A story of youthful adventure where friendships are made and tested through risky excess and errors of judgement, a path navigated with success and failure but where memories last forever and later friendships are renewed and creativity re-discovered and a new adventure begins...
Bad Blood is a British Punk rock band formed in Bristol U.K. in 1996.
The name of the band was decided after Jon's suggestion 'Bad blood' from the title of a chapter in the iconic 90's book 'Trainspotting' at the time it just seemed like it was as good a band name as any but looking back perhaps the name was perfect because of events happening in our lives also or maybe the book seemed to encapsulate how we were feeling at the time, euphoric, spontaneous with the anticipation of a great adventure.
The King's Arms pub, Kingswood, Bristol was a place we would meet to discuss band matters and to make plans while drinking way too much (at the time) cheap lager or cider, the after hours 'lock inns' were legendary, we drank there, we discussed band matters there and also we rehearsed there in a fairly grotty room at the back of the pub which occasionally local musicians would put on D.I.Y. punk shows with a fairly good attendance albeit with some of the troublesome locals making up the numbers so it was always a rowdy night with a edgy atmosphere.
The band initially started after we put out an ad for a singer/guitarist in a local newspaper, guitarist Mike saw it and contacted us and suggested that we get together for a jam, things went well and moved quickly and we wrote a few songs and recorded a 3 song demo tape and we even managed to get a few t-shirts made, the design for the shirt was by Etienne Marcus Le Comte back then he very kindly did a piece of art for us and the same design was used for the cassette tape, a guy called 'pig' from the band Maggot Slayer Overdrive screen printed a few for us, I remember going to collect them and feeling in awe of this cool looking punk guy who didn't seem to give a fuck and who'd turned his living room into a gnarly DIY printing room for punk tshirts and patches, the place stank of printing ink and the windows were blacked out but i thought it was brilliant...or at least that's how I remember it!!
Mike had a fantastic musical talent and a strong personality so we started playing shows in and around Bristol on the local D.I.Y. punk scene and we seemed to be well received, we even got invited to play an impromptu local squat gig with THE RESTARTS and RECTIFY in a old railway arch workshop in the st. Phillips area of Bristol the gig was chaotic but well attended and luckily the police didn't turn up so all the bands managed to play a set, I think it was a Saturday evening when we had a call from someone who was 'in the know' saying there was a squat gig going ahead that evening and if we wanted to play we had better get down there quick so one way or another we all got down there, we waded in through a zombie like hoard of people into a dimly lit damp industrial unit under a railway arch, there was rubbish and cans strewn around and a noisy generator powering some work lights that were glaring at us, it was just total chaos but the crowd were enthusiastic and once we got going they seemed to like us... it was the sort of thing you never forget.
After a chance meeting of a german concert promoter at a local punk show in Bristol we were invited to play in Bremen, Germany at the B.O.B. festival (Bremen, Oakland, Bath) and without really knowing what we were in for we booked some ferry tickets and drove to Germany and played a few concerts including a support slot for American band THE QUEERS, this was our first experience of playing outside the U.K. and we were quite overwhelmed by the brilliant response and attendance from the European punk crowds. While in Germany we stayed for a short time at the apartment of one of the promoters and upon arrival we were greeted by a gathering of various members of the other bands playing at the B.O.B. festival everyone was just sitting around drinking and talking but there was one person who really stood out, swaying around and doing a hilarious all singing impression of David Essex with all the signature moves, this guy was, as we found out later known as 'Alan O' Gallon', a colourful character who would some years later, for a while play a lead role in this story...
Alan
Returning to the studio (Mr Grins, Bishopsworth, Bristol) in late 1997 we recorded a five track CD with impressive results and this was a real step forward from the original 'demo tape' we had done previously, but it never got released and in early 1998 after some disagreements about the direction we were headed Mike decided to leave the band, this was a big setback after the progress made up till this time and all the brilliantly fun experiences we'd had.
