I first met Tom Crossley after I moved to London in 1993. After I got to know him a bit better, I discovered that we’d first crossed-paths a decade earlier than that, when his first band, Bad Karma Beckons had supported The Scientists at Hammersmith Clarendon. (That’s the thing about this music we’re all into, if you’re genuinely into this stuff, we all meet each other eventually!) Anyway, I eventually saw him singing again with The Reversals in 1998, which turned out to be their one and only gig, but not too long afterwards he joined another new band, The Phobics, and I’ve been unable to avoid them ever since!
Based around the Deptford area in South London, the band have steadfastly honed their style as a damn-fine punk-rock’n’roll powerhouse who can be relied upon to deliver a great set in whatever circumstances they appear. There have been a few line-up changes along the way and a bunch of records which have always been enthusiastically received, but with their most recent album, ‘Burnt Rubber’, they have really upped the ante. Recorded by former Vibrators member, Pat Collier, this album has truly captured their live sound and, combined with their best set of songs to date, has been impressing everyone who hears it.
So, it’s about time that I got around to interviewing them, although this wasn’t to be without difficulties. Firstly, I always feel awkward about interviewing friends because I’ll often already know the answers to any enquiries… Secondly, it’s difficult getting them all in one place at the same time and thirdly, just as we’re about to put this together, the Covid pandemic kicks-in and we’re not even allowed to see each other! But somehow it all comes together. I meet-up with Tom and Moyni in the heart of Deptford just a few days before the lockdown is announced and get a fair chunk of conversation recorded before the beers take over… I manage to interview Jeff and Charlie by telephone, whilst Paul decides to opt-out, claiming that he wants to remain ‘a man of mystery…’ With the lockdown continuing, I decided it would probably be best to delay publishing the final results until now… As the social restrictions begin to be lifted, people will hopefully begin to seek-out bands and music again, and The Phobics should be top of your list…
Based around the Deptford area in South London, the band have steadfastly honed their style as a damn-fine punk-rock’n’roll powerhouse who can be relied upon to deliver a great set in whatever circumstances they appear. There have been a few line-up changes along the way and a bunch of records which have always been enthusiastically received, but with their most recent album, ‘Burnt Rubber’, they have really upped the ante. Recorded by former Vibrators member, Pat Collier, this album has truly captured their live sound and, combined with their best set of songs to date, has been impressing everyone who hears it.
So, it’s about time that I got around to interviewing them, although this wasn’t to be without difficulties. Firstly, I always feel awkward about interviewing friends because I’ll often already know the answers to any enquiries… Secondly, it’s difficult getting them all in one place at the same time and thirdly, just as we’re about to put this together, the Covid pandemic kicks-in and we’re not even allowed to see each other! But somehow it all comes together. I meet-up with Tom and Moyni in the heart of Deptford just a few days before the lockdown is announced and get a fair chunk of conversation recorded before the beers take over… I manage to interview Jeff and Charlie by telephone, whilst Paul decides to opt-out, claiming that he wants to remain ‘a man of mystery…’ With the lockdown continuing, I decided it would probably be best to delay publishing the final results until now… As the social restrictions begin to be lifted, people will hopefully begin to seek-out bands and music again, and The Phobics should be top of your list…
(For a sense of genuine South London authenticity, please imagine that the following all took place in The Birds Nest pub…)
As you would probably expect, the individual members of The Phobics have all been involved in music for some time and have all been members of bands with quite a range of different styles. As it’s these different backgrounds that come together to give The Phobics their unique style, I thought this would be an ideal place to start the story…
Moyni ; I think the first records I bought were probably Glam Rock, things like Marc Bolan, The Sweet, Slade, even Gary Glitter, when I was about 13 or 14… that’s what really got me into music and then Punk came along and I started listening to the Pistols, the Ramones and all that stuff. I think that was what inspired me to try and learn to play guitar and I ended-up in my first band, The Icons … We started by playing covers but quickly decided that we wanted to write our own songs, so we soon had a whole set of our own stuff. Unfortunately, though, we only ever recorded two songs, ‘Odds Against Tomorrow’ and ‘Follow The Crowd’, which was also the name of a fanzine we used to do. We also managed to make a video for ‘Odds Against Tomorrow’, which I did as part of my Degree course, but we didn’t release any records, not until being included on a compilation of Irish bands that came out a lot later on…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ha6yFt2ess
It was all a good craic, but it only lasted for a couple of years and I didn’t really do anything else for a while. I eventually moved to London at some point in the late Eighties, but I still didn’t get involved in playing music until I met a band called Rumorosa, who included former members of a band called Birdhouse… They were looking for a new bass player and asked me if I’d be interested. It was the first time I’d played bass in a band, so I rehearsed with them for a while and we began playing some a few gigs. We were even supposed to play on one of the smaller stages at Glastonbury one year, but it had been pissing down with rain all day and by the time we turned-up, we were told we couldn’t play because the stage has sunk!
Tom ; That’s the only time I’ve heard of a stage going down better than the band!
Moyni ; We released one CD which included a great version of ‘Hellraiser’ by The Sweet, but then the rest of the band decided to split-up. But playing with them had got me back into playing music and the next thing that came up was The Phobics…
As you would probably expect, the individual members of The Phobics have all been involved in music for some time and have all been members of bands with quite a range of different styles. As it’s these different backgrounds that come together to give The Phobics their unique style, I thought this would be an ideal place to start the story…
Moyni ; I think the first records I bought were probably Glam Rock, things like Marc Bolan, The Sweet, Slade, even Gary Glitter, when I was about 13 or 14… that’s what really got me into music and then Punk came along and I started listening to the Pistols, the Ramones and all that stuff. I think that was what inspired me to try and learn to play guitar and I ended-up in my first band, The Icons … We started by playing covers but quickly decided that we wanted to write our own songs, so we soon had a whole set of our own stuff. Unfortunately, though, we only ever recorded two songs, ‘Odds Against Tomorrow’ and ‘Follow The Crowd’, which was also the name of a fanzine we used to do. We also managed to make a video for ‘Odds Against Tomorrow’, which I did as part of my Degree course, but we didn’t release any records, not until being included on a compilation of Irish bands that came out a lot later on…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ha6yFt2ess
It was all a good craic, but it only lasted for a couple of years and I didn’t really do anything else for a while. I eventually moved to London at some point in the late Eighties, but I still didn’t get involved in playing music until I met a band called Rumorosa, who included former members of a band called Birdhouse… They were looking for a new bass player and asked me if I’d be interested. It was the first time I’d played bass in a band, so I rehearsed with them for a while and we began playing some a few gigs. We were even supposed to play on one of the smaller stages at Glastonbury one year, but it had been pissing down with rain all day and by the time we turned-up, we were told we couldn’t play because the stage has sunk!
Tom ; That’s the only time I’ve heard of a stage going down better than the band!
Moyni ; We released one CD which included a great version of ‘Hellraiser’ by The Sweet, but then the rest of the band decided to split-up. But playing with them had got me back into playing music and the next thing that came up was The Phobics…
How did you meet the rest of the band?
Moyni ; Well, at first the band were just me, Jeff and our original drummer, Darren. I think we’d all just met in a pub somewhere and it was actually Darren who was really pushing us to do something. We started rehearsing and at first we had another singer, called Paul. To this day, I can’t remember what happened to him, but the rest of us already knew Tom and gradually we realised that he would be a better frontman for us.
Tom : I’d known Moyni for quite a while and we’d always got along really well, so I already wanted to be in a band with him. There was just something about the connection we had that I thought would work really well. Around about that time, September 1999, I’d broken my leg in a nasty accident and I was stuck at home on crutches and an external fixator on my leg. I was bored out of my mind until Moyni asked me to come along and sit-in with them. I’d already been in a band called The Reversals with Jeff for a while and we’d written some songs together… The new band had already been rehearsing some of those songs, so I thought, okay, I’ll go along and I can sing those ones… If they sound good, it’ll be great and if not, then I haven’t made any commitment to carry on. But straight away, I thought, this sounds alright! We were all happy with the way it went so that was it… and the best thing was, they were rehearsing in a place that was practically across the road from where I lived, so I could get there easily, even while my leg was still fucked-up. It was great for me to have a way of getting out of the house and tt probably helped me to keep my sanity! I have to admit, it was a bit weird turning up to an audition on my crutches, but it went really well so I just thought, yeah, I’ll have a bit of that!
