Towards
the end of the first US tour in September/October 1999 which
saw the band play shows from Boston right across the country
to San Francisco Spike was beginning to find the touring game
very difficult with pressures from home and lack of money beginning
to take it's toll. A decision was made by the band to relieve
him of his duties when the band were next going to tour which
was in January 2000 as special guest of legendary London band,
the Business. The tour was scheduled to last for 8/9 weeks and
as well as it being twice as long a tour we would also be facing
the full force of the winter months on the east coast of the
US with the reason being if he had trouble on a short tour in
good weather he would have hated the more testing climate of
the second.
Due to the length of the new tour the band had trouble finding
someone who could commit to such a long time away from home
and/or work so the best we could come up with was to use two
bassists with each doing around 4 weeks or so. Toby was recruited
from local band Wookie who had played a few shows with the band
around that time and his role was taken over by long-time friend
and drinking pal, Lyndon. Both did superbly well and enjoyed
their experiences thoroughly. This tour basically took in a
very large part of the USA and helped continue spread the bands
growing reputation which was originally achieved during the
highly successful first US tour. The tour had it's ups and downs
but generally was a big success a couple of the highlights being
the band got to appear with bands such as Suicidal Tendencies,
Murphys Law, Agnostic Front and more to boot.
The next major event was the bands appearance it the famous
"Holidays in the Sun Festival" in Berlin, Germany
in the May of 2000 where they received a great response by a
big turnout even although Iain, Adam and Lyndon had to recruit
the services of the legendary Max Splodge on drums as Bryza
went AWOL before the show, this was very nearly the end of his
participation in the band as the rest of the lads were rightly
furious as this festival was the biggest show of the year for
the band and tempers were running very high to say the least.
Max Splodge did a very good stand in job, thanks mate.
Next up was a third US tour which was to be a mixture of a dozen
dates or so with the Dropkick Murphys again, playing to massive
audiences most nights mixed in with the bands first headline
shows in the US. The reception the band got on these shows was
superb although there were several nights where the crowds were
very small but never the less very appreciative. We have always
said that it does not matter how many people you are playing
to as people have still made the effort to come along and see
you, so they deserve to be entertained every bit as much as
the larger audiences; so thanks to you all for your time and
effort.
One point to mention here is that what also contributed largely
to the poor turn-outs at various venues; it was nearly always
found to be the case that the local promoters had not received
any promotional packs, posters CD's etc. etc. and on one occasion
the promoter said "Uh, I did not realise you were a punk
band!! There are loads of punk fans round here but we were told
you were rock'n'roll". Needless to say the agent was just
not doing his job, so we didn't pay him. Fair's fair.
On this tour the band were joined by Belfast Boys, Runnin' Riot
who turned out to be great guys who could play a bit too!! The
bands are now good mates. On this tour Lyndon and Toby again
played around half of the tour shows each, approx. 17/18 nights
each. The tour was well worth doing and helped continue to build
the bands growing reputation. The one huge negative point to
emerge during this tour was Adam's obvious dislike of touring
beginning to become very obvious and when he refused to appear
on the Dropkick Murphys ten night European tour to help promote
their latest album alarm bells started to ring.
The next major turning point in the bands history came at a
gig on the Isle of Wight, England when the band played on 1st
December 2000 and a thoroughly disillusioned Adam got blind
drunk with Bryza before taking the stage and completely let
both the other band members and the whole audience down, things
really had to change.
This was a critical time in the bands history where it could
easily have just folded but after a few weeks contemplation
Iain decided to soldier on and to give Bryza one final chance
in the thought that without Adam he would be much better, so
far this has been proven right and there has been a marked improvement
in his drumming too. Beerzone kinda need having a Bryza.
With Adam out Iain brought in Glen on rhythm guitar. Glen had
been an original member of Intensive Care so that made things
easier and Brand from local punk cover band, Clash City Rockers,
was asked to join up and play when available. This was a very
positive move as Iain had wanted to have two guitarists in the
line-up for some time but Adam had refused.