After this shock announcement and with shows already booked in London, we needed a quick replacement, and as luck would have it a few weeks later Jon bumped into ex-shock treatment singer Terry Povey at a punk gig in Bristol, Terry was at a loose end after the break up of shock treatment and agreed to giving Bad blood a go, we had a couple of rehearsals and then recruited a brilliant young guitarist named David Devonold , (who now plays lead guitar in the U.K.'s premier Clash tribute act 'London calling') he was the son of the landlord of the pub where we rehearsed.
So with two new members and full of youthful urgency we headed up to London to play at The Pembury Tavern, Hackney 3/4/98 and at The Goldsmiths Arms, Deptford 4/4/98, the gigs were arranged with what now seems old fashioned methods before mobile phones, text messages, email or social media...(often just a scrap of paper with a landline phone number scribbled on it by someone we'd met at a gig), so we phoned a guy called Mark in Hackney, London who said he could put us on at The Pembury Tavern and would give us some cash and maybe somewhere to stay the night and we also had a phone number for 'Paco' from CONFLICT who at the time was involved in putting on punk bands at The Goldsmiths Arms, Deptford so after talking on the phone he agreed we could have a gig there the day after the Pembury Tavern show.
The Pembury Tavern gig went surprisingly well with new guitarist David Devonold creating brilliant noisy guitar shrieks with lots of feedback and string bending and there was also a good crowd because the headlining band were London hardcore locals MOUTHWASH but on the way to the gig at the Goldsmiths, Deptford something happened that would give our new lineup a baptism of fire,Terry was a big football supporter and unknown to the rest of the band his favourite team Bristol Rovers were due to play against Millwall that afternoon and in the middle of a queue of traffic Terry saw a gang of Bristol Rovers fans and suddenly announced "see you at the gig boys I'm off to watch my team play" and without warning he jumped out the bus window and disappeared into the distance....
After arriving at the venue without our lead singer we spent the next few hours wondering if the gig would go ahead that evening, so as the clock ticked and it grew later and later we had no choice but to setup and wait, the gig room was full and with us the main band now on stage and no idea if Terry was going to turn up the crowd just got noisier and noisier with impatience but then... in strolled Terry saying hello to everyone on his way and jumping on the stage and saying "good evening we're Bad blood from sunny Bristol, let's play some music boys..." as if this was all completely normal. TRUE STORY!!
Over the following year this lineup played a few gigs here and there but we didn't record anything and David grew restless (we think) and decided to leave the band to seek a new challenge.
At this time we were still rehearsing at The King's Arms pub in the Kingswood area of Bristol, this pub was a popular hang out for local musicians and a mutual friend we often met there at weekend band nights was a friendly young kid we knew as 'Little Mark' after learning of us losing Dave our guitar player he offered to help out and join the band for a while.
Mark was a perfect replacement and had the same kind of style and sound and he was also friends with Dave so they sort of came from a similar place musically and had things in common, we did a load of local gigs at places like The Bunch of Grapes, Bristol and The stones cross Midsomer Norton and The King's Arms, the pub where we rehearsed.
It was around this time that we met a guy called Chris Redman when playing at a tiny venue in Midsomer Norton, Somerset called 'The Wunderbar', his band VALDEZ had just started up and Chris was organising a Ramones themed tribute night at the Fleece, Bristol and wanted Bad blood to also play, Bad blood at that time included a couple of Ramones covers in their set so we thought it would be a fun thing to do, the gig at The Fleece went brilliantly and there was even a live recording of Bad bloods' performance on cassette tape.
But feeling like we needed a bigger sound perhaps it was suggested that Terry call up old SHOCK TREATMENT bandmate 'Daz' Darren Watkins, luckily Darren was interested in playing guitar again and agreed to give it a go...with this now dual guitar lineup we even managed to get a residency slot at The Bunch of grapes pub, Denmark Street, Bristol playing once a month we'd sometimes invite other bands to play support for us, with this lineup we wrote and recorded 'Them and us' in a recording studio in a basement of a house in the Red field part of Bristol. (random fact for nerds).
But after a while the lineup changed again due to personal differences or some fallout between band members or maybe the old classic reason band members split 'due to musical differences' can't really remember but Mark decided to move on.