You’d also been involved with several bands before The Phobics…
Tom ; Yeah… the first proper band I was in was Bad Karma Beckons. That really came about as a bit of a fluke… I used to help out at a club called Pipeline, which was at Gossips in Soho on Tuesday nights. A little time after we’d been there, another club started on Monday nights called Alice in Wonderland, which was run by Clive from Dr and The Medics. There was a kind of friendly rivalry between the clubs so we decided to play a joke on them, by making-up a band and trying to get a gig there. We’d make up a band and try to get a gig there. If they fell for it, we’d just dress-up silly, go onstage and take the piss. Anyway, we sent them a demo tape that someone had sent us, saying that it was our band even though, at that point, 'We' didn’t exist. One weekend, they phoned Jude and said that the band who were supposed to play on the Monday had pulled-out, so could we stand-in at short notice? Jude told them, fine, we’ll do it. He then phoned the rest of us and told us that we had a gig to play! Somehow, we booked a rehearsal at Alaska Studios and decided what we were going to do. They asked me what I could play, which was nothing, so they decided I would have to be a singer. Jude had to be a singer as well, while Carol had been in an Irish all-girl punk band called Boy Scoutz, so she played guitar. Tony Conway had been in a band called Security Risk with Charlie Harper, as well as Mood Six, so he could play guitar, and Duncan had played bass with Nikki Sudden. We didn’t know any drummers, so we got hold of a drum machine and rehearsed a load of covers on Sunday before playing our first gig on Monday night! It was only meant to be a one-off so we turned up in disguise with wigs and costumes, but when we went on they soon realised who we were and tried to pull the plugs. But by then, we were actually going down rather well and there ended-up being a mini-riot which was even written about in Sounds! I think it said something like, ‘the worst band in the world, but also, aesthetically, the best!’
Moyni ; Well, at first the band were just me, Jeff and our original drummer, Darren. I think we’d all just met in a pub somewhere and it was actually Darren who was really pushing us to do something. We started rehearsing and at first we had another singer, called Paul. To this day, I can’t remember what happened to him, but the rest of us already knew Tom and gradually we realised that he would be a better frontman for us.
Tom : I’d known Moyni for quite a while and we’d always got along really well, so I already wanted to be in a band with him. There was just something about the connection we had that I thought would work really well. Around about that time, September 1999, I’d broken my leg in a nasty accident and I was stuck at home on crutches and an external fixator on my leg. I was bored out of my mind until Moyni asked me to come along and sit-in with them. I’d already been in a band called The Reversals with Jeff for a while and we’d written some songs together… The new band had already been rehearsing some of those songs, so I thought, okay, I’ll go along and I can sing those ones… If they sound good, it’ll be great and if not, then I haven’t made any commitment to carry on. But straight away, I thought, this sounds alright! We were all happy with the way it went so that was it… and the best thing was, they were rehearsing in a place that was practically across the road from where I lived, so I could get there easily, even while my leg was still fucked-up. It was great for me to have a way of getting out of the house and tt probably helped me to keep my sanity! I have to admit, it was a bit weird turning up to an audition on my crutches, but it went really well so I just thought, yeah, I’ll have a bit of that!
You’d also been involved with several bands before The Phobics…
Tom ; Yeah… the first proper band I was in was Bad Karma Beckons. That really came about as a bit of a fluke… I used to help out at a club called Pipeline, which was at Gossips in Soho on Tuesday nights. A little time after we’d been there, another club started on Monday nights called Alice in Wonderland, which was run by Clive from Dr and The Medics. There was a kind of friendly rivalry between the clubs so we decided to play a joke on them, by making-up a band and trying to get a gig there. We’d make up a band and try to get a gig there. If they fell for it, we’d just dress-up silly, go onstage and take the piss. Anyway, we sent them a demo tape that someone had sent us, saying that it was our band even though, at that point, 'We' didn’t exist. One weekend, they phoned Jude and said that the band who were supposed to play on the Monday had pulled-out, so could we stand-in at short notice? Jude told them, fine, we’ll do it. He then phoned the rest of us and told us that we had a gig to play! Somehow, we booked a rehearsal at Alaska Studios and decided what we were going to do. They asked me what I could play, which was nothing, so they decided I would have to be a singer. Jude had to be a singer as well, while Carol had been in an Irish all-girl punk band called Boy Scoutz, so she played guitar. Tony Conway had been in a band called Security Risk with Charlie Harper, as well as Mood Six, so he could play guitar, and Duncan had played bass with Nikki Sudden. We didn’t know any drummers, so we got hold of a drum machine and rehearsed a load of covers on Sunday before playing our first gig on Monday night! It was only meant to be a one-off so we turned up in disguise with wigs and costumes, but when we went on they soon realised who we were and tried to pull the plugs. But by then, we were actually going down rather well and there ended-up being a mini-riot which was even written about in Sounds! I think it said something like, ‘the worst band in the world, but also, aesthetically, the best!’
We’d only done it as a joke, but people started telling us that we ought to do more, so we played a few more gigs and then decided to start writing our own stuff. We ditched the drum machine and got a drummer, Charlie, who is now in The Phobics…Eventually, we had enough of our own material to record an album and… the rest is travesty! Bad Karma Beckons eventually came to and end when Tony left, but the rest of us changed the name to Helltrain and carried on. We recorded an album and one song, ‘The Magic Touch’, for a Bobby Fuller Four tribute album, which was done at really short-notice but, to this day, it’s probably the best vocals I’ve ever recorded. When Helltrain came to an end, I was involved in a band called The Famous Monsters alongside Giovanni Dadomo from the Snivelling Shits and Mick Atkins from Wasted Youth. It was really just a bunch of us who were already friends and big fans of Johnny Thunders… we had an ever-changing list of drummers and Carol also joined us a bit later on. We recorded quite a bit of material, including some songs with Patti Palladin, but to date it’s never been released, which is a shame. I’m still hoping that it might come out one day, because I think the songs deserve to be heard.
Moyni ; I think there were a few things that The Phobics borrowed from that band…
Tom ; Oh yeah… ‘Get Your Act Together’, on the new album certainly was. But I think when anyone joins a new band they often bring things from their previous bands. It’s only natural if you’ve written, or helped to write, something that you like, that you’ll want to get it out there for people to hear. There are still other songs from those days that I’d like to bring to The Phobics, to see what we could do with them, although I wouldn’t want to do that at the expense of our own new material. There’s a right time and a wrong time to bring back one of those songs. ..
Moyni ; There’s actually one of the old songs by The Icons, ‘Mindless’, that we’ve played at rehearsals a few times. We haven’t really nailed it yet, but it’s sounding pretty good and the way we play it now, I think it sounds more like The Phobics than The Icons…
Tom ; Anyway, after the Famous Monsters I was involved with The Reversals, as I’ve already mentioned, which also included Carol and Jeff. But the only gig we ever played was at a pub in Deptford, which was a surprise birthday party that Dee had arranged for my 40th. I didn’t even know I was going to be playing until I was taken down there! It had all been set-up without me knowing and I thought I was going for a meal, but after we ate they insisted on dropping into this pub where I found all these people waiting and the band set-up to play!
Moyni ; The thing I always remember about that gig is that they played ‘Lipstick’, which I thought was a really great song.
Moyni ; I think there were a few things that The Phobics borrowed from that band…
Tom ; Oh yeah… ‘Get Your Act Together’, on the new album certainly was. But I think when anyone joins a new band they often bring things from their previous bands. It’s only natural if you’ve written, or helped to write, something that you like, that you’ll want to get it out there for people to hear. There are still other songs from those days that I’d like to bring to The Phobics, to see what we could do with them, although I wouldn’t want to do that at the expense of our own new material. There’s a right time and a wrong time to bring back one of those songs. ..
Moyni ; There’s actually one of the old songs by The Icons, ‘Mindless’, that we’ve played at rehearsals a few times. We haven’t really nailed it yet, but it’s sounding pretty good and the way we play it now, I think it sounds more like The Phobics than The Icons…
Tom ; Anyway, after the Famous Monsters I was involved with The Reversals, as I’ve already mentioned, which also included Carol and Jeff. But the only gig we ever played was at a pub in Deptford, which was a surprise birthday party that Dee had arranged for my 40th. I didn’t even know I was going to be playing until I was taken down there! It had all been set-up without me knowing and I thought I was going for a meal, but after we ate they insisted on dropping into this pub where I found all these people waiting and the band set-up to play!
Moyni ; The thing I always remember about that gig is that they played ‘Lipstick’, which I thought was a really great song.
Tom : The Reversals were a good band, even though we didn’t get to do very much… which is why a few of the songs that me and Jeff wrote that have ended-up being played by The Phobics.
