playing rock’n’roll covers and stuff like that. However that eventually turned into The Public Heirs, who were a punk band in 1977 even though we only played locally and didn’t get to release anything until a lot later on. We lived in Portsmouth and the first gig we got booked to play was at a wedding, so obviously that didn’t go well! A local crew of lads came in, started grabbing all the food and throwing it at us… after that they became our ardent supporters! We recorded a few tracks, but they didn’t get released until five or six years ago, when an American label released two songs as a 7” single (‘Broken Down’ / ‘New Wave’ on Projectile Platters.) That version of The Public Heirs only lasted until 1978, although we sort-of reformed during the Eighties and released a couple of records on the Quiet label, although it was pretty different stuff to what we were playing back in ’77. But anyway, The Eyes were also from Portsmouth and had already released their first single, ‘I Like It’, on Raw records. They’d been together for a few years by then and were more of a Rock or Glam band really, but were trying to fit-in with the Punk thing. They were looking for a new guitarist, so they came down to one of the Public Heirs gigs to watch me and then went back to their manager to make their report… At the next gig, they all came down to check me out and it was an amazing gig, but it all ended-up in a mass brawl which wasn’t ideal. The Eyes rescued me and put me in their van, where they then asked me to join them. The Public Heirs were splitting-up anyway, so I said yes. Then they told me, We’re going on tour to Germany next week, can you learn the set by then? Somehow I managed to just-about do that and I was in! As I said, they’d already released their first single on Raw before I joined the band, but I did play on the second one which was called ‘Once in a Lifetime’… I just played some punky guitar on the b-side which was a cover of ‘Hello, I Love You’. When that came out, I think the band were expecting to get signed by a bigger label but apparently the label that they’d been talking to decided to sign The Soft Boys instead, and after that The Eyes just seemed to fizzle-out…’
The next band of note that you were involved with were The Headhunters, who released several records and recorded a session for John Peel, but sadly only stayed together for a relatively short time. It was while you were playing guitar for them that our paths first crossed… I saw The Headhunters supporting The Fall at Brixton Ace in 1983, although this was still some time before I actually met you…
‘Oh wow, you were there! You’re lucky to have seen us, because we only played four or five gigs… The Headhunters were the brainchild of the singer, Servo, and right from the start you could hear that he was really into Killing Joke. I wasn’t really such a big Killing Joke fan back then and neither was the bass player, so we were trying to do some different things with more of our own style. I think we all started to bring our own ideas into it, so we were beginning to move away from that initial style as we went along. But the early songs had all been written by Servo so that’s how we started out. I think that, by the time our last record, ‘Way of The South’, we were really starting to get our own sound together and I still think that was the best thing we did, but by then I was also playing with another band, called Wicked Kitchen Staff, and started to get more involved with them. We recorded an album and started to play live quite a bit, but I was still intending to continue playing with the Headhunters as well. But Servo got it into his head that I wasn’t interested in the Headhunters anymore and I was going to leave, so again, things just fizzled-out. It was a shame because I think the way we were going, Headhunters could have become really good…’
Wicked Kitchen Staff are quite obscure in retrospect, but certainly made a mark for themselves at the time…
‘My God, they were the best band of the whole lot! Totally innovative and very original… the singer kind of looked like Morrissey and would go onstage with flowers in his back pocket… apparently Morrissey himself had been along to watch us at one of our early gigs, before the flowers became one of his things... Fiction records were actually interested in us at one point and spoke to us about possibly doing a record, but they wanted us to come up with something a bit more musical than our usual stuff, so they could release a record that might get played on the radio. Unfortunately that request just started a dispute in the band, between those that wanted to go along with it and those who didn’t… I suppose it didn’t help that some of the band were pretty-much off their heads on drugs all the time, but either-way, we just couldn’t put anything together for Fiction and consequently decided that we didn’t want to sign with them anyway So we ended-up recording an album for Shout records, but by then a couple of the band members –not me, I should add – had got heavily involved with heroin so the album was produced under that influence. I still think it came out pretty well and there are some great tracks on there, but the situation was obviously not going to go much further and the band broke-up just after the record was released, so sadly it didn’t really go anywhere…
