The Surfing Brides Autobiography
Individual band member biographies.
Formed 1987.
Started as a psychedelic rockabilly trio, the current line up is a four
piece.
Played most of the rock toilets in London.
Based in the Forbidden City they continue to turn corners where others
fear to look.
The Surfing Brides park their wee hearts on the double yellow lines of
loneliness and despair.
They claim to be able to change the weather.
Jez Coad flays lead guitar and wants to own a small bear.
Drew Campbell is playing bass. He lives on a boat.
Little Jimmy Dartnell sits behind the drum kit and is writing a book of excuses.
Sean Kelly wants to be a space owl.
The band gave up sleeping in order to devote more time to music.
“It was really difficult at the start” claims Drew “although now I am
getting used to it. If I’m exhausted I just lie down and shut my eyes
for seven or eight hours.”
“Getting everything you want and nothing you need.”
The band turned down fame and money through choice.
Other people’s choice.
This is probably a very good thing as they have turned out to be fairly
decent human beings.
Gigs and Tours
Friends
Sean has written a song with the fabulous Lisa Loeb. “We could still belong together” was sung by Lisa on the soundtrack of the smash comedy movie “Legally Blonde”.
“Spaceface” by Simple Minds is a song Sean wrote with Jim Kerr and was thrilled to find they have included it on their brilliant album “Cry”. There are wild mixes of this song doing the dj rounds, if you know where to look! For another Simple Minds fan site see www.digital-landscape.com/simpleminds
Sean’s great thrill was hearing “Everything’s Fine” being played on the David Letterman show. “Every time it happened I would have to go out and get drunk.”
Our former drummer Aimee Walden is now living and making music in Austin, Texas - check out her site.
Plus Support (Tourette’s Syndrome)
The Brides have opened for the beautiful Simple Minds on a European
tour and enjoyed playing with some great bands on a couple of missions
in the USA.
They were booted off a Godfathers tour a few years ago after one
gig in Derby.
They feel quite proud about this.
A rose by any other name
The Surfing Brides recorded “ Deep and Meaningless” under the guise of “The
Luvvies.”
This was featured on the soundtrack of a great little Scottish film
called “the Match” The Match was produced by Pierce Brosnan – who also
appears in it.
Also appearing are Alan Shearer (!) Samantha Fox and Richard E Grant.
And the chap who goes out with Mel B from the Spice Girls. And the actor
in the B and Q adverts.
The Difficult Second Album album thing…
“Sparky’s Dinner” was released a few years back by IRS records.
“ It was ok given the circumstances” smiles Sean, “ but we feel we
let ourselves down a bit, the usual stories, listening to too many opinions
from too many advisors. Having panic attacks. Forgetting to forget. We
got 3 or 4 songs down that we’re happy with but didn’t quite manage to
capture the real sound of the Brides”
“Since then we’ve recorded quite a lot a songs and the idea is we’ll release them in batches of ten when we figure a way to get them out there!”
“The thing is, we really have got the sound now, well I suppose we should have, we’ve been doing it long enough!”
Live
The Surfing Brides are a great live band who put on a hell of a show.
Any chance you get to see them, do yourself a kindness and go.
“We still love the live thing” whispers Jez. “ It still excites and unites
us.
The weird thing is we’re getting older but we’re getting better, we’ve
never left a stage dry, and I don’t think we ever will.
We owe our friends in the crowd the very best we’re able to give and we
would be cheating ourselves to deliver anything less.
Drew even offers girls a lift home sometimes.”
Co-starring
Ian Mole is organising and managing very well thank you very much.
Mick Anthony is still checking the sound and saying things like,
“It’s a bit hot”, “ Boom”, “Tizz”, and “ how about this for a concept,
why don’t you BOTH turn down a bit?”.
Mick is playing a lot of golf these days and looking great.
For further information contact Ian Mole on 020-8968-3707 or email webmaster@thesurfingbrides.co.uk
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