In 1984 I was playing drums in a Brighton psychobilly band called Zoltan’s
Pack but really wanted to play straight up punk rock. My good buddy Chris,
who plays a mean guitar, and I decided to get a punk band together but before
we got anything organised an acquaintance of ours called Dave told us that
he wanted to form a band with himself on vocals and asked Chris and I to
perform guitar and drum duties. Thus was created the nucleus of what was
to become Flatpig. We were 17 years of age and frankly dreadful, it was the
height of the depressing Thatcher years and we all believed that we were
going to die in a nuclear war so we consoled ourselves by writing the most
stupid lyrics we could devise and filling ourselves with drink and drugs
at every opportunity. I had initially told Dave that I was not prepared to
play in any band that wasn’t called “Piss” or “Shit”,
so “Shit” we were for all of a few weeks until we hit upon the
name “Unclean” which we kept for our first few gigs. Our bass
player was Helen, Dave’s then girl friend, and we were joined by Rick
on rhythm guitar but this line up was soon to change. During all this time
I was still gigging regularly with Zoltan’s Pack which took up a lot
of my spare time and as Unclean were a lazy drunk band who smoked far too
much dope we hardly did any gigs. After about 2 years we decided that Unclean
was too much of a cliché punk rock name and had a band meeting (actually
a rambling drinking session in my mum’s kitchen) during which we wandered
straight off the subject of band names and started talking shit as usual.
I was telling Dave and Chris that, as a kid, I had once found a pile of rotting
meat and maggots with a trotter in each corner at the edge of a field and
that it looked like a flat pig that had been squashed by some invisible falling
weight when we remembered what we were supposed to be discussing. The name
Flatpig was decided on there and then as we reckoned it was unique and unlikely
to be used by anyone else.
By now I was playing in “Wallnut and the Wankers” and also “The
Masked Raiders”, both bands fronted by Peter of the Test Tube Babies
so once again I had little time for Flatpig, but we continued to rehearse
and write songs and recorded our first demo (I think it was about 1986) at
The Old Pink Dog studios in Worthing where we all lived. The recording was
shit….an over produced over indulgent stack of metal-tinged fretwank
if I’m honest but we were well pleased with it. By now we had gone
through more bassists than I can remember and it seemed impossible to complete
the line up so we eventually drifted into a period of inactivity.
In 1988 I left the Masked Raiders and stopped playing music almost completely,
my only project being a rock/blues pub covers band which gigged quite regularly
but was embarrassingly awful. After a year or two of this I longed to get
some serious punk rock together and the best idea seemed to reanimate the
dormant Flatpig as, although we had done very few gigs over the years I enjoyed
it more than any other band I’d been in and loved working with my close
friends Dave and Chris. We decided to solve the eternal bass player shortage
by moving Chris from guitar to bass and looking for a new guitarist. This
was a wise move and new boy Mick on guitar gave the band a whole new sound
and feel as well as enriching our lives with his fantastic sense of humour.
Armed with a batch of new songs we returned to the Old Pink Dog and, in one
short evening, recorded an infinitely better demo which we used to sell at
gigs as a cassette called “Cocksnail”. Unfortunately Mick was
not keen on playing live and his passion was more for reggae than punk so
we eventually went our separate ways and lost a fine musician, though he
remains a good friend and still does lots of recording as well as retaining
his knack of making me nearly cry with laughter whenever we meet.
We were now stuck with being unable to find a guitarist and, for the first
time ever, placed adverts instead of recruiting friends and acquaintances.
After a couple of auditions we came across the person who was to become the
greatest asset to the band and actually make us do something – Austen.
