For those of you who don't know, back in the Olden Days of the 20th Century, before The Internet and IPods and all this new fangled technology. 4 young starry eyed youths started a band. They were occasionaly joined by a 5th member, a mate of theirs, who done some mixing and DJ'ing at the gigs and in the studio. The band were called Trooper and notched up quite a few gigs over a couple of years, they also managed to release 2 self funded EP's. In case you were in any doubt those 4 young starry eyed youths then changed their name to Mohair in 2001.
See below for an interview with the band from 2000.
Thanks to Martin Carpenter.
1. Slide
2. Class 'A' Screwball
3. Move Like A Panther
4. Class 'A' Screwball (Chemical Insult Mix)
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1. Show me the Money
2. Ed in Afternoons
3. The Ballad of Hewey & Ralph
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"They're just one of those bands..."
One of those bands that grabs you by the grits and says "look, stop pissing around" and hands you your stomach on a plate when they've finished with you.
Trooper are a real band. They are a real group of people with real drive, real delivery and really big hair (in places). They've been through it, they're going through it and long may they continue.
It all started back in January 1999 when the first Trooper song was driven out of obscurity at their first gig. The stage was set - all they had to do was keep playing on it.
Tom was in Pete's mum's 'special' maths class at primary school but the two avoided friendship like semolina before going their separate ways.
At big school Pete and Tim struck up a bond that would have them glued together like mating snails forevermore. As soon as the first skin was struck and bass string plucked it had to be the blues. They found they could bounce off each other and anyone else who happened to be widdling or wanking over the top could do what they liked.
Meanwhile Tom and his Vontrapp family started their own band- 'Reckless' when he was 13 with 3 young girls (including his 10 year old sister) doing dance routines to Hendrix and Stones covers at PTA meetings and ex-servicemen's clubs across Hertfordshire.
In 1995, to Pete's disdain, Tim joined Reckless on bass through a mutual friend and things started to fall into place. They gigged and gigged and actually got really good for a sprightly bunch of teenagers -. until the inevitable happened:
It was "Tribute time" (every covers band goes through it). A huge hand came from the sky and in it a parchment that said that they were to be "The Carbon Commitments" - yes, you heard it right - it was soul time (baby).
They drafted Pete in on Trumpet, found a fat sax player, hired Nice-Guy-Brad to plunk away on guitar (so Tom could do the Andrew Strong thang) and set to work looking for an ivory-tinkler. (I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this, boom goes our cred!)
Meanwhile, lurking on the fringes of decent society Alex was reading porn when a naked Indian appeared to him and told him to join a band, the singer of which he had met in a big Rock 'n Roll show they had been involved with in 1996. So he did.
Alex had been spraying his musical seed in bands with names like NOBLE OX and BROWN EYE and spending a lot of time in his room. He, his Yamaha SY35 (sounds like a make of KY jelly) and his mullet were asked to join this Hertfordshire 'super group' and the line-up was complete.
They did weddings, Barmitzfahs, funerals, student piss-ups... the lot. But then Tom, in all his greater wisdom and spirituality decided that it was his 'time' and pissed off to India for a year.
And that's it really -the rest of the story goes: Tom got stoned and wrote some songs, Tim and Pete finished their A-levels, Tom got home, everyone got stoned and the three decided to start a band.
Alex was permitted to play along side whilst they changed his name to Boon, cut off his mullet, threw away his keyboard and replaced it with a broken old organ. Then, and only then he officially became at one with the TROOP.
A short while later, on the eve of their first gig as an originals outfit they asked their best mates cousin to come along to a jam and record some stuff. The rest is a little hazy but somehow he became one of them over night.
His deck-meistry and ability to cut out rude tunes on his computer won them all over and for a while Trooper looked set to becoming a speed garage, hip hop, break-beat, rock, blue-grass fusion band - cool!
But then, out of nowhere, a bald German man in tight leather trousers rode in on a flaming carpet, wielding aloft his mighty violin and shouting "HIRSENEMENACHEMENEKÄÄNS !!".
As you can imagine, it all went mad from there.