Jeff ; I started teaching myself how to play guitar when I first heard Punk Rock and decided that I wanted to be in a band. The first band I was actually in were called The Mousehounds, which was also where I met my wife, Sandra. We used to play at places like The Timebox, up at the old Bull & Gate in Kentish Town. Jon Beast would book us to support bands like My Bloody Valentine… After The Mousehounds ended, I was living in a place on Liverpool Road and I got to know Stan Stammers, who had just left Spear of Destiny. He knew the band Living in Texas as they had been supporting Spear of Destiny and when he found out that they were looking for a second guitar player, he put-in a word for me. I met up with their singer, Steve, and he invited me down to their rehearsal room in Wapping. Everything worked out and they took me on. This was probably around October 1986 and by the end of the year, I’d recorded with them and we’d also played gigs in Europe. I stayed with them until 1992 and during that time, we also had another band called The Sunflowers, which was me, Matt and Nick from Living in Texas, together with Sandra and Matt’s girlfriend. We would just play gigs for fun…
youtu.be/aTfPe0QDCi8
How did you eventually get involved with The Phobics?
Jeff ; I met Tom because we were both living on the Crossfields estate in Deptford and we both used to drink at the Birds Nest pub. We ended up chatting and got to know each other, and ended up playing in The Reversals for a short time. I also knew Moyni and, after The Reversals had ended, he was trying to put together a band with a drummer called Darren. I got involved and we started rehearsing, before we even had a name or anything. We were looking for a singer and I suggested Tom, which was very convenient as he literally lived just across the road from our rehearsal room. We were all friends so it worked out perfectly, even though he had a really bad accident around the same time and his leg was really badly broken. But as soon as he could, he started coming to rehearsals and the band started to come together. This was in 1999 and we played our first gigs in early 2000… there was one at the Bull & Gate and another one at the Hope & Anchor.
So, in some ways, The Reversals kind of morphed into The Phobics…
Tom ; Yeah, in a way… the Reversals just didn’t work out, but then Jeff joined The Phobics with Moyni and they were playing songs that I’d already been singing with The Reversals, so when Moyni asked me to rehearse with them, it was all-good for me because I already knew a bunch of the songs.
Jeff ; I started teaching myself how to play guitar when I first heard Punk Rock and decided that I wanted to be in a band. The first band I was actually in were called The Mousehounds, which was also where I met my wife, Sandra. We used to play at places like The Timebox, up at the old Bull & Gate in Kentish Town. Jon Beast would book us to support bands like My Bloody Valentine… After The Mousehounds ended, I was living in a place on Liverpool Road and I got to know Stan Stammers, who had just left Spear of Destiny. He knew the band Living in Texas as they had been supporting Spear of Destiny and when he found out that they were looking for a second guitar player, he put-in a word for me. I met up with their singer, Steve, and he invited me down to their rehearsal room in Wapping. Everything worked out and they took me on. This was probably around October 1986 and by the end of the year, I’d recorded with them and we’d also played gigs in Europe. I stayed with them until 1992 and during that time, we also had another band called The Sunflowers, which was me, Matt and Nick from Living in Texas, together with Sandra and Matt’s girlfriend. We would just play gigs for fun…
youtu.be/aTfPe0QDCi8
How did you eventually get involved with The Phobics?
Jeff ; I met Tom because we were both living on the Crossfields estate in Deptford and we both used to drink at the Birds Nest pub. We ended up chatting and got to know each other, and ended up playing in The Reversals for a short time. I also knew Moyni and, after The Reversals had ended, he was trying to put together a band with a drummer called Darren. I got involved and we started rehearsing, before we even had a name or anything. We were looking for a singer and I suggested Tom, which was very convenient as he literally lived just across the road from our rehearsal room. We were all friends so it worked out perfectly, even though he had a really bad accident around the same time and his leg was really badly broken. But as soon as he could, he started coming to rehearsals and the band started to come together. This was in 1999 and we played our first gigs in early 2000… there was one at the Bull & Gate and another one at the Hope & Anchor.
So, in some ways, The Reversals kind of morphed into The Phobics…
Tom ; Yeah, in a way… the Reversals just didn’t work out, but then Jeff joined The Phobics with Moyni and they were playing songs that I’d already been singing with The Reversals, so when Moyni asked me to rehearse with them, it was all-good for me because I already knew a bunch of the songs.
The thing that I’ve always liked about The Phobics is that although, amongst other things, you’ve been influenced by American bands like The Ramones and The Heartbreakers, the lyrics have always been based on things that affect you closer to home in South London…
Moyni ; I think that, right from the beginning, we wanted to be playing our own songs. It’s fun to play a few cover versions and we do that sometimes, but we never wanted to rely on them. We brought in a few songs from our previous bands, but apart from that we were really keen to write new ones.
Tom ; This is the kind of music we enjoy playing, but when it comes to the lyrics, we’re singing about the things that we know… We generally tend to write songs about what we see and what we do… drinking in Deptford is one of those things so ‘Down and Out in Deptford’, for example, is a song celebrating when pub culture goes a bit wrong! Of course, we’ve all had a few alcohol-related misadventures…
I think that song really typifies your style… It’s got lots of energy, a great melodic hook and lyrics that really appeal to an audience, with a good balance of serious and humorous subject matter…
Moyni ; I actually wrote it when I was messing around with a couple of mates, trying to put together a sort of countrified band. So I’d had that tune for a while and the lyrics were more or less about a big doss-house, called Carrington House, that used to be in Deptford. It’s not there anymore as it was converted into flats, but back then it was full of really hardcore drinkers and during the day you’d see them all hanging around on Deptford Broadway and the High Street. I think the words just came from seeing those guys around on the streets… But I guess it could also have applied to me on one or two occasions… One time I was coming back really late from a gig and I was out of my head. I was walking down to my flat from the bus stop and I saw this building with its’ lights on and could hear music coming from it. so I thought it must be an rave or something. I went into it thinking I could get another drink, but it turned out to be some sort of all-night Church prayer-vigil going on! There were no drinks in there, obviously, so I left as soon as I realised what it was… before anyone saw me and tried to convert me! So maybe the song was influenced a bit by personal experiences… It’s a pretty cool song, either way
Moyni ; I think that, right from the beginning, we wanted to be playing our own songs. It’s fun to play a few cover versions and we do that sometimes, but we never wanted to rely on them. We brought in a few songs from our previous bands, but apart from that we were really keen to write new ones.
Tom ; This is the kind of music we enjoy playing, but when it comes to the lyrics, we’re singing about the things that we know… We generally tend to write songs about what we see and what we do… drinking in Deptford is one of those things so ‘Down and Out in Deptford’, for example, is a song celebrating when pub culture goes a bit wrong! Of course, we’ve all had a few alcohol-related misadventures…
I think that song really typifies your style… It’s got lots of energy, a great melodic hook and lyrics that really appeal to an audience, with a good balance of serious and humorous subject matter…
Moyni ; I actually wrote it when I was messing around with a couple of mates, trying to put together a sort of countrified band. So I’d had that tune for a while and the lyrics were more or less about a big doss-house, called Carrington House, that used to be in Deptford. It’s not there anymore as it was converted into flats, but back then it was full of really hardcore drinkers and during the day you’d see them all hanging around on Deptford Broadway and the High Street. I think the words just came from seeing those guys around on the streets… But I guess it could also have applied to me on one or two occasions… One time I was coming back really late from a gig and I was out of my head. I was walking down to my flat from the bus stop and I saw this building with its’ lights on and could hear music coming from it. so I thought it must be an rave or something. I went into it thinking I could get another drink, but it turned out to be some sort of all-night Church prayer-vigil going on! There were no drinks in there, obviously, so I left as soon as I realised what it was… before anyone saw me and tried to convert me! So maybe the song was influenced a bit by personal experiences… It’s a pretty cool song, either way
You recorded and released the ‘Terminal’ EP in 2000, by which time Paul Mathie had also joined the band…
Moyni ; Yeah, we wanted to see what it would sound like if we had two guitarists, and it worked-out great so we stuck with it. But soon after that EP, Darren left… I think there was a clash of personalities to some extent, but there were also a few other things… He was planning to move out of London, although he did say that he’d still be able to rehearse and play with us. But then he decided that he wanted to take a sabbatical from the band and the rest of us weren’t sure if he’d definitely come back, so we started looking for someone else to play drums. One day Tom turns up at rehearsals and he says that Afonso from The Parkinsons wanted to play drums for us! I didn’t even know he could play drums and I’m not even sure now, but to be fair to him, I think he actually re-energised the band. It was great fun, even though we often wouldn’t even know what speed he was going to play from one song to the next! He was never the greatest drummer, but playing with him was always a good laugh!