‘Oh wow, you were there! You’re lucky to have seen us, because we only played four or five gigs… The Headhunters were the brainchild of the singer, Servo, and right from the start you could hear that he was really into Killing Joke. I wasn’t really such a big Killing Joke fan back then and neither was the bass player, so we were trying to do some different things with more of our own style. I think we all started to bring our own ideas into it, so we were beginning to move away from that initial style as we went along. But the early songs had all been written by Servo so that’s how we started out. I think that, by the time our last record, ‘Way of The South’, we were really starting to get our own sound together and I still think that was the best thing we did, but by then I was also playing with another band, called Wicked Kitchen Staff, and started to get more involved with them. We recorded an album and started to play live quite a bit, but I was still intending to continue playing with the Headhunters as well. But Servo got it into his head that I wasn’t interested in the Headhunters anymore and I was going to leave, so again, things just fizzled-out. It was a shame because I think the way we were going, Headhunters could have become really good…’
Wicked Kitchen Staff are quite obscure in retrospect, but certainly made a mark for themselves at the time…
‘My God, they were the best band of the whole lot! Totally innovative and very original… the singer kind of looked like Morrissey and would go onstage with flowers in his back pocket… apparently Morrissey himself had been along to watch us at one of our early gigs, before the flowers became one of his things... Fiction records were actually interested in us at one point and spoke to us about possibly doing a record, but they wanted us to come up with something a bit more musical than our usual stuff, so they could release a record that might get played on the radio. Unfortunately that request just started a dispute in the band, between those that wanted to go along with it and those who didn’t… I suppose it didn’t help that some of the band were pretty-much off their heads on drugs all the time, but either-way, we just couldn’t put anything together for Fiction and consequently decided that we didn’t want to sign with them anyway So we ended-up recording an album for Shout records, but by then a couple of the band members –not me, I should add – had got heavily involved with heroin so the album was produced under that influence. I still think it came out pretty well and there are some great tracks on there, but the situation was obviously not going to go much further and the band broke-up just after the record was released, so sadly it didn’t really go anywhere…
You were also involved with a band called Bloodsport around the same time…
‘Yeah, that was straight after Headhunters, but what I should have realised at the time was that the other two guys were both on smack as well, which also made things difficult. I should have been able to spot the signs by then! Anyway, we managed to release a couple of records, but the other two became obsessed with getting a John Peel session and ended-up virtually stalking him and pestering him for a radio session… He didn’t appreciate them following him around so he basically told them to fuck off and when they realised they weren’t going to get any further, that was the end of it! They just lost interest in it…’
But you soon found yourself playing in several more bands…
‘Yeah, well, that was around the time that The Public Heirs reformed and released a couple of records and I also joined the Junior Manson Slags. Just before that, I was in a band called the Trash County Dominators, who had been put together as Jayne County’s backing band at first… We got together, started rehearsing and began to sound really good, but at the last minute Jayne didn’t turn up and that whole European tour fell through. But by that point we were all getting on really well and sounding really tight, so we decided to go ahead as our own band. We were a great garage band and we ended-up releasing two albums over the next couple of years, so we did pretty well. Around the same time as that, I also joined Junior Manson Slags and we released three or four records… That was also where I first met Michelle, who is now one of the singers in Seeds of 77, but it was a pretty chaotic band. It was all being encouraged by Mick Mercer at the Melody Maker, who took every opportunity to rave about us in the music press, but that ended-up creating monsters! In the end, things got out of hand and it resulted in a big punch-up after a gig in Carlisle. The bass player, Barry Myers, was actually hospitalised, so me and the drummer decided things just weren’t right and we left the band. Vom, from Dr & The Medics, joined them for a while, but it didn’t last very long after that.’
It was around this time that I first got to know you, while you were living in Camden and working on the market. It’s strange to see how Camden market is so different to the way it used to be… It’s not much different to a regular High Street and so much of the old character and creativity of the place has disappeared…
‘ Well, you used to be able to go to Camden market and you really didn’t know what you were going to find there… in a good way! But now, it’s become very sterile. That being said, we’re getting older and Camden is still a very young scene, which we don’t necessarily understand or know about. Things will always change and perhaps what Camden is now is what the kids who go there want it to be. I used to love Camden and I lived there for years, but I hardly recognise it now. When you have businesses like the ‘Hard Rock Café’ wanting to move in there, you just think, what a load of bollocks! I mean, it used to be great because you could live there cheaply and there were even squats where you could live for free, which was why so many musicians and artists were based there. But since then, they’ve cleaned-out all those places and made them into nice, expensive flats, so not many of those original people can afford to live there anymore. Which means it won't be such an interesting place... I know this is something that happens all over the world, but it’s just a shame when you had such a vibrant area and it eventually ends up like it is now. But, then again, we are living under a Tory government, so what do we expect?