Miko, to this day remains one of the single most important people in Trooper history. Tom had met him widdling on a rock somewhere in the middle of India back in 1998. The man plays the violin like no other human being alive. He is music. His knowledge and understanding of movement and melody, his ability to weave in and out of the tapestry, his perfect pitch, his ridiculous collection of trousers, his passion and his drive - a fire burnt bright inside him and for a while it warmed them all.
They'd stay up all night, and long into the following days jamming, recording, writing and drinking tea, laughing, smoking, drinking and simply existing within the same space. It was their time and no one could touch them.
The gigs got more theatrical with Miko prancing about like a loon and Nic scratching away at his records - as for the rest of them well they were learning about space, about groove, about singing and dancing and writing and skinning up.
The peak of this mad era in the Trooper history books was winning the Southern Comfort National Battle-of-the-Bands competition at Brunel university in Uxbridge in May 1999. They ran away with the prize money beating over 100 bands from all over the UK and still to this day use the trophy as an ashtray at Trooper HQ.
But, things had started to become difficult with Miko as his German-ness meant he was still living in Germany and spending months at a time here there and everywhere. Whilst he was away the rest of the boys would have to knuckle down and get on with it and tensions began to mount.
With the money they won they entered the studio for the first time - as studio virgins, no one really knew quite what to expect.
It was mad as ever. They were doing gigs almost every night and using the studio (that was in Old Street, London) during the days. The Rainbow Festival fell between two recording days and still goes down as one of the best days ever. Big crowds, huge stage& the lot. But it was the beginning of the end of an era for the 6 and things needed to change.
In the time Miko spent away the music had to change, new space, new tunes and when he returned we struggled to find room for it all. With that in mind and the fact that he couldn't up root and move over here it was decided that 6 should be 5 and he left.
It was soon after that, Nic decided that it was his time to "buy his freedom". He had an opportunity to earn shed loads of cash in computers and all they were offering was a life of poverty and music. The temptation was too great and 5 became 4.
That same week, the 4 remaining members of Trooper performed one of the best gigs of their lives at the Flag & Firkin in Watford. Over 1000 people watched Trooper stuff it in the faces of those non-believers and Miko-lites. New, un-tapped energy roared out of them as they let it be known that the real TROOP were now in force.
The gigs got better, the tunes tighter and roomier. They knew now what God had intended for them - not psychedelic-widdle-techno-acid-funk but good old Rock 'n Roll. It lives in us all: the release, the filth, the blues, the power and the anger, the beauty and persuasion. It’s what drives us to be superior human beings.
Long live Rock!
It was decided at this time (and this was August 1999 - only 8 months since the Immaculate Conception) that they needed to add another string to their bow.
They had conquered all they could on their own: made a name for themselves locally, done all the big London gigs, recorded, promoted, developed a healthy mailing list of dedicated followers and it was time somebody took over the business side so the boys could concentrate on the music.
Pete Curtis, a well respected singer, events organiser, for-running member of the local music 'scene' came on board as manager. Spirits were high in the Trooper camp and for the first few months everything seemed to be ticking over nicely.
Pete helped them develop more of a solid infrastructure: insisted they have a web site built, take singing lessons, made mean meat-balls and got them gigging loads which was just what they needed.
We all know that there's no money in new music and the band were stealing cigarettes, going out with empty pockets and always running out of petrol in Desmond (Tim's V reg Metro with no floor). So, the gigs they were doing were primarily covers gigs to keep them alive.
Their originals gigs became few and far between and people began to realise that they could see their favourite band play stuff they knew for hours on end - oh, and put up with one or two that they had written themselves, bless them - regularly and locally for free.
'That's not Rock n Roll. That's not what we came here to do. We’ve got years of not making it to get paid to play other peoples music! We'll be the greatest Steppenwolf tribute band ever - but not now.
What this did in retrospect, was teach them a thing or two about stagecraft and how to treat an audience (typically consisting of two skinheads in rugby shirts, and 8 year old and a Spaniel called Collin). They go better, tighter and more energetic - their equipment got heavier too.