Tom ; Originally, he was only going to help us out for one gig, but he ended-up drumming with us for two years! I’d been at a gig in Camden and met Eric, who now plays drums for King Salami, and asked if he’d be interested in playing with us. He wasn’t able to do it, but he said I should ask Afonso. We were already good friends, so he said he’d do it and he ended up playing with us for a couple of years. It was a fantastic time because we never knew what was going to happen… sometimes we’d play the best gig in the world while other times would be the worst! It could be awkward for the rest of the band when that happened, but I’m sure that anyone watching would have found it massively entertaining. People who knew us appreciated that unpredictability, although if others were seeing us for the first time, I expect they thought we were a mess…But when everything came together, it would be great!
The thing is, sometimes, the gigs that go really wrong can be some of the best memories in retrospect, even though they might have been horrible at the time…
Moyni ; Oh, yeah… I’ll always remember one gig we played at the Elephant & Castle. We’d actually played the same place about a month earlier and everything had gone really well, so they booked us again. We’d gone down there in a van, for a change, but Afonso turned-up separately and he was already pissed…
Tom ; When we got there, we realised that we’d left the cymbals behind, so I said that I’d go back on a bus and get them from the rehearsal room, while the rest of the band were setting up and sound checking. But instead of doing that, when I got back I found out that they’d all just been sitting around, drinking. I walked in and Afonso was actually sitting on his drum-stool, asleep!
Moyni ; Things just got worse from that point on… the promoter came up onstage halfway through our set and said, ‘Isn’t this the worst fucking band you’ve ever heard?’ That got the biggest cheer of the night! Some bloke threw a full pint glass at Afonso, but he was so pissed by then that he didn’t even notice! I turned around at one point and Jeff was playing a song with a cymbal balanced on his head, pretending he was Chinese…
Tom ; And then, at the end of the set, he handed his guitar to someone in the audience so they could come onstage and play with us, but the next thing we see is this skinhead walking out of the pub with Jeffs’ guitar! A couple of us had to run after him and grab the guitar back!
Moyni ; I really thought we were all going to be killed that night…
Tom ; And then, afterwards, we’re driving back to Deptford in the van and Jeff decided that he needed to take a piss. He just opened the vans’ side door and took a piss, while the van was still moving.
Jeff ; Unfortunately, I can’t deny any of these things, although I do have to say I didn’t take a piss out of the van on the way home… it must have been on the way to the gig, because afterwards, I wandered off and missed my lift. I had to find my own way home but when I woke up in my bed the next morning, I had no idea how I’d got there… which was quite worrying!
Moyni ; Yeah, we wanted to see what it would sound like if we had two guitarists, and it worked-out great so we stuck with it. But soon after that EP, Darren left… I think there was a clash of personalities to some extent, but there were also a few other things… He was planning to move out of London, although he did say that he’d still be able to rehearse and play with us. But then he decided that he wanted to take a sabbatical from the band and the rest of us weren’t sure if he’d definitely come back, so we started looking for someone else to play drums. One day Tom turns up at rehearsals and he says that Afonso from The Parkinsons wanted to play drums for us! I didn’t even know he could play drums and I’m not even sure now, but to be fair to him, I think he actually re-energised the band. It was great fun, even though we often wouldn’t even know what speed he was going to play from one song to the next! He was never the greatest drummer, but playing with him was always a good laugh!
Tom ; Originally, he was only going to help us out for one gig, but he ended-up drumming with us for two years! I’d been at a gig in Camden and met Eric, who now plays drums for King Salami, and asked if he’d be interested in playing with us. He wasn’t able to do it, but he said I should ask Afonso. We were already good friends, so he said he’d do it and he ended up playing with us for a couple of years. It was a fantastic time because we never knew what was going to happen… sometimes we’d play the best gig in the world while other times would be the worst! It could be awkward for the rest of the band when that happened, but I’m sure that anyone watching would have found it massively entertaining. People who knew us appreciated that unpredictability, although if others were seeing us for the first time, I expect they thought we were a mess…But when everything came together, it would be great!
The thing is, sometimes, the gigs that go really wrong can be some of the best memories in retrospect, even though they might have been horrible at the time…
Moyni ; Oh, yeah… I’ll always remember one gig we played at the Elephant & Castle. We’d actually played the same place about a month earlier and everything had gone really well, so they booked us again. We’d gone down there in a van, for a change, but Afonso turned-up separately and he was already pissed…
Tom ; When we got there, we realised that we’d left the cymbals behind, so I said that I’d go back on a bus and get them from the rehearsal room, while the rest of the band were setting up and sound checking. But instead of doing that, when I got back I found out that they’d all just been sitting around, drinking. I walked in and Afonso was actually sitting on his drum-stool, asleep!
Moyni ; Things just got worse from that point on… the promoter came up onstage halfway through our set and said, ‘Isn’t this the worst fucking band you’ve ever heard?’ That got the biggest cheer of the night! Some bloke threw a full pint glass at Afonso, but he was so pissed by then that he didn’t even notice! I turned around at one point and Jeff was playing a song with a cymbal balanced on his head, pretending he was Chinese…
Tom ; And then, at the end of the set, he handed his guitar to someone in the audience so they could come onstage and play with us, but the next thing we see is this skinhead walking out of the pub with Jeffs’ guitar! A couple of us had to run after him and grab the guitar back!
Moyni ; I really thought we were all going to be killed that night…
Tom ; And then, afterwards, we’re driving back to Deptford in the van and Jeff decided that he needed to take a piss. He just opened the vans’ side door and took a piss, while the van was still moving.
Jeff ; Unfortunately, I can’t deny any of these things, although I do have to say I didn’t take a piss out of the van on the way home… it must have been on the way to the gig, because afterwards, I wandered off and missed my lift. I had to find my own way home but when I woke up in my bed the next morning, I had no idea how I’d got there… which was quite worrying!
Afonso eventually left when he started singing with Johnny Throttle and also rejoined The Parkinsons when they reformed…
Tom ; Well, like I said, he’d only really joined us to help-out at one gig and it carried on from there. We recorded the ‘Down & Out in Deptford’ CD with him, which I still think sounds fantastic, and we had a lot of good times together.
Moyni ; The thing was, he was always much better as a singer than he was playing drums, so I don’t think it surprised us when he went back to that. But he’s a lovely bloke and we still see him a lot. Fortunately, we got another drummer pretty quickly, a South African geezer called Glenn, and he was a really good drummer. The first time we played together, I could really tell the difference.
Tom ; Glenn was with us for a while but not a massive amount of time, maybe about six months… We played some gigs but didn’t get to do any recordings with that line-up. Glenn was really just helping out so I don’t think we ever thought that was going to continue. But around that time I asked Charlie if he’d be interested in playing with us, as we were old friends and I already knew he was a great drummer from when he’d played in Bad Karma Beckons and Helltrain with me.
Charlie ; Afonso had left them, so they were casting around for a new drummer. Tom asked if I could step-in temporarily and I’ve been there ever since. I love playing with them because it’s exactly the sort of music that I want to be doing. It’s got the power, the movement and the speed… their songs really fit with the way I like to play. I think the first music that got me excited was Fifties rock’n’roll… this was in the early Seventies but there was still a lot of that stuff being played on the radio. I remember hearing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ for the first time and thinking, Wow, this is great! I loved early Elvis records as well, so that’s what gave me the bug, I suppose. The first band I was in was at school, just doing old rock’n’roll and rockabilly covers. We started telling people that we were in a band even before we’d rehearsed, as that’s the sort of thing you do while you’re at school. But after a while, the band gradually changed and became The Touch, which was more of a Mod band. The Mod Revival thing was happening around then, so we got signed to an Agency called Pinball and they booked gigs for us… Not that many, but we did get to support bands like The Pleasers, the Count Bishops, Long Tall Shorty and The Teenbeats. We’d rehearse at Alaska studios in Waterloo, which is where we met Pat Collier. At that time, we had two guitarists but no bass player, so Pat offered to stand-in, which was amazing for us, as he’d only recently left The Vibrators. He also managed to get us a bunch of gigs supporting The Stukas, which was great as I loved that band.