‘Yeah, that was straight after Headhunters, but what I should have realised at the time was that the other two guys were both on smack as well, which also made things difficult. I should have been able to spot the signs by then! Anyway, we managed to release a couple of records, but the other two became obsessed with getting a John Peel session and ended-up virtually stalking him and pestering him for a radio session… He didn’t appreciate them following him around so he basically told them to fuck off and when they realised they weren’t going to get any further, that was the end of it! They just lost interest in it…’
But you soon found yourself playing in several more bands…
‘Yeah, well, that was around the time that The Public Heirs reformed and released a couple of records and I also joined the Junior Manson Slags. Just before that, I was in a band called the Trash County Dominators, who had been put together as Jayne County’s backing band at first… We got together, started rehearsing and began to sound really good, but at the last minute Jayne didn’t turn up and that whole European tour fell through. But by that point we were all getting on really well and sounding really tight, so we decided to go ahead as our own band. We were a great garage band and we ended-up releasing two albums over the next couple of years, so we did pretty well. Around the same time as that, I also joined Junior Manson Slags and we released three or four records… That was also where I first met Michelle, who is now one of the singers in Seeds of 77, but it was a pretty chaotic band. It was all being encouraged by Mick Mercer at the Melody Maker, who took every opportunity to rave about us in the music press, but that ended-up creating monsters! In the end, things got out of hand and it resulted in a big punch-up after a gig in Carlisle. The bass player, Barry Myers, was actually hospitalised, so me and the drummer decided things just weren’t right and we left the band. Vom, from Dr & The Medics, joined them for a while, but it didn’t last very long after that.’
It was around this time that I first got to know you, while you were living in Camden and working on the market. It’s strange to see how Camden market is so different to the way it used to be… It’s not much different to a regular High Street and so much of the old character and creativity of the place has disappeared…
‘ Well, you used to be able to go to Camden market and you really didn’t know what you were going to find there… in a good way! But now, it’s become very sterile. That being said, we’re getting older and Camden is still a very young scene, which we don’t necessarily understand or know about. Things will always change and perhaps what Camden is now is what the kids who go there want it to be. I used to love Camden and I lived there for years, but I hardly recognise it now. When you have businesses like the ‘Hard Rock Café’ wanting to move in there, you just think, what a load of bollocks! I mean, it used to be great because you could live there cheaply and there were even squats where you could live for free, which was why so many musicians and artists were based there. But since then, they’ve cleaned-out all those places and made them into nice, expensive flats, so not many of those original people can afford to live there anymore. Which means it won't be such an interesting place... I know this is something that happens all over the world, but it’s just a shame when you had such a vibrant area and it eventually ends up like it is now. But, then again, we are living under a Tory government, so what do we expect?