Austen had been in a regularly touring band based in Europe and wanted to
continue to travel abroad so he was pretty horrified when I explained to
him that Flatpig had only done about a dozen gigs in ten years but he decided
to join us and kick our arses into gear. It was 1994 by now and as I had
no other musical commitments I was glad that Aus threw himself into the task
of booking gigs and getting us out of Brighton to start playing shows in
London and Oxford. Our first tour was in the Basque Country with “Rectify” and “Kuru”,
both excellent punk rock outfits who sadly no longer exist, and was organised
by the “Reknaw” sound system who have helped us out countless
times and are a great bunch of guys.
With Austen as our driving force we went on to tour in Germany before going
back to the Basque for another great two weeks of total mayhem and continued
to play anywhere we were offered in the uk including festivals, pubs, squats,
front rooms, back gardens and anywhere else punk rock is required. We then
recorded our first full length album, “killed On Impact” at Ford
Lane studios near Arundel in Sussex, although we never pressed it up in quantity
so if you see it anywhere it’s rare(but doubtless worthless). In the
late 90s Chris temporarily left the band and we struggled for a while. Austen
was involved with another project, a band called “Tryptameanies” and
we lost a lot of momentum. By the time Chris came back to the band (this
time as second guitar as we had a new bassist) Dave, our singer since ’84
decided to leave. Undaunted I became singer/drummer as I was the only one
who knew the lyrics but I hassled the others to learn words quickly. This
line up changed again when Chris decided to quit, leaving me as the only
member of the original ’84 band but by this time we were used to dealing
with sudden change and have remained a three piece ever since, recording
our second album, “Drowning” at Austen’s own “Studio
284” in Brighton.
After a tour of Holland and Germany we parted company with our bass player
(yes-back to the changing bassist nightmare) so our friend Steve (ex Stupids)
joined us for touring duty in Poland, Holland, Germany and Belgium. We recorded
a 4 track ep with Steve on bass and then myself and Austen recorded new versions
of “New Rose” and “Neat Neat Neat” with Brian James
to mark the 25th anniversary of his writing those songs during his time in
The Damned. Brian occasionally joins us on stage along with his close friend
Dave (of Sham 69/Lords of the New Church fame) and we play those classic
Damned numbers live. Steve is unable to dedicate much time to Flatpig as
he now plays drums for the Lords of the New Church and the Brighton Agitators
(along with various other projects and session work) but he is still a member
of the band so we had to look for another bass player for the times when
Steve is otherwise committed.
Myself and Austen play in a band called “Halfcut” fronted by
Dave who used to sing in Flatpig (complicated shit innit?) so we recruited
Chad from Halfcut as our new bassist and between him and Steve we hope to
always have a bassist available. With Chad on bass we have toured the Basque
country again as well as Belgium, Holland, Germany, France, Czech Republic,
Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia and maybe one day we’ll do a tour in
Britain but I suspect we’ll return to Eastern Europe first.
I think that just about brings our shabby history up to date so I guess I’ll
add a word or two about where we’re at now in case anyone has bothered
to read this far through this rambling nonsense. The band still consists
of Austen, Chad and myself (AND Steve when he’s got the time) and we
rehearse and record at Studio 284 in Brighton. We are joined on tours by
our good friend Richard who always helps out with driving, speaking Polish
(especially in his sleep) and keeping us chatting when no one can think of
fuck all else to say, as well as my long suffering wife Tracy who drives,
map reads, takes the photographs and runs the merch stall (a small table
where we give things away foolishly or watch people steal it). Me and Chad
live in the delightful cultural backwater of Worthing where everyone who
is not on drugs is over 65 and Austen and Steve live in the fashionable resort
of Brighton where if you throw a stone from any window you are guaranteed
to hit an aroma therapist. I play drums in Peter and the Test Tube Babies
and Halfcut, Chad plays guitar in Halfcut, Austen plays bass in Halfcut and
loads of session guitar in his studio and Steve plays drums in the Lords
of the New Church and any other instrument you care to name in countless
bands and recording projects in Brighton. We’re busy bastards but we’ll
always keep “the pig” going, we have no choice…we’ve
created a monster we cannot control…………………………………………..HELP!