The Touch recorded an album that became a rather expensive collectors’ item, leading up to it being reissued recently, together with the original band reuniting for a couple of gigs and an album of new material…
Charlie ; I’d actually left The Touch by the time they recorded the songs which became the album. What happened was, we had a manager and he arranged for us to do a few recording sessions that I played on, but the problem was that I wasn’t a Mod, while the others were. I’d turn up wearing a Sammy Hagar or Led Zeppelin t-shirt, which the others weren’t happy about! I think I was going through my heavy metal phase… They recorded the album with a different drummer, but I then rejoined them a little while later, after they lost their manager. This all happened during a pretty short space of time, and then the band split up altogether. Ironically, the album came out after the split and it didn’t come out it a conventional way. It was printed-up to look like a bootleg, presumably by the manager, and we didn’t really know about it. There was a lot of confusion about it because it was only available from a few places on Portobello Market and the details on the cover weren’t clear so lot of people didn’t even realise it was us. But there were only a small amount made and over the years it became collectors’ item, so it was nice when we were contacted by people from the Mod community years later, who told us how much they liked the album and also told us about all the different bootleg versions that had since turned-up! It was great to find out there was all this interest in this stuff we did nearly forty years ago, and that led to us getting back together again. We recorded an album of new material with Pat Collier, which gave it a real sense of continuity, and the new album and the couple of gigs we played went down really well. None of us had ever thought that would happen, especially as our guitarist, Son Jack, was living in Seattle at the time. But it was good fun and, although we’re not rushing into it, I think we’ll be doing some more things together in the future…
Tom ; Well, like I said, he’d only really joined us to help-out at one gig and it carried on from there. We recorded the ‘Down & Out in Deptford’ CD with him, which I still think sounds fantastic, and we had a lot of good times together.
Moyni ; The thing was, he was always much better as a singer than he was playing drums, so I don’t think it surprised us when he went back to that. But he’s a lovely bloke and we still see him a lot. Fortunately, we got another drummer pretty quickly, a South African geezer called Glenn, and he was a really good drummer. The first time we played together, I could really tell the difference.
Tom ; Glenn was with us for a while but not a massive amount of time, maybe about six months… We played some gigs but didn’t get to do any recordings with that line-up. Glenn was really just helping out so I don’t think we ever thought that was going to continue. But around that time I asked Charlie if he’d be interested in playing with us, as we were old friends and I already knew he was a great drummer from when he’d played in Bad Karma Beckons and Helltrain with me.
Charlie ; Afonso had left them, so they were casting around for a new drummer. Tom asked if I could step-in temporarily and I’ve been there ever since. I love playing with them because it’s exactly the sort of music that I want to be doing. It’s got the power, the movement and the speed… their songs really fit with the way I like to play. I think the first music that got me excited was Fifties rock’n’roll… this was in the early Seventies but there was still a lot of that stuff being played on the radio. I remember hearing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ for the first time and thinking, Wow, this is great! I loved early Elvis records as well, so that’s what gave me the bug, I suppose. The first band I was in was at school, just doing old rock’n’roll and rockabilly covers. We started telling people that we were in a band even before we’d rehearsed, as that’s the sort of thing you do while you’re at school. But after a while, the band gradually changed and became The Touch, which was more of a Mod band. The Mod Revival thing was happening around then, so we got signed to an Agency called Pinball and they booked gigs for us… Not that many, but we did get to support bands like The Pleasers, the Count Bishops, Long Tall Shorty and The Teenbeats. We’d rehearse at Alaska studios in Waterloo, which is where we met Pat Collier. At that time, we had two guitarists but no bass player, so Pat offered to stand-in, which was amazing for us, as he’d only recently left The Vibrators. He also managed to get us a bunch of gigs supporting The Stukas, which was great as I loved that band.
The Touch recorded an album that became a rather expensive collectors’ item, leading up to it being reissued recently, together with the original band reuniting for a couple of gigs and an album of new material…
Charlie ; I’d actually left The Touch by the time they recorded the songs which became the album. What happened was, we had a manager and he arranged for us to do a few recording sessions that I played on, but the problem was that I wasn’t a Mod, while the others were. I’d turn up wearing a Sammy Hagar or Led Zeppelin t-shirt, which the others weren’t happy about! I think I was going through my heavy metal phase… They recorded the album with a different drummer, but I then rejoined them a little while later, after they lost their manager. This all happened during a pretty short space of time, and then the band split up altogether. Ironically, the album came out after the split and it didn’t come out it a conventional way. It was printed-up to look like a bootleg, presumably by the manager, and we didn’t really know about it. There was a lot of confusion about it because it was only available from a few places on Portobello Market and the details on the cover weren’t clear so lot of people didn’t even realise it was us. But there were only a small amount made and over the years it became collectors’ item, so it was nice when we were contacted by people from the Mod community years later, who told us how much they liked the album and also told us about all the different bootleg versions that had since turned-up! It was great to find out there was all this interest in this stuff we did nearly forty years ago, and that led to us getting back together again. We recorded an album of new material with Pat Collier, which gave it a real sense of continuity, and the new album and the couple of gigs we played went down really well. None of us had ever thought that would happen, especially as our guitarist, Son Jack, was living in Seattle at the time. But it was good fun and, although we’re not rushing into it, I think we’ll be doing some more things together in the future…
Did you play in other bands after The Touch before you became involved with Bad Karma Beckons?
Charlie ; I did bits and pieces with different bands, but it was really more like helping out friends, stuff like that. I was in a band called The Influence for a while, which I mostly remember because we did a great cover of ‘Purple Haze’. But after that I didn’t really get properly involved with another band until I joined Bad Karma Beckons, which was where I met Tom. That band eventually became Helltrain, although I’m not entirely sure why we changed the name as it was basically the same line-up. After that I did play with Ian Lowery (Folk Devils, King Blank etc) on a couple of his projects, but when that ended I didn’t really play music again for a while because by then, I had a family to look after. But some time later, I bumped into one of The Teenbeats for the first time in years, as his kids were going to the same school as mine… We ended up playing together occasionally and that was what got me back into music again.
Paul also left the band for a while (although he would eventually return to the fold a few years later) and was replaced by Shaun Rogan...
Tom ; Paul decided to leave because he was getting involved with other bands... Fortunately, we were able to ask another old friend, Shaun Rogan, if he could help us out and he was up for it. He had a bit of a different style to Paul but it was still great and fitted with what we were doing... I think that's one of the things we've been lucky with. Each time someone new has come into the band, they've always added something new to the mix and given the band a different, unique dynamic. That's certainly helped to keep things interesting! Things were going really well and we were able to get the material together for our first album, 'Deptford Calling', which came out really well, but a while after that was released, Shaun had to leave due to personal problems and initially, we weren't sure what we were going to do but then Moyni spoke to Paul and he was interested in playing with us again, so he came back and this line-up seems to be going from strength to strength
The band, and especially Tom, gained a bit of notoriety recently when you were featured in an advertising campaign for Legal & General Insurance… not the likeliest thing to happen to The Phobics, so how did that come together ?
Tom ; We got an email from these people saying that they were looking for a suitable punk band to play in a TV advert. At first I thought it was a spam message and almost deleted it, but I decided to look up the company and found-out it was genuine. We still weren’t sure if it was something we wanted to do, but when we spoke to them they seemed to be decent people and they even came down to see us play a gig in New Cross. I’ve a suspicion that it was the first time they’d been to South London and the first time they’d ever been to a punk gig, but we met them and they explained what they wanted. They seemed to be on the level, so we gave them some CD’s and they decided that ‘Down & Out in Deptford’ was the track they wanted to use. Originally they were going to license the whole song, but when their client, Legal & General, heard the song they objected to the lyrics (‘Pissed my money all over the wall, and now I’ve got fuck all’) because they didn’t think it was aspirational enough for their product! So, they changed the plan and decided to just use the intro from the song… And on the day of the recording, they also decided that they didn’t want to use our name, in case someone decided to look us up online and discovered we were a sweary band! So they called us ‘The Depfudz’ in the advert, which wasn’t too bad, I suppose… They also used someone else for the voice-over, that wasn’t me! I know some people didn’t like the fact that we did the advert, but we decided to do it because everything we do is self-financed and this was a chance to make a bit of money for one days’ work and hopefully have a laugh with it. That’s the way we approached it and it actually worked out really well, because we’d just been offered a few gigs in Germany and the money we were paid covered our expenses to do that. So, it wasn’t just pissed up the wall, despite what Legal & General may have thought of us…
Charlie ; I did bits and pieces with different bands, but it was really more like helping out friends, stuff like that. I was in a band called The Influence for a while, which I mostly remember because we did a great cover of ‘Purple Haze’. But after that I didn’t really get properly involved with another band until I joined Bad Karma Beckons, which was where I met Tom. That band eventually became Helltrain, although I’m not entirely sure why we changed the name as it was basically the same line-up. After that I did play with Ian Lowery (Folk Devils, King Blank etc) on a couple of his projects, but when that ended I didn’t really play music again for a while because by then, I had a family to look after. But some time later, I bumped into one of The Teenbeats for the first time in years, as his kids were going to the same school as mine… We ended up playing together occasionally and that was what got me back into music again.