I think you did a couple of projects with Michelle after Junior Manson Slags (P.U.M.P and Suck Henry) but the next band I saw you playing with were the Camden-based legends, ‘FUCK ALL ELSE TO DO’…
‘Yeah, that was really just our mate, John Ribs, and a bunch of us from around Camden, and we literally had ‘fuck all else to do’, so we got together to play some gigs. And although FAETD didn’t release anything, some of us recorded and released an album called ‘Doghouse’, under the name ‘The Australian Stooges’. It was really just a Stooges covers-album, but we did go and play on a big 40 date tour organised by Jon Beast, which was a total rip-off but also hilarious and great fun, so I’ll never forget that. By then, Fuck All Else To Do were also playing quite a bit, mainly around Camden, and we started getting pretty good. John Ribs was a great frontman , who seemed quite extroverted but was really such a nice guy. I mean, I don’t know if any of us really had a clue as to where he was trying to go with it and maybe that was down to his personality, but he was always entertaining. But after those bands finished, I had a bit of a gap and just played occasional one-off gigs at places like the 12 Bar Club. I did one thing called the Psychedelic Beatles, which was just me playing punk backing tracks with Beatle’s lyrics, just to see if I could mash the two things together…’
Unexpectedly, you then joined Punk-legends Menace, as their singer and guitarist…
‘It caught me by surprise as well! I was up at The Dublin Castle in Camden one night and Menace were playing in the back room. When I saw them onstage, I realised that I’d already met their bass player, Charlie Casey, back in the Eighties when the Headhunters were releasing records on Quiet records. He was working for one of the other labels, Fresh records, which was based at the same place… Of course, by that point, the original Menace had already split-up, but me and Charlie always got on like a house on fire. I hadn’t seen him for a while, so after the gig we got chatting and it turned out that they were looking for a new guitar player… My friend Tara was with me and told him that I was a good guitarist, so they introduced me to the drummer, Noel. He just said, right, No racism, No sexism, blah blah blah… do you want the job? So we arranged a rehearsal and there was also supposed to be a new singer coming along… I was living in Wales at the time and I worked really hard to learn their songs, but when I arrived at the rehearsal, it was just me, Charlie and Noel… no singer as he didn’t turn up. I’d been listening to all the songs so I sang and played guitar with them and by the end of it, they both looked at each other and said, that’ll do, we don’t need another singer! So suddenly, I had two new jobs and the next thing I knew, we were going on tour in France! We even ended up going to play in Japan, with The Boys and TV Smith… that’s got to be one of the best tours I’ve ever been on, not just playing over there but also getting a chance to see the different places. So I’ve really enjoyed playing with Menace… we might not make much money out of it, but we get to go to some great places. Unfortunately, it’s recently started to become difficult for me, because I’ve been having chemo-treatment and it leaves my energy levels really low. Doing what I do in Menace, singing and playing guitar, it takes a lot and I suppose I could try to take it easy, maybe sitting on a chair at the side of the stage or something, but that would just be such a shallow version of Menace that it wouldn’t be right. And even doing it like that, it would still really take a lot out of me, so I’m not sure how we’ll be going ahead at the moment…’
‘Yeah, that was really just our mate, John Ribs, and a bunch of us from around Camden, and we literally had ‘fuck all else to do’, so we got together to play some gigs. And although FAETD didn’t release anything, some of us recorded and released an album called ‘Doghouse’, under the name ‘The Australian Stooges’. It was really just a Stooges covers-album, but we did go and play on a big 40 date tour organised by Jon Beast, which was a total rip-off but also hilarious and great fun, so I’ll never forget that. By then, Fuck All Else To Do were also playing quite a bit, mainly around Camden, and we started getting pretty good. John Ribs was a great frontman , who seemed quite extroverted but was really such a nice guy. I mean, I don’t know if any of us really had a clue as to where he was trying to go with it and maybe that was down to his personality, but he was always entertaining. But after those bands finished, I had a bit of a gap and just played occasional one-off gigs at places like the 12 Bar Club. I did one thing called the Psychedelic Beatles, which was just me playing punk backing tracks with Beatle’s lyrics, just to see if I could mash the two things together…’
Unexpectedly, you then joined Punk-legends Menace, as their singer and guitarist…
‘It caught me by surprise as well! I was up at The Dublin Castle in Camden one night and Menace were playing in the back room. When I saw them onstage, I realised that I’d already met their bass player, Charlie Casey, back in the Eighties when the Headhunters were releasing records on Quiet records. He was working for one of the other labels, Fresh records, which was based at the same place… Of course, by that point, the original Menace had already split-up, but me and Charlie always got on like a house on fire. I hadn’t seen him for a while, so after the gig we got chatting and it turned out that they were looking for a new guitar player… My friend Tara was with me and told him that I was a good guitarist, so they introduced me to the drummer, Noel. He just said, right, No racism, No sexism, blah blah blah… do you want the job? So we arranged a rehearsal and there was also supposed to be a new singer coming along… I was living in Wales at the time and I worked really hard to learn their songs, but when I arrived at the rehearsal, it was just me, Charlie and Noel… no singer as he didn’t turn up. I’d been listening to all the songs so I sang and played guitar with them and by the end of it, they both looked at each other and said, that’ll do, we don’t need another singer! So suddenly, I had two new jobs and the next thing I knew, we were going on tour in France! We even ended up going to play in Japan, with The Boys and TV Smith… that’s got to be one of the best tours I’ve ever been on, not just playing over there but also getting a chance to see the different places. So I’ve really enjoyed playing with Menace… we might not make much money out of it, but we get to go to some great places. Unfortunately, it’s recently started to become difficult for me, because I’ve been having chemo-treatment and it leaves my energy levels really low. Doing what I do in Menace, singing and playing guitar, it takes a lot and I suppose I could try to take it easy, maybe sitting on a chair at the side of the stage or something, but that would just be such a shallow version of Menace that it wouldn’t be right. And even doing it like that, it would still really take a lot out of me, so I’m not sure how we’ll be going ahead at the moment…’
Despite your recent health problems, you’ve also put together your latest band, Seeds of 77. What was the whole idea behind this?