Our friend Mike (the mad Guinness swilling, beardy Irishman) summed up this period beautifully with this:
"It was special because of what came out of it, not what went into it. A bit like pissing and shitting in a bucket and getting banana milkshake&. I speak the language of the common people"
Mike has since been put to sleep.
It was decided that Trooper, who were five, would then be four again. Pete remains important to the boys, there's always a room for rent at Brown Towers and his talents as a singer and as a geezer will never go unrecognised - things change, that's all.
The 'Slide' CD had continued to sell well locally - people were coming to the gigs and singing along with the songs - but it was clear that the band had already moved on dramatically in the six months or so since it was recorded.
"We've always suffered from a rare case of Too Much New Music Syndrome. We gig, we write, we gig some more, we re-write, we go on holiday and write some more, come back, gig it& and we move on. By the time one thing's done and dusted something new is boiling over and we can't turn the bloody heat off!."
Says Tom who's afro had really come into fruition about this time. (Very strange, it went a bit like this: normal hair, normal hair, cut it off, grow it back, HUGE HAIR, HUGER HAIR, OH MY GOD& low flying air craft are radioing for help from within - no one knows how or why!).
With this new found hair power and amid a strange, but familiar sense of loss TROoPER were forced to step it up again. They gradually cut out the covers from the set and retreated back to the cellar (in Tom’s Mum’s house) to write and generally sort their shit out.
The material they had written since the first CD had become tighter, hookier and clearly more commercial so it was ‘decud’ that they needed to record again, even if it was just another demo.
It was also at this time when they began to develop an annoying manner of speech. It was Tom who first became ‘obsuss’ with taking past tense words ending in 'ed' and shortening them to fit the forms of other past tenses. Examples (it's the only way):
•The past tense of find is found.
Therefore the past tense of mind should be mound and not minded (too many dededs - see what I mean - no?? Read on).
•Reloaded becomes relud
•Recorded: recud
•Skinned up: skun up
•Pissed: puss
•Flapped: flup
There are exceptions.
•What's thought is thunk.
•Equally what's fraught is frunk. And so on.
As you can imagine with one of these in almost every sentence it you could become quite irritated (surly its irritut - see what I mean!).
Anyway - a song came along and it quickly became associated (associut) with this form of speech. That song became 'Ed in Afternoons' and it got recud for the next CD. (Enough already)
Also chosen out of the steaming vat of possible tunes was 'Show Me The Money' - written at the peak of the boy/girl band phenomenon and 'The Ballad of Hewey and Ralph' - an onematapeaic reference to talking to 'God on The Big White Telephone', the 'Technicolour yawn', 'pavement pizza' - you know!
They weren't the newest songs on the TROoPER books but they were the most obvious at the time ('Ballad' was the first song they ever wrote together).
In the sunny weather of July 2000, the rural Swindon countryside inhaled a huge breath of Trooper and when it breathed out it said the word DAVE.
For the boys, going to the studio again was a real eye-opener - both spiritually and musically. Five days of making music, singing songs, beer, barbecues, and bucket bongs and the four are in heaven.
Stable Studios in the tiny town of Aldbourne, Wiltshire is owned by Nicky James. Barking from beneath a badger-like moustache he'd sit for hours reeling off tales of his rock n roll antics in a broad Brummy accent. He discovered Elton John, don't you know - Oh, and wrote that sax bit in 'Baker Street' - never saw a penny for it mind!
"Nicky James is our hero!," says Pete "he sings like the love child of Marge Simpson and Barry White -and cooks a one hell of an omelette!"
This is what being in a rock and roll band is about. It had been a few months since Trooper had split with their first manager, things had got shaky and almost tired looking for a new one, but this was like an oasis in the desert landscapes of musical oblivion.
And why "DAVE"?... well why not?
Tim put it best (as he rolls another cigarette and makes another cup of tea):
"It was 2 o'clock in the morning on the third day, we'd had a mad day of music, alcohol and Brown Ale.