Paul also left the band for a while (although he would eventually return to the fold a few years later) and was replaced by Shaun Rogan...
Tom ; Paul decided to leave because he was getting involved with other bands... Fortunately, we were able to ask another old friend, Shaun Rogan, if he could help us out and he was up for it. He had a bit of a different style to Paul but it was still great and fitted with what we were doing... I think that's one of the things we've been lucky with. Each time someone new has come into the band, they've always added something new to the mix and given the band a different, unique dynamic. That's certainly helped to keep things interesting! Things were going really well and we were able to get the material together for our first album, 'Deptford Calling', which came out really well, but a while after that was released, Shaun had to leave due to personal problems and initially, we weren't sure what we were going to do but then Moyni spoke to Paul and he was interested in playing with us again, so he came back and this line-up seems to be going from strength to strength
The band, and especially Tom, gained a bit of notoriety recently when you were featured in an advertising campaign for Legal & General Insurance… not the likeliest thing to happen to The Phobics, so how did that come together ?
Tom ; We got an email from these people saying that they were looking for a suitable punk band to play in a TV advert. At first I thought it was a spam message and almost deleted it, but I decided to look up the company and found-out it was genuine. We still weren’t sure if it was something we wanted to do, but when we spoke to them they seemed to be decent people and they even came down to see us play a gig in New Cross. I’ve a suspicion that it was the first time they’d been to South London and the first time they’d ever been to a punk gig, but we met them and they explained what they wanted. They seemed to be on the level, so we gave them some CD’s and they decided that ‘Down & Out in Deptford’ was the track they wanted to use. Originally they were going to license the whole song, but when their client, Legal & General, heard the song they objected to the lyrics (‘Pissed my money all over the wall, and now I’ve got fuck all’) because they didn’t think it was aspirational enough for their product! So, they changed the plan and decided to just use the intro from the song… And on the day of the recording, they also decided that they didn’t want to use our name, in case someone decided to look us up online and discovered we were a sweary band! So they called us ‘The Depfudz’ in the advert, which wasn’t too bad, I suppose… They also used someone else for the voice-over, that wasn’t me! I know some people didn’t like the fact that we did the advert, but we decided to do it because everything we do is self-financed and this was a chance to make a bit of money for one days’ work and hopefully have a laugh with it. That’s the way we approached it and it actually worked out really well, because we’d just been offered a few gigs in Germany and the money we were paid covered our expenses to do that. So, it wasn’t just pissed up the wall, despite what Legal & General may have thought of us…
The funny thing is that, most TV adverts tend to feature young, wholesome people, but in this case it was almost the opposite…
Tom ; Yeah, they really got the rough end of the pineapple there! But that was what they wanted for the product they were selling and we fitted in. But you could tell that we were working with people who didn’t really know what punk rock is all about. There was a woman who had been sent-out to Camden market to buy a load of suitably-punky attire, but most of the stuff they got was really awful. All they kept saying was that they’d done some research and this was the way that people thought punk rockers should look. I mean, they asked me to wear a Union Jack jacket and I told them I wouldn’t because of all the right-wing connotations… I mean, Moyni’s from Northern Ireland so he certainly wouldn’t have been happy about it. In the end I wore this tartan jacket that they had, which was actually quite nice… I even thought about nicking it at the end of the day! The other funny thing about it was that I was wearing a skull ring and they said I couldn’t wear it during the advert because it would make people think of death! So I said, well, isn’t that the point of insurance? The irony of it was that when they used one of the stills from the advert for a for a newspaper advert, they then decided that they did want me to be wearing a skull-ring after all and had to photo-shop it into the picture!
Moyni ; I enjoyed doing the advert, it was good fun. We played through our set about five or times in front of these kids who didn’t even know who we were, so at the very least it was free rehearsal time. It got a bit boring towards the end because we had to keep repeating everything while they were filming or taking photographs, but actually playing was good fun and it was a nice little club.
Jeff ; Yeah, doing the advert was really funny… I mean, we didn’t really get any publicity from it because they wouldn’t let us use our own name and they didn’t use the actual song, just the intro. But it was a funny thing to do... I think a few people slagged us off for doing it, but basically the money we got from that enabled us to go and play in Germany for the first time, so it made complete sense to us.
https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/film/legal_general_punk
You’ve played in Germany a couple of times in recent years... As you don’t have an Agent, how did those gigs come about ?
Tom ; We were playing at one of the ‘Blank Generation’ festivals in North London and afterwards I was selling our CD’s and met a German woman called Mony, who said she’d enjoyed our set and she’d like us to play in Germany. Obviously, we’d be up for that but I wasn’t sure if anything was actually going to happen. But we met her again at a gig at Brixton Windmill and she started to put things together. They arranged somewhere for us to stay while we were there and set up some gigs. It was an almost alien experience for us, because they really looked after us well, we got paid for the gigs, were given free beer and we sold all of the merchandise that we’d taken with us. They were happy with the way it went, so they brought us back again the following year and things went even better for us.
Moyni ; The money we got paid for doing the advert more or less covered all of our expenses to get to Germany, so it was all good for the band. The gigs went really well, so that we got asked back again the following year. People who saw us the first time came to see us again and brought other people along, so that was really good.
Jeff ; The second time we went was even better and we were due to go back again this year but, typically, it was the very week that we were supposed to be going to Germany that the lockdown was announced. We’d even had a load of new CD’s and t-shirts made-up to take over there, but now they’re just gathering dust until such time as we can start playing again.
Tom ; Yeah, they really got the rough end of the pineapple there! But that was what they wanted for the product they were selling and we fitted in. But you could tell that we were working with people who didn’t really know what punk rock is all about. There was a woman who had been sent-out to Camden market to buy a load of suitably-punky attire, but most of the stuff they got was really awful. All they kept saying was that they’d done some research and this was the way that people thought punk rockers should look. I mean, they asked me to wear a Union Jack jacket and I told them I wouldn’t because of all the right-wing connotations… I mean, Moyni’s from Northern Ireland so he certainly wouldn’t have been happy about it. In the end I wore this tartan jacket that they had, which was actually quite nice… I even thought about nicking it at the end of the day! The other funny thing about it was that I was wearing a skull ring and they said I couldn’t wear it during the advert because it would make people think of death! So I said, well, isn’t that the point of insurance? The irony of it was that when they used one of the stills from the advert for a for a newspaper advert, they then decided that they did want me to be wearing a skull-ring after all and had to photo-shop it into the picture!
Moyni ; I enjoyed doing the advert, it was good fun. We played through our set about five or times in front of these kids who didn’t even know who we were, so at the very least it was free rehearsal time. It got a bit boring towards the end because we had to keep repeating everything while they were filming or taking photographs, but actually playing was good fun and it was a nice little club.
Jeff ; Yeah, doing the advert was really funny… I mean, we didn’t really get any publicity from it because they wouldn’t let us use our own name and they didn’t use the actual song, just the intro. But it was a funny thing to do... I think a few people slagged us off for doing it, but basically the money we got from that enabled us to go and play in Germany for the first time, so it made complete sense to us.
https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/film/legal_general_punk
You’ve played in Germany a couple of times in recent years... As you don’t have an Agent, how did those gigs come about ?
Tom ; We were playing at one of the ‘Blank Generation’ festivals in North London and afterwards I was selling our CD’s and met a German woman called Mony, who said she’d enjoyed our set and she’d like us to play in Germany. Obviously, we’d be up for that but I wasn’t sure if anything was actually going to happen. But we met her again at a gig at Brixton Windmill and she started to put things together. They arranged somewhere for us to stay while we were there and set up some gigs. It was an almost alien experience for us, because they really looked after us well, we got paid for the gigs, were given free beer and we sold all of the merchandise that we’d taken with us. They were happy with the way it went, so they brought us back again the following year and things went even better for us.
Moyni ; The money we got paid for doing the advert more or less covered all of our expenses to get to Germany, so it was all good for the band. The gigs went really well, so that we got asked back again the following year. People who saw us the first time came to see us again and brought other people along, so that was really good.
Jeff ; The second time we went was even better and we were due to go back again this year but, typically, it was the very week that we were supposed to be going to Germany that the lockdown was announced. We’d even had a load of new CD’s and t-shirts made-up to take over there, but now they’re just gathering dust until such time as we can start playing again.
