BIOGRAPHY

Theatre of Hate

Stan had already known Kirk Brandon for a while, not only from going to see The Pack, but because they moved in the same circle of friends.

Kirk knew Stan was a good bass player, from going to see The Straps play. In about April/May 1980, Kirk approached Stan and said he was going to put a new band together, and asked if he would join, which Stan obviously said yes, he also mentioned he was looking for a good drummer too.

By June the nucleus of the band was found, joining Kirk and Stan was Luke Rendle on drums (formerly with Crisis and The Straps), and an old mate of Kirk's on guitar, Steve Guthrie.

The band spent two solid months of rehearsals, and then managed to get thier first gig supporting Spizz at the Marquee, on August 6th 1980. It was a very promising gig, and best remembered for Stan falling off the stage, whilst still playing his bass!

A second gig soon followed, supporting Dept. S at the notorious Music Machine, on one of the regular 20 pence entry nights. This was the night Terry Razor entered the scene, and offered his services to Kirk as Theatre of Hate's manager. Terry put up the funds for the band's first single, but before they recorded it, they needed to to find a sax player.

He came in the shape of John Lennard, who was a professional circuit squash player from Calgary in Canada. He played his first and the band's third gig at the Moonlight Club in West Hampstead, London. Due to the band's rapidly growing word of mouth reputation, this was very quickly sold out.

The first out of town gig was at Stevenage Bowes Lyon House, a venue they would return to a few times.

Theatre of Hate's first single Original Sin, was to be a double A Side single with Leigon. This single has subsequently become a classic, which is very difficult to get hold of due to it's being very quickly deleted.

In the November came the band's first tour, partly supporting the Ruts and partly Killing Joke. In December 1980 ToH supported Ian Dury and the Blockheads at Fr iars in Aylesbury.

Early in 1981 a tour was brought together under the banner "The 2002 Review", featuring Classix Nouveax, Theatre of Hate, Naked Lunch, Blancmange and Shock. It was this tour that firmly established ToH in the minds of the audiences who saw them, and it climaxed with a night at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park. Steve Guthrie was to leave shortly after this, so the role of guitar was taken up by Kirk.

The second single Rebel Without a Brain, backed by My Own Invention, was released in March 1981, being produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, who had become a good friend of the band.

In May 1981 a Dutch tour was scheduled, along with two dates in Berlin, one supporting The Clash. This tour lay down some important groundwork, as the band would become very popular in both these places.

When they returned a British tour immediately followed, entitled "The March of the Conquistadors" which climaxed with a night at London's Strand Lyceum after taking in almost all the major towns and cities in England and Scotland.

The third single Nero, backed by Incinerator, was released in 12" record form on July 29 1981, the day of the Royal Wedding.

In August 1981 Theatre of Hate embarked on recording their first studio L.P., which was also produced by Mick Jones. This took place in Wessex Studios, and took about four weeks to complete, usually working through the night, but it was not to be released until six months later. After the album was finished, the search for a guitarist was begun. He came in the form of Billy Duffy, previously guitarist with Lonesome No More, Billy heard about the situation through a friend. After just a weeks rehearsal Billy's first gig was at the Stafford Futurama festival, and then straight into a second tour of Holland, with dates again in Berlin.

In October 1981, there followed another UK tour which began supporting The Clash at Manchester, Glasgow, Bridlington, St. Austell and the Lyceum, but it was mainly a headlining tour in its own right, and again ending with a sell out show at the Lyceum.

After a rest of just 10 hours, it all began again with a tour of Sweden, which included one off shows in Copenhagen and Oslo, then off to Holland, ending with three gigs in three days in three capital cities; The Hague, Brussels and London.

The London date at the Central London Poly was Luke's last gig with Theatre of Hate, so the process of finding yet another replacement began. After auditioning people for about two weeks, they found Nigel Preston from South London. At around the same time, the fourth single Do You Believe in the Westworld backed by Propaganda, was being picked up on by national radio and gaining frequent airplay. It reached number 40 in the charts, so qualifying the band for an appearance on Top of the Pops, which was Nigel's first public appearance with Theatre of Hate.

Stan recently commented on the Judgement Hymn website "That TOTP appearance; breaking through after being in the 40's; The TOTP appearance was what it was, we were stitched up by the BBC not being allowed to play live or mime to the real recording, we had to re-record the song in 6 hours, a song which took considerably longer to record for the album/single. The good thing about it was we got to perform on one of the late great John Peels very few TOTP's appearances - we owed him our career along with many other bands."

The Westworld album followed shortly after, and a tour was arranged to promote it. Starting at Gravesend on February 19 1982, and ending at the Plymouth Top Rank Suite on April 6, it was a tiring but successful tour, especially as the L.P. went straight into charts at number 18.

At the same time ToH recorded their fifth single, The Hop backed by Conquistador, and straight after an accompanying video which was filmed at the Zigzag Club in West London. After a fly in/fly out trip to Madrid, there followed an exhausting six week European marathon tour taking in West Germany, Berlin, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Holland, Belgium and France, dating from Koln on 1/5/82 to Lommel on 11/6/82.

Almost immediately on return they were on the road again for a tour billed as the "Holiday in Scotland" tour. After five of the six scheduled dates, difference led to the departure of Billy Duffy, who stayed around to watch the final date at Glasgow Tiffany's.

Again Stan recently commented on this on the Judgement Hymn website saying "We were mis-managed and made some dumb decisions, one included the firing of Billy Duffy for instance, and our premature demise irks me everyday!"

The four piece, with Kirk playing guitar, did three British dates at St. Albans, Hammersmith Palis, and Guildford, which grew progressively better.

Two days later, it was on to another plane to the Land of the Midnight Sun, Finland, for two gigs and two festivals in four days. On return to London, there was several weeks solid rehearsals for the new L.P., this time produced by the band themselves, and the recording of the fifth and final single Eastworld, backed by Assegai, which was released a month later.

Towards the end of '82 the band would play its last gigs in Germany and Holland, finishing up with a handful of gigs in the UK.

Kirk had already decided to split the band and move on to a new project, and had asked Stan if he would join him, although Stan wasn't sure that ending ToH was a good idea, as everything they had worked for was just getting there, and the fact that they were getting lots of interest from large record companies, but Stan decided to go with it and accepted the offer and they moved forward. This was something that would irk Stan to this day!

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