‘I started putting Seeds of 77 together in 2017, but it took a little while for things to settle into place, by which time these bloody lockdowns started to hold things up even more. But basically, I had this idea to go back to those three basic chords that Punk Rock was based-on in the early days and I wanted to see what we could make out of them now, since we’re all a bit more talented now than we were back then. I already knew Vince as the singer from Morgellons and as it happened, they had just broken-up... I already liked his lyrics and I thought he’d be a good person to play with, so we got chatting about working together and I asked him to send me some songs to see if I could do something with them. As soon as he sent me a few things, I just thought ‘wow!’ His new songs were really good and it was just the sort of thing I wanted to work on. It was really exciting, so we start to put some pieces together. He’d send me some lyrics and I’d work on some music, record it and send it back to him so he could hear it and work with it… We worked on some of my songs as well and it was all going really well, so I starting asking other people if they’d like to get involved. I asked Neil if he’d like to play drums and he was up for it, then I asked Shanne Bradley (ex-Nips, Men They Couldn’t Hang etc) if she’d like to play bass with us… At first, she was into it and it seemed to be going well, but when the lockdowns started, I don’t think she liked having to work on the songs remotely, if you know what I mean. She was much more into rehearsing the songs together with a whole band and getting the feel of it rather than learning and recording things on her own, separate to everyone else. When the lockdowns came in and I asked if she would be able to record some stuff online, she really wasn’t keen on doing things that way… Which was a shame, because I really like Shanne and I’ve got so much respect for her, particularly as a musician. But gradually, we managed to get this line-up together and we managed to record the album online, even though it wasn’t the ideal way to do it… we were stuck in the middle of a very difficult time and we made a real lockdown album. When you consider that, we’ve actually done really well! That’s real Punk Rock DIY! The funny thing is that we got reviewed in ‘Vive Le Rock’ and most of the other bands were getting 7 or 8 out of 10, while we got 6 out of 10… I was really happy with that because those other records probably cost £10,000 or £20,000 to record, while ours only cost £100! So our record is a real punk rock album, recorded during some very strange times!’
‘I started putting Seeds of 77 together in 2017, but it took a little while for things to settle into place, by which time these bloody lockdowns started to hold things up even more. But basically, I had this idea to go back to those three basic chords that Punk Rock was based-on in the early days and I wanted to see what we could make out of them now, since we’re all a bit more talented now than we were back then. I already knew Vince as the singer from Morgellons and as it happened, they had just broken-up... I already liked his lyrics and I thought he’d be a good person to play with, so we got chatting about working together and I asked him to send me some songs to see if I could do something with them. As soon as he sent me a few things, I just thought ‘wow!’ His new songs were really good and it was just the sort of thing I wanted to work on. It was really exciting, so we start to put some pieces together. He’d send me some lyrics and I’d work on some music, record it and send it back to him so he could hear it and work with it… We worked on some of my songs as well and it was all going really well, so I starting asking other people if they’d like to get involved. I asked Neil if he’d like to play drums and he was up for it, then I asked Shanne Bradley (ex-Nips, Men They Couldn’t Hang etc) if she’d like to play bass with us… At first, she was into it and it seemed to be going well, but when the lockdowns started, I don’t think she liked having to work on the songs remotely, if you know what I mean. She was much more into rehearsing the songs together with a whole band and getting the feel of it rather than learning and recording things on her own, separate to everyone else. When the lockdowns came in and I asked if she would be able to record some stuff online, she really wasn’t keen on doing things that way… Which was a shame, because I really like Shanne and I’ve got so much respect for her, particularly as a musician. But gradually, we managed to get this line-up together and we managed to record the album online, even though it wasn’t the ideal way to do it… we were stuck in the middle of a very difficult time and we made a real lockdown album. When you consider that, we’ve actually done really well! That’s real Punk Rock DIY! The funny thing is that we got reviewed in ‘Vive Le Rock’ and most of the other bands were getting 7 or 8 out of 10, while we got 6 out of 10… I was really happy with that because those other records probably cost £10,000 or £20,000 to record, while ours only cost £100! So our record is a real punk rock album, recorded during some very strange times!’