With Valdez and Bad blood starting to play gigs together a friendship grew between the bands, Chris from Valdez had a great talent for arranging gigs and one of the most memorable was when he put together a punk all dayer at the Full Moon in Bristol featuring The UK Subs, Demob, Poundaflesh, Bad blood, Surfing Turnips, Valdez, P4Ft the gig was a great success despite the worries about ticket sales and door security was provided by local legend 'Mad Danny the punk' he had a local reputation for being a bit crazy so we thought he would be a great guy to have around and keep things in order but in our nievety in reality he was/is a really nice guy but made us feel better about things on the day!!...
This was a very creative period and with this latest band lineup, which felt the most stable yet we started to produce some of our best songs so far, we even made a trip to London for a recording session with a friend of Jon's named Joel Lightman who was then living there for a while, he had a home studio setup and recorded us playing live some of the new songs we were working on, some recordings from this session were 'Anus' a.k.a. 'we can't stand you' and 'distorted views' (a cover of a Shock Treatment song) these recordings were demos really so we decided we needed to record with a more professional setup so in 2003 we went to The Whitehouse studio, Kewstoke, ran by Martin Nicols to record five songs ALTERNATIVE, OPPRESSION, FACES, BORED and SELLOUT this session went really well and two of these songs were released as a split 7" vinyl with Valdez on German D.I.Y. punk label CAMPARY RECORDS with just 500 copies being pressed.
We also self released a CDR with the two songs off the vinyl record plus the track 'Them and us' and the recording of 'Faces' from the Whitehouse session which was a re-recording of a earlier song we originally wrote with Mike, this release was entitled 'Them and us' and less than 100 copies were made.
A tour of Germany was organised for Bad blood and Valdez by a contact named 'Magda' in Berlin we played mainly at social centres and DIY anarchist squats, before the tour was due to start Chris made contact by chance with a American tourist named Ivy who was travelling around the U.K. that summer and was also searching for ways to travel around Europe.
Chris: "Nick the bassist in Bad blood had a ticket for Morecambe punk festival but couldn't go because of work so asked me to sell it. I put it on the southwest punks forum at face value and Ivy got in touch to take it. Then at Morecambe she asked if she could come to Europe with us because she had only seen the UK up to that point..." so we all agreed she could come along if she contributed to fuel and help to carry the equipment
Some of the shows were pretty chaotic as Chris remembers "...Kopernikus in Hanover, the venue was so small that when we were playing the plaster was falling off of the pillars and the ceiling. I was putting bottles of beer on my amp and it was so loud the bottles were just rolling off and smashing"
"there was also an episode where the concert in Osnabruck was cancelled because there was a neo-nazi gathering taking place nearby and the venue shut so the organisers could go along for a face off with the white power crowd, so we ended up having a night off and resting up in Amsterdam. The next evening we played gig in a abandoned shipping office in Scheviningen...."
we went to Germany again the following year after the vinyl record was released to promote it and to do a headline tour but a couple of the shows were cancelled and this time sadly we couldn't tour with Valdez, one of the concerts was in Karlsrhue and was organised by Chris Schwall, Chris had a huge mohican hairstyle and the first time we met him was when he came careering Down the street in a small hatchback car with his head turned to one side and his mohican almost sticking out the window, from this this point we knew this gig was gonna interesting.
Germany 2003...
THE MUSHROOM TEA AND THE HAUNTED CLUB HOUSE
The show in Karlsrhue went really well and was a lot of fun, we played support that night for Swedish band THE TROUBLE MAKERS and we were invited to stay the night at the promoters apartment so after the concert we all headed back there for late night drinks and to rest but after a few beers a tray was brought out with cups of mushroom tea but as it was my turn to drive the next day I thought it best stick to the nice German beer but the rest of the band and our two friends who we brought with us to act as roadies/tour managers had some too.
The following night we were booked to play a concert in a youth club, the gig went well with no problems but after the gig finished we were told we should stay the night in the club...