I have to point out now that now Adam is no longer involved
with the band he and Iain are now big friends again, something
that they were losing rapidly during the final few months of
Adam's stay.
The new album was recorded with the new boys on board in a very
short space of time due to pressure to have a new album released
in time for the next US tour which took place in May/June 2001
and saw the lads play around 25 nights starting in Seattle and
finishing up at the Promote Chaos punk fest in Atlanta where
they played with Anti-Nowhere League, Test-Tubes and many others.
They also played at the Midwest Streetpunk fest in Kansas City
during the tour. Toby played the whole of this tour for the
first time.
A couple of weeks after arriving back in the UK the band played
at the latest 'Holidays in the Sun' festival in Morecambe which
was the biggest yet to celebrate 25 years of punk. The band
were the only band to be asked to play on two stages on two
different days which was a big compliment.
Strangle all the Boybands, our second album, received very positive
reviews in a whole host of reputable publications including
Kerrang, Terrorizer, Metal Hammer, Scootering, Flipside and
Skratch. Skratch is the biggest selling zine in the USA for
punk music and gave the band arguably the best review in the
history of the band( see reviews page). The cd also sold very
well in the initial months on the Cyclone Records label and
when they ran a competition to win Beerzone pint glasses they
told the band that they had never known anything like the amount
of entries in the labels history. Due to the record doing well
DSS Records, a label based in Austria with a good solid reputation
for releasing quality punk music, paid Cyclone to enable them
to print the album on vinyl. This so far has proved very successful
with the initial quantity selling out in a very short space
of time.
The band meanwhile kept playing nearly every weekend all around
the UK including a very successful trip to Scotland but the
band seemed to be making the biggest impact much nearer home.
The Concorde 2 club down in Brighton offered the band support
slots with GBH, then Bad Manners, quickly followed by shows
with The Damned, The Dropkick Murphys, Anti-Nowhere League,
Sham 69( twice) and most recently with the legendary Dead Kennedys
at their first show on UK soil for over 20 years. These shows
were generally very successful and now the band is at the stage
where the club wants them to be the headline act for a show
provisionally set for early October.
In November 2001 the band also played at the Holidays in the
Smoke festival at London Astoria where they appeared alongside
SLF as well as at the first Cockney Rejects UK gig for many
a year.
The band had planned to tour the USA in September/October 2001
but due to the twin towers atrocities the plans were shelved
as a mark of respect.
The band were asked in April 2002 to be on the new "Addicted
to Oi!" album on Captain Oi! Records and will appear along
with the Cockney Rejects, Agnostic Front and many more well
known bands as well as the cream of the current bands which
includes Foreign Legion, Deadline and Argy Bargy.
The band played a highly successful ten night tour of Germany
in March/April 2002 which was previously arranged to be Tobys
farewell tour as he was pining for a career of some sort and
just basically wanted to settle down. Best of luck to the big
man as he was a huge help during his time on the bass.
Glen, who is originally a bassist anyway, has now taken over
this duty and the initial signs are quite superb.
Which brings us to Brian....for many reasons for which we wish
to keep private, Brian is no longer the first choice drummer
of the band. We wish him and his young family all the very best
for the future and hope that some time soon he can be involved
in the band in some sort of way.
I know this means I am the only original member of the band
but considering we were never meant to get out of our local
pubs venue we are not in too bad shape and if anything getting
stronger all the time.
There is a live album scheduled for release on 77RPM Records
of Los Angeles coming out in the summer where the band will
be joined by The Misguided who will be putting 8 or 9 songs
on for their studio debut. The Beerzone songs were recorded
on tour in the USA and the sound quality is very, very good.
That brings us just about up to date on the Biography side and
as we speak we are just about to play this years Holidays in
the Sun festival up in Blackpool, are being interviewed by mainstream
TV for inclusion on a documentary about punk music to be screened
later this year and are looking at touring the USA again in
the very near future. On top of that the band are lining up
a whole range of shows before the end of the year in the UK
and Belgium and these include appearing with Bad manners again
in December as well as looking to record a third studio album
hopefully around the turn of the year. |