Moyni ; Hopefully we’ll find a way to go back over there once things have cleared-up, although of course, even when the virus thing is over, they’re now talking about bringing all of these new restrictions for bands due to Brexit… Stuff like bands having to insure their instruments for £1000 each… Things like that are going to make it much worse for smaller bands. When we went to Germany, our costs were pretty minimal, you know, pretty much petrol money and car-hire. But if it turns out that we have to pay a thousand pounds each to take our instruments, it’ll make it ridiculously expensive and it’ll mean that it’s not worth going over there because we’ll lose so much money. I’m quite concerned about how it’s all going to pan-out…
Tom ; It looks as if it’s going to be really difficult for smaller bands to do anything like that. With all the extra requirements they’re talking about, it just won’t be economically viable for a band on our level to go abroad. I think the effects of Brexit, as well as the Covid pandemic, are really going to mess things up for a lot of bands and venues. At the moment, I can’t even begin to guess when we’ll be able to start rehearsing again, let alone playing gigs. People are saying that the government needs to do something to help the music industry but they’re not going to be concerned with anything on a grass-roots level because all they’re worried about is the economy and their rich mates. They’re not even going to notice if a small business goes under, but if it’s a big Bank or a multi-national business, I’m sure they’ll benefit from whatever the government decides to do. A lot of pubs have been struggling to remain open in recent years anyway, so I’m not sure how many will be able to survive this, whilst small venues are going to have real difficulties just trying to meet the new safety requirements. On top of all this, there seems to be a lot of people who are carrying-on now as if there’s no problem anymore, which will probably result in another wave of infections and even more problems…
Unfortunately, I think the effects of the Covid pandemic on the independent music scene is going to continue for a long time, even after other things have returned to ‘normal’…
Jeff ; I really can’t see any pub-sized gigs happening before the end of the year. All the while that social-distancing stays in place, I can’t see anyone being able to play regular gigs, which is a big concern to lots of bands and not just the smaller ones. Even bigger venues like Brixton Academy or Hammersmith Apollo aren’t really going to be able to implement and maintain social-distancing at gigs… It’s going to be a problem right across the board for live music and you have to consider that, even when they’re given the all-clear, are gigs going to come back in the same way that we used to know them? Will there be new restrictions and limitations when it starts to return? I don’t think anyone can really say at the moment.
Charlie ; I think open-air gigs would been one way that bands could play and there would be enough space for people to keep apart, but whether there’ll be enough time to organise anything like that before Summer is over remains to be seen…
Jeff ; Charlie set us up on Bandcamp, so people can hear us on there, and Paul has set us up on Spotify, so that’s another way people can check us out. Until we can start playing live again, I think this is the way that we have to go. It’s just annoying for us as a band because I think we were on a roll with a bunch of new songs that we’d been working on, just before lockdown happened. I think the new album had enthused all of us and we really didn’t want another long gap before we recorded the next one. It was nearly nine years between ‘Deptford Calling’ and ‘Burnt Rubber’, which was something we’d never intended to happen, and this time we were hoping to start work on the next record before the end of this year. But what with the lockdown, that’s not going to happen now. I know this isn’t all that important when compared to all the people who have died, but in terms of the band, it’s such a shame that the pandemic happened because it’s prevented us from moving on as we’d intended.
Tom ; It looks as if it’s going to be really difficult for smaller bands to do anything like that. With all the extra requirements they’re talking about, it just won’t be economically viable for a band on our level to go abroad. I think the effects of Brexit, as well as the Covid pandemic, are really going to mess things up for a lot of bands and venues. At the moment, I can’t even begin to guess when we’ll be able to start rehearsing again, let alone playing gigs. People are saying that the government needs to do something to help the music industry but they’re not going to be concerned with anything on a grass-roots level because all they’re worried about is the economy and their rich mates. They’re not even going to notice if a small business goes under, but if it’s a big Bank or a multi-national business, I’m sure they’ll benefit from whatever the government decides to do. A lot of pubs have been struggling to remain open in recent years anyway, so I’m not sure how many will be able to survive this, whilst small venues are going to have real difficulties just trying to meet the new safety requirements. On top of all this, there seems to be a lot of people who are carrying-on now as if there’s no problem anymore, which will probably result in another wave of infections and even more problems…
Unfortunately, I think the effects of the Covid pandemic on the independent music scene is going to continue for a long time, even after other things have returned to ‘normal’…
Jeff ; I really can’t see any pub-sized gigs happening before the end of the year. All the while that social-distancing stays in place, I can’t see anyone being able to play regular gigs, which is a big concern to lots of bands and not just the smaller ones. Even bigger venues like Brixton Academy or Hammersmith Apollo aren’t really going to be able to implement and maintain social-distancing at gigs… It’s going to be a problem right across the board for live music and you have to consider that, even when they’re given the all-clear, are gigs going to come back in the same way that we used to know them? Will there be new restrictions and limitations when it starts to return? I don’t think anyone can really say at the moment.
Charlie ; I think open-air gigs would been one way that bands could play and there would be enough space for people to keep apart, but whether there’ll be enough time to organise anything like that before Summer is over remains to be seen…
Jeff ; Charlie set us up on Bandcamp, so people can hear us on there, and Paul has set us up on Spotify, so that’s another way people can check us out. Until we can start playing live again, I think this is the way that we have to go. It’s just annoying for us as a band because I think we were on a roll with a bunch of new songs that we’d been working on, just before lockdown happened. I think the new album had enthused all of us and we really didn’t want another long gap before we recorded the next one. It was nearly nine years between ‘Deptford Calling’ and ‘Burnt Rubber’, which was something we’d never intended to happen, and this time we were hoping to start work on the next record before the end of this year. But what with the lockdown, that’s not going to happen now. I know this isn’t all that important when compared to all the people who have died, but in terms of the band, it’s such a shame that the pandemic happened because it’s prevented us from moving on as we’d intended.
You’ve always released your own records / CD’s and although you don’t sell huge amounts, you do seem to be pretty self-sufficient. Are you happy with doing things yourselves?
Moyni ; I’m happy with releasing our own records, although I do wish we could somehow get some better distribution. I quite like the idea of doing everything ourselves because that’s always been a part of the Punk ethic, but it would be good we could find an independent company that could do some distribution for us…
Tom ; Yeah, that’s the problem right now. We know that we can get a decent amount of CD’s or records made and we’ll be able to sell them, either at our gigs or by mail order. But we don’t really know what we can do to try and take it up to the next level. I suppose we ought to try a bit harder to find out, but we just don’t have the time to follow-up those kind of things…
Moyni ; We’ve never really had any coverage in music magazines, apart from a few fanzines, and that’s the sort of thing you need to have to get any interest from distributors, I think. Although we have been getting played on several podcasts and digital radio stations since the new album came out…
Tom ; Vive Le Rock recently reviewed our new album and that’s the first time they’ve featured us… it’s taken us twenty years to become an overnight success, hahaha! But that’s part of the problem, because we don’t go out and court the people who do all of this stuff. You tend to think that, if you play live pretty regularly, people will find out about you in the same way that we used to find out about new bands, but it doesn’t seem to work that way so much, anymore, and it’s difficult to know how to go about doing these kind of things. People have been telling me that we ought to put the new album on Spotify and all of these different digital platforms, but if we do that then we probably won’t be able to release it on vinyl because it won’t have any exclusivity. All we can do is hope that enough people get to hear the album it and decide that they like it.
That being said, the new album certainly seems to be getting a good response…
Tom ; Well, we pressed-up the first batch of CD’s and we’re already getting set to order some more because the first lot have almost all-gone.
Moyni ; I definitely think it’s the best thing that we’ve done. The songs are really good and the production, by Pat Collier, was fantastic. I really liked the way he worked with us.
Tom ; I think we were a lot more focused on this album. We decided in advance that we’d spend the first day recording all the backing tracks and guide vocals, and then on the second day we did all the vocals and just a few overdubs, which were more to correct any errors rather than making the sound more complicated. We wanted it to sound as live and as raw as it could be, because that’s what seems to work for us.
Moyni ; Pat Collier was happy to do things that way, so he was the perfect person for us to record with. He didn’t try to tell us what to do, he just encouraged us to keep things tight.
Tom ; That’s always the problem if you go into a studio and you have someone there who has all the technical knowledge but doesn’t understand your vision of how things should be. But Pat comes from that guitar-band background so he has a much better understanding of what you want to achieve. I think that’s why he’s got such a good reputation and why so many bands want to record with him.