We all slept on the stage in sleeping bags but things weren't peaceful or calm due to a series of strange noises and things going bump in the night causing huge distress and even nightmarish dreams, one of our friends (Andy Pager) awoke in the night very agitated and feeling certain there were people in the building hiding and were secretly watching us, it took sometime for him to finally realise that It must have just been a dream and to try and forget about it.
Everyone seemed to be convinced that night that the club was haunted and it wasn't until the next morning after a very long and eerie night and to our great relief that we all realised it must have just been a episode of anxiety and paranoia due to the final effects of the magic mushrooms wearing off !
2004
**revised***
Things were going well for the band, we'd played a lot of local gigs and a few national ones and we'd been to Germany a couple of times and we had also written a few new songs so we went in to the studio again to record a new album, the recordings were made at Dockside studios, Bristol, the session went well and the resulting album was called 'Something wrong with you' but only a few CDr copies were ever made and it was never released on a label.
After the success of the previous trip to Germany we decided to try to arrange another D.I.Y. tour for 2005 but disaster struck when Terry announced he didn't think he would be able to come along...so due to youthful impatience or just a ill-thought out decision it was decided to find a replacement vocalist for the tour.
A well known local character Alan O'Gallon (who we'd first met briefly some years earlier in Germany at the B.O.B. festival) seemed the perfect stand in vocalist given that Terry's charismatic and extroverted front man persona would be a challenge to replecate.
It was in hindsight the wrong thing to do and was a 'you should never dump a friend' kind of situation, we should of stuck by Terry and cancelled the tour and waited, but unbeknown to us at the time this would be the catalyst for a new version of the band but also at this time sadly Daz decided he could no longer be in the band without Terry.
So now after losing our singer AND guitarist we needed a replacement fast so Jon called up David Devonold just like a few years earlier to ask if he would again come to our rescue, amazingly he said yes and so we began rehearsing in the back room of The Kings arms pub in the Kingwood area of Bristol.
With two new band members it almost felt like a totally new band so it was decided we should write all new songs and just keep a few of the old ones for posterity, this was a very creative period and we all worked extremely hard at the new songs and sound of the new band, we initially produced the four track album 'Ignorance is bliss' which was recorded at Whitehouse Studios, Kewstoke by Martin Nicols and it was released on 7" vinyl by Campary records in Germany and the album even managed to get a modest review in maximum rock n roll magazine where it was described as "mid paced melodic punk tunes"
The album was was also released digitally and has been streamed and downloaded many thousands of times until the band reformed recently when it was thought appropriate to just make available releases from the band that reflect the current lineup and style and sound so as not to cause confusion.
The songs from this album were in part used in the soundtrack for the film 'Flirting with flamenco' and the band also had extra roles of playing a 'oompah' band in the background of a one of the scenes. Credit for our participation in the film was due to Alan who through his involvment in minor acting and extra roles in T.V. was able to secure us the part, Alan had a great talent for finding opportunites and things we needed such as getting a load of Tshirts printed for the tour cheap because of a friend he knew in the print business.
We had some promotional photos of the new band lineup taken by a professional photographer friend of Alan's.
Some photos from the tour 2005
2021/22
The band reformed after a initial 'just for fun' jam session, and resulting from this it was decided to get the band back together, and so after almost 20 years Terry Povey was back on vocals, it had to be Terry on vocals if this was going to work after the way things turned out years earlier it was also a bit like 'putting right a wrong', I had been playing guitar for a few years in another project after Bad blood split and so now naturally moved onto guitar in this latest version of the band. So now we needed a new bass player so we put out some ads and received a few positive responses but then out of the blue a message came in from the old Valdez drummer Pez Penzer saying we should contact Chris Redman from Valdez the band who we'd partnered with on the Campary split vinyl release....this led to Chris joining us and so we started rehearsing and writing new songs.
Since we reformed we're playing better and enjoying it more this time round and so far we've played festivals, charity events, been to Belgium three times, played alongside some inspiring and brilliant bands and felt humbled by all the support and the people we've met and new friends we've made so if you are a venue or promoter and can offer us a gig or even just point us in the right direction of a gig in your town....get in contact!!!