Gunfire Dance – Witness To The Glam Punk Crime
1. What do you remember from the first days of the band?
The first days of the band are a bit of a blur to be hones, we all gave up our jobs and moved into a house together, young bands tended to do that then. In those days you weren’t taken seriously if you had a job.
2. You have played in historical venues in the USA as well; did you try to establish a career in the US market?
Yep… We played CBGB’s… The Continental… Kenny’s Castaways. I wouldn’t say we tried to establish a career over there, necessarily, but there seemed to be something happening in New York at the time with bands like D-Generation… New York Loose… Pillbox et cetera. We wanted to be there and experience some of that, and we felt we had more in common with them than bands in the UK
3. What were your thoughts on Hair Metal, a music genre that shared some similarities with Glam Punk?
We didn’t have any thoughts on Hair Metal… Ha ha ha! It was a million miles away in attitude to what we were. Personally, I’ve never liked guitar players who treat it like a sport.
4. What happened with your frontman, Ant, and how did this affect the rest of your career?
Ant always had his demons, and unfortunately, he took his own life in 2006. This didn’t affect the band’s career as it happened 10 years after we had broken up. We had just done a couple of successful reunion shows, for the hell of it, but by this time, Jeff was living in New York. There really was no chance of us reforming on a permanent basis.
5. Do you remember the recordings for the “Witness To The Crime” album?
The tracks on the album were recorded at a few different studios. The earlier songs, ‘Burning Ambition’ and ‘Gimme Back My Heart’, were recorded at Bob Wilson’s (Steve Gibbons Band) Arc studio in Birmingham. Most of the other stuff was recorded at Island Studios in London with Richard ‘Digby ‘Smith, who, amongst other things had previously worked with the band Free. The tracks we did with Brian and Rat were done at Island with Digby engineering. The last sessions were done at Lynx studio in Newcastle.
6. Would you like to tell us a few words about each song appearing on your “Witness To The Crime” album?
I’ll try to, although lyrically Ant is not around to comment.
Blue – built up around the baseline, it was our tribute to the Spiders’ version of White Light/White Heat.
Bliss Street – the rhythm section Thunders… Jeff ‘Thunders ‘…
Bird Doggin’ – our Pistolised version of an old Gene Vincent tune.
Easy Come – one of my favourite… And great riff from Jeff and I even like the backing vocals.
Break It Up – kind of Stoogey in an ‘I Got A Right’ vein.
Pretty As Sin – me and Ozzie were influenced by Iggy’s version of ‘Sixteen’ as seen on the British TV programmes The Tube.
Suit and Tie – great vocal… One of our most Dollsy tunes, in my opinion. Bridge stolen from the Yardbirds.
Make You Cry – mean and moody, a tearjerker. Make up your own mind! And nice groove…minor chords.
It Hurts – more minor chords! Quite a mature piece, you can hear Jeff’s Brian James influence.
Burning Ambition – a very early song, straightforward rock ‘n’ roll really.
Gimme Back My Heart – the albatross! Another early song where you can hear the Hanoi influence. Everyone loved this song, so in true Gunfire Dance fashion we stopped playing it.
Archway Of Thorns – this one is all Ant, really. He even came up with the chords. Just listen!
7. What is the current status of the band, and do you plan to perform any of these tracks on tour?
There is no band anymore, really. Ant is no longer with us, and Jeff resides in Panama.
8. Are there any outtakes or unreleased tracks from the band?
There are a couple of tracks we couldn’t fit on to the vinyl, a version of The Kinks classic ‘Till The End Of The Day’ and a track from our 12-inch EP Temptation.
There are a few as yet unrecorded songs that in the New Year we are thinking of recording with, our old friend and ally, Jez Millar on vocals. Maybe we will put out an EP or something.
9. Were you involved in the creation of the album regarding the artwork, old photos from your archive, etc.?
The artwork was done by our old friend Dave Twist, who also did our t-shirts back in the day. Dave, an accomplished musician in his own right, is also the drummer in my current band Black Bombers.
Ozzie had all the old photos stashed away in his loft, so we had to sort them out and just hand them to Mr. Twist to work his magic.
10. What about your next music plans?
Well, I play in a band, Black Bombers, as mentioned above… our stuff is also available from Easy Action Records… We are currently in the middle of recording a new album for release sometime next year. As far as Gunfire Dance is concerned, hopefully, in New Year, we will record some of the songs I mentioned earlier and put something out… Let’s see!