Moyni ; I’m happy with releasing our own records, although I do wish we could somehow get some better distribution. I quite like the idea of doing everything ourselves because that’s always been a part of the Punk ethic, but it would be good we could find an independent company that could do some distribution for us…
Tom ; Yeah, that’s the problem right now. We know that we can get a decent amount of CD’s or records made and we’ll be able to sell them, either at our gigs or by mail order. But we don’t really know what we can do to try and take it up to the next level. I suppose we ought to try a bit harder to find out, but we just don’t have the time to follow-up those kind of things…
Moyni ; We’ve never really had any coverage in music magazines, apart from a few fanzines, and that’s the sort of thing you need to have to get any interest from distributors, I think. Although we have been getting played on several podcasts and digital radio stations since the new album came out…
Tom ; Vive Le Rock recently reviewed our new album and that’s the first time they’ve featured us… it’s taken us twenty years to become an overnight success, hahaha! But that’s part of the problem, because we don’t go out and court the people who do all of this stuff. You tend to think that, if you play live pretty regularly, people will find out about you in the same way that we used to find out about new bands, but it doesn’t seem to work that way so much, anymore, and it’s difficult to know how to go about doing these kind of things. People have been telling me that we ought to put the new album on Spotify and all of these different digital platforms, but if we do that then we probably won’t be able to release it on vinyl because it won’t have any exclusivity. All we can do is hope that enough people get to hear the album it and decide that they like it.
That being said, the new album certainly seems to be getting a good response…
Tom ; Well, we pressed-up the first batch of CD’s and we’re already getting set to order some more because the first lot have almost all-gone.
Moyni ; I definitely think it’s the best thing that we’ve done. The songs are really good and the production, by Pat Collier, was fantastic. I really liked the way he worked with us.
Tom ; I think we were a lot more focused on this album. We decided in advance that we’d spend the first day recording all the backing tracks and guide vocals, and then on the second day we did all the vocals and just a few overdubs, which were more to correct any errors rather than making the sound more complicated. We wanted it to sound as live and as raw as it could be, because that’s what seems to work for us.
Moyni ; Pat Collier was happy to do things that way, so he was the perfect person for us to record with. He didn’t try to tell us what to do, he just encouraged us to keep things tight.
Tom ; That’s always the problem if you go into a studio and you have someone there who has all the technical knowledge but doesn’t understand your vision of how things should be. But Pat comes from that guitar-band background so he has a much better understanding of what you want to achieve. I think that’s why he’s got such a good reputation and why so many bands want to record with him.
Moyni ; It wasn’t until we started recording the songs that I realised how well it was going to come together. The thing is, there’s a lot of quite different songs on there, it’s not just all three-chord punk rock stuff, and I wasn’t sure if they were all going to work together, but it turned out really good and I don’t think there’s a bad song on the album. When you listen to it, I think you can hear the different kinds of influences that go into it… I mean, something like ‘Path of Love’ is put together in more of a rockabilly style rather than three-chord punk rock…
Jeff ; I think this is the best line-up we’ve ever had and also the friendliest. We all get on and really enjoy what we’re doing. As Tom was saying, Paul actually left us for a while a few years ago, as he was playing in a great band called The Graverobbers, and we had another old friend, Shaun, playing with us. He was a great guitar player but he had to leave after a while, but fortunately, Paul decided that he wanted to come back. That was great for us because we really didn’t want to get someone totally new who would have to learn all of the songs from scratch. But Moyni asked Paul if he might be interested in coming back and lucky-for-us, he was into it. And I think that, since then, we’ve become the strongest that we’ve ever been.
Charlie ; I think everything has been getting better and better, especially recently. My only regret is that it took us so long to get around to recording the new album, although we’ve all got day-jobs so sometimes it isn’t that easy to put things together. I’m sure we’re not unique in that, but it’s been really good to get the new album out. And, of course, we’ve got a bit of history with Pat Collier, so it was great to record it with him. I really like the way that ‘Path of Love’ came out… it’s a punk-pop classic! ‘Gentrification’ is a great opening track, and ‘Burnt Rubber’ is really good fun to play. I think that’s the first track that Paul has written completely by himself and I like it because it’s a bit different to what we normally do. It expands the range of the album as it’s a bit like the Stooges or MC5, but there’s other stuff on the album that’s more like rockabilly and songs that are more in the style of the Ramones. I think it’s really good that the album has that kind of range rather than just being stuck in one particular style.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJn5pmFa2zw
It’s kind of strange that you’ve all come from a Punk Rock background, a movement that was infamous for railing against the ‘old farts’, but here you all are now, older than some of those old farts were back at the time, but the difference is that you’re producing some of your best music…
Tom ; I think the thing is, when you’re younger and you’re in a band, you dream about having record labels giving you thousands of pounds and having limo’s to take you everywhere, but we’re not naive enough to even think about that sort of thing anymore. We just want to appeal to people like us, who enjoy the music and hopefully relate to the lyrics. For me, it’s great to be playing a gig and seeing some mad German bloke dancing in front of the stage, and then he comes up to us after the gig and says that he saw us last year, bought the album and loves it! That, to me, means so much more than say, EMI signing us for a million quid but then telling us to do everything differently. We’ve got no illusions about it, we’re a bunch of old sods so we’re not going to become stars or anything, but we can still write and play some good music and we know that some people will enjoy it. Almost all the bands that I’ve ever loved have been glorious failures rather than big successes, while others who are far less talented become international stars. We can organise our own gigs, release our records and get to play in exotic places like Ireland and Germany, so we must be doing something right. It’s totally DIY and we don’t make any money from it, but at the same time we don’t lose anything. Punk Rock might have had those slogans about boring old farts, but at the same time it was an Art-form that allowed anyone to get up and have a voice and it doesn’t mean you have a cut-off point at thirty or something. I mean, nobody told Picasso, 'Oy mate, stop painting!' because he was in his sixties… It’s what you say and do that’s important and it doesn’t have an age limit. When it started, Punk Rock was a young thing driven by the kids and not the industry, because it had to be to make any real impression. But with the wonderful benefit of hindsight you can see that it doesn’t have to be just that and those people who try to keep it in that bracket are missing the point. Whether it’s great rock’n’roll played by some snotty little 14 year-old kids or by a bunch of old gits like The Phobics, it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s great rock’n’roll. That’s really the only criteria that you need to worry about. Our friends and fans know that's the important thing and it's that family that keeps us going, no matter how dysfunctional we all may be! There will always be some people who’ll be thinking, why are they bothering, while others will just get it and enjoy it. Those are the people that we’re doing it for.
Tom ; I think the thing is, when you’re younger and you’re in a band, you dream about having record labels giving you thousands of pounds and having limo’s to take you everywhere, but we’re not naive enough to even think about that sort of thing anymore. We just want to appeal to people like us, who enjoy the music and hopefully relate to the lyrics. For me, it’s great to be playing a gig and seeing some mad German bloke dancing in front of the stage, and then he comes up to us after the gig and says that he saw us last year, bought the album and loves it! That, to me, means so much more than say, EMI signing us for a million quid but then telling us to do everything differently. We’ve got no illusions about it, we’re a bunch of old sods so we’re not going to become stars or anything, but we can still write and play some good music and we know that some people will enjoy it. Almost all the bands that I’ve ever loved have been glorious failures rather than big successes, while others who are far less talented become international stars. We can organise our own gigs, release our records and get to play in exotic places like Ireland and Germany, so we must be doing something right. It’s totally DIY and we don’t make any money from it, but at the same time we don’t lose anything. Punk Rock might have had those slogans about boring old farts, but at the same time it was an Art-form that allowed anyone to get up and have a voice and it doesn’t mean you have a cut-off point at thirty or something. I mean, nobody told Picasso, 'Oy mate, stop painting!' because he was in his sixties… It’s what you say and do that’s important and it doesn’t have an age limit. When it started, Punk Rock was a young thing driven by the kids and not the industry, because it had to be to make any real impression. But with the wonderful benefit of hindsight you can see that it doesn’t have to be just that and those people who try to keep it in that bracket are missing the point. Whether it’s great rock’n’roll played by some snotty little 14 year-old kids or by a bunch of old gits like The Phobics, it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s great rock’n’roll. That’s really the only criteria that you need to worry about. Our friends and fans know that's the important thing and it's that family that keeps us going, no matter how dysfunctional we all may be! There will always be some people who’ll be thinking, why are they bothering, while others will just get it and enjoy it. Those are the people that we’re doing it for.