It’s also a very ambitious album, musically, with a lot of depth and variety…
‘Yeah, well that’s what we were trying to do with those three chords… There’s a lot of different styles on there. Me and Vince have different ways of writing songs, but somehow they seem to come together really well. And when Richard and Simon came in with their ideas, which had an almost pop approach, it just added something else to what we were doing. When I first thought about getting Simon to play keyboards with us, I’d thought, I don’t know if I’m going to get this past Vince and sure enough, he wasn’t too sure about it. But once Simon started playing with us and we figured out how he was going to fit-in, I think we’ve all been very happy with it. Obviously, I’d worked with Michelle before and we’ve continued to collaborate over the years, so it was just natural that she was going to get involved with this and, again, I think it’s really added something positive to the band and the album. The one song that really stands out, I think, is the version of ‘Lost and Found’, as it’s so different to everything else on the album but still fits in perfectly. It’s actually one of Vince’s songs and I think when Simon recorded this stripped-down version with Michelle, it came together pretty differently to how Vince had imagined it would sound, but he was really impressed with the results, which made me feel great as I wouldn’t have wanted us to mess up something he’d written.’
That’s the great thing about the album… although it was written and recorded in a very disjointed way, the songs do come together very naturally and it sounds like a very solid album rather than just a bunch of different songs stuck together… If you heard ‘Lost and Found’ on its’ own, it wouldn’t be representative of the whole album, but as part of the whole thing, it fits-in perfectly…
‘Well, thank the lockdown and thank our ingenuity… we can’t thank the lockdown for too much but it did place us in a position where we had to be a bit more creative about how we put the album together and somehow, it worked out well.’
So, now that ‘Lockdown Breakout’ has been released and received a pretty positive response, do you have any further plans for Seeds of 77 ready to go?
‘Now that the album’s out, we want to push it, but at the same time I’ve got to be careful with my health. As I said, I’ve been having chemo-therapy recently and that really affects my energy levels. But we certainly intend to continue writing… We have six tracks that didn’t make it onto this album, so they’ll be the start for the next thing. Simon and Richard have been working on new things as well, so I think we’re going to work towards recording another album, although whether we’ll do it the same way as we did with this first album remains to be seen. One part of me is saying, the first album worked out really well so let’s do the next one in the same way, but the other side is saying, Oh no, let’s go in a studio and do it in the normal way, like any other band. We’ll have to figure out the best way for us to do it, but I definitely want to start working on the next thing as soon as we can because this first record has come out rather well and I think all of us really want to keep the momentum going!’
‘Yeah, well that’s what we were trying to do with those three chords… There’s a lot of different styles on there. Me and Vince have different ways of writing songs, but somehow they seem to come together really well. And when Richard and Simon came in with their ideas, which had an almost pop approach, it just added something else to what we were doing. When I first thought about getting Simon to play keyboards with us, I’d thought, I don’t know if I’m going to get this past Vince and sure enough, he wasn’t too sure about it. But once Simon started playing with us and we figured out how he was going to fit-in, I think we’ve all been very happy with it. Obviously, I’d worked with Michelle before and we’ve continued to collaborate over the years, so it was just natural that she was going to get involved with this and, again, I think it’s really added something positive to the band and the album. The one song that really stands out, I think, is the version of ‘Lost and Found’, as it’s so different to everything else on the album but still fits in perfectly. It’s actually one of Vince’s songs and I think when Simon recorded this stripped-down version with Michelle, it came together pretty differently to how Vince had imagined it would sound, but he was really impressed with the results, which made me feel great as I wouldn’t have wanted us to mess up something he’d written.’