There is the obligatory long pause as he scrunches the tea bags into the bin
"-Tom was laying down his vocals for 'Show Me the Money' and wasn't finding his "zone" man, so me and Pete wandered off for a walk around the village. We'd been in Aldbourne for three days and had barely stepped out of the studio - apart from to buy beer, Pasta'n'sauce and Mars bars - so we chilled by the village pond for a bit. All of a sudden, out of the darkness echoed a voice: "Dave, Dave..." it started off quietly and was followed by some knocking sounds. "Dave, Dave" it got louder "DAVE, knock, DAVE, knock, squelch, squelch" the noises of bedposts and squeals ricocheted off the water and bounced around the village square: "YOU CAN DO IT DAVE," said the voice "YOU CAN DO IT"
.... and apparently he could.
A few weeks later they were doing some mad bikers gig in an aircraft hanger and bumped into someone who lived in the town and knew "Dave". They passed on their congratulations.
There followed a period of low pressure. Recording had re-installed their faith in why they are bothering in the first place but somehow they couldn’t follow it up. The new CD sat dormant for what seemed like months as days spent trying to hold it together without professional help dragged on.
It’s not like they weren’t trying. They almost tried too hard for a while, forgot what it meant to be in a band and discovered a world of meetings, decisions, negotiations and above all business!
They’d have one person telling them this, the other, that, "ooh, no... you don’t want to do it like that & you want this manager and that A&R man who clearly couldn’t give a toss," and so on.
The summer of 2000 was spattered with some good gigs (but some of the pages are stuck together and what’s on them may as well have been soaked up in the Kleenex and tossed in the bin!). Trooper played a bunch of festivals including Bug Jam (which was a particular favourite) and of course The Waterford Spraoi in Ireland where all sorts of carnage arose (for the full Ireland story check out the Troop August 2000).
They were foaming at the mouth again. It doesn’t take much: a bunch of gigs, some new songs to play, a few mad Irish girls and a few thousand pints of Guinness and their back on top.
A few solid offers of management arose. Particularly from Allan Morris who was tour manager for Kula Shaker (big idols) and who now manages Chrispian Mills (splitter!). Steve Williams, who was the sound engineer at the Bug Jam gig, set up a gig in Northallerton (north Yorkshire, about 500 miles north of London) for Trooper to meet and play for Allan with a view to management.
However, getting there was gonna prove to be a problem. Albert (the Albatross), Trooper’s be-loved Transit Van of love, who had lovingly carted them around Ireland and then had them arrested (for basically looking as dodgy as you like) died a fairly grim death on the M1.
To cut a long story short Albert was towed onto a slip road where he was emptied of all the equipment and taken back to Watford (a good few hundred miles by then). Tom, Tim, Pete, Boon and Fraggle (trusted sound engineer, roadie and Darts guru) sat with their guitars and their amps by the side of the motorway for 4 ½ hours waiting for their knight in shining odour to come and get them and deliver them to the gig!
Phil, oh beautiful Phil, how sweet thy smell and luscious thine ear lobes, how bald thy head and scrumptious thy nibbly bits. As if out of nowhere, riding high in his cabin like a man possessed plucked them from the roadside and hacked on with the journey!
It was 10.30pm by the time they arrived at the Tanner Hop in Northallerton, nearly 12 hours after they had left and only 15 minutes before they went on stage and played a bitchin gig!
They went on to trash a hotel room (well, made use of the tea-making facilities and ate all of the biscuits!).
Also in the pipe line at the time was an offer from local venue promoter Adrian Bell. Trooper had been playing the Horn Reborn in St. Albans since they began and Adrian had seen the evolution of them as a group and as individuals both musically and performance wise.
After months of deliberation (and background checks at county court,) Trooper finally entrusted the Banana of Trust, the cotton bud of balance and building block of bigness to Adrian as he was the tallest (why else?).
No, seriously. Adrian had everything the band needed in a manager. He had his own venue, experience at the very top of management in the film industry (working as PA for the likes of Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neason) and above all he was into the music and was as hungry as they come.
Things have gone mad since the boys took Adrian on. They’ve achieved more in 4 months than any of them thought was possible and with record deals pending, tours, recording, merchandise all kicking off left, right and centre the next year is gonna be wild.
Watch this space: what’s gonna go in it will make us all rich!
Buttons and Logo © Robin Trim 2006