That’s the great thing about the album… although it was written and recorded in a very disjointed way, the songs do come together very naturally and it sounds like a very solid album rather than just a bunch of different songs stuck together… If you heard ‘Lost and Found’ on its’ own, it wouldn’t be representative of the whole album, but as part of the whole thing, it fits-in perfectly…
‘Well, thank the lockdown and thank our ingenuity… we can’t thank the lockdown for too much but it did place us in a position where we had to be a bit more creative about how we put the album together and somehow, it worked out well.’
So, now that ‘Lockdown Breakout’ has been released and received a pretty positive response, do you have any further plans for Seeds of 77 ready to go?
‘Now that the album’s out, we want to push it, but at the same time I’ve got to be careful with my health. As I said, I’ve been having chemo-therapy recently and that really affects my energy levels. But we certainly intend to continue writing… We have six tracks that didn’t make it onto this album, so they’ll be the start for the next thing. Simon and Richard have been working on new things as well, so I think we’re going to work towards recording another album, although whether we’ll do it the same way as we did with this first album remains to be seen. One part of me is saying, the first album worked out really well so let’s do the next one in the same way, but the other side is saying, Oh no, let’s go in a studio and do it in the normal way, like any other band. We’ll have to figure out the best way for us to do it, but I definitely want to start working on the next thing as soon as we can because this first record has come out rather well and I think all of us really want to keep the momentum going!’
The bar is getting pretty busy by this point, almost drowning-out our conversation, so we finish-up to give Finn a chance to do a few other things before the band are due onstage. First up is a unique and unannounced event… two of his former bandmates from The Eyes have turned up to see the gig and the three of them get onstage to run through one of their old songs. This happens before anyone realises what’s going-on, something they just wanted to do for themselves. No big deal, just a bit of fun between old friends. Good for them!
Before Seeds of 77 play, I’ve been told there will be a ‘poetry reading’, which in itself isn’t too inspiring but in this case the poet, Cherry B, presents a fine selection of her work which has a great balance between serious subjects and humorous delivery. I can’t remember all the details, but one poem deftly put the Spice Girls in their place which, in a world that treats them as iconic when really all they did was wear skimpy outfits and generally acting like bimbo’s, sadly still needs to be said. I think the whole audience enjoyed Cherry’s performance and I was certainly impressed. If you get the chance, be sure to see or read her work.
Finally, Seeds of 77 are onstage and ready to go, but Vince is missing! He finally makes his fashionably-late appearance and the set takes off. Playing most if not all of the songs from the album, the set goes down very well, including their version of the Morgellons’ song ‘Subterranean Homesick Beast’ (as featured on the album) and a great cover of The Vaselines’ classic ‘Molly’s Lips’ as their finale. As I was saying, they have a solid selection of songs which show-off their range of ideas and individual talents. Watching them play together after the enforced-hiatus of the lockdowns, you can see they’re enjoying themselves and the songs come together perfectly. As Finn said, they already have several more songs that didn’t make it on to the album and they’re also working on brand new material so another album in the near future is definitely a possibility. Fingers-crossed that this comes together and really lives up to the potential heard on ‘Lockdown Breakout’. For further info, check out the following websites…
Before Seeds of 77 play, I’ve been told there will be a ‘poetry reading’, which in itself isn’t too inspiring but in this case the poet, Cherry B, presents a fine selection of her work which has a great balance between serious subjects and humorous delivery. I can’t remember all the details, but one poem deftly put the Spice Girls in their place which, in a world that treats them as iconic when really all they did was wear skimpy outfits and generally acting like bimbo’s, sadly still needs to be said. I think the whole audience enjoyed Cherry’s performance and I was certainly impressed. If you get the chance, be sure to see or read her work.
Finally, Seeds of 77 are onstage and ready to go, but Vince is missing! He finally makes his fashionably-late appearance and the set takes off. Playing most if not all of the songs from the album, the set goes down very well, including their version of the Morgellons’ song ‘Subterranean Homesick Beast’ (as featured on the album) and a great cover of The Vaselines’ classic ‘Molly’s Lips’ as their finale. As I was saying, they have a solid selection of songs which show-off their range of ideas and individual talents. Watching them play together after the enforced-hiatus of the lockdowns, you can see they’re enjoying themselves and the songs come together perfectly. As Finn said, they already have several more songs that didn’t make it on to the album and they’re also working on brand new material so another album in the near future is definitely a possibility. Fingers-crossed that this comes together and really lives up to the potential heard on ‘Lockdown Breakout’. For further info, check out the following websites…
