Punk Hardcore > Goth > Techno > Industrial > Metal = hybrid music = Saints Of Eden

How it came to this...

The hardcore scene in the 80’s was a huge scene ran mostly by DIY. Those involved were dedicated to the music. There was a hive of correspondence flying around with stamps, thick with sellotape and soap. Live tape lists and demos were swapped and sold in huge numbers.

A group of people would squat a venue, like a ballet school, ambulance/fire station, building site – what ever it took and put on a gig. Others would book a local hall, get 8 bands on the bill and charge £1 to get in. The bands would play for petrol money (if they were lucky) and the events went on.

At the time there were labels like Clay putting out GBH and Discharge (a massive influence across the scene), while Secret had Exploited, No Future had the Partizans and Blitz… Across the other side of an imaginary lake there was Conflict, Crass and Flux Of Pink Indians, which were more ‘in your face’ political.

Of course there was hundreds of quality bands in the scene, it was a ‘buzzing’ time. and sure, now there is a hardcore and punk scene, but at the time it was evolving.

At school and well into punk, I wanted to get a band together…With my brother Sean, Scott Hickman and Wag (now with Sick On The Bus) the Legion of Parasites was formed. Always known for our speed / thrash crossover, we did 3 albums, a 12” and 4 compilation tracks, countless gigs across UK and into Europe… We ran the band for some 5 years and Broke up on good terms, it had just ran its course.

At this time Carl Mc.Coy (Fields Of The Nephilim) was in the process of putting a live line-up together for some gigs in Germany and a friend of mine was flogging him some studio gear, kind of coincidence, I met Carl, we got on OK, I never had an audition as such, he’d heard the ‘Parasites stuff, I think it was more about how we got on.

I didn’t hear from Carl again for a few months, the gigs didn’t happen and another bassist had come and gone. I got a call from Carl and joined him, Paul and Simon for a jam. It worked out fine and from then on I got involved with the Nefilim album Zoon. I played bass on this album, programmed and mixed it alongside Carl and was responsible for writing on some of the songs. The album took years to come together and we ended up working in a lot of different studios with different producers and engineers. Sometimes you are lucky and things work, we had trouble finding that. I know what Carl was looking for, you just can’t expect others to see things the same way.

I played about 17 gigs with Nefilim, had some great highs and tough lows.

When I first joined Nefilim I was releasing OTT techno ep’s working with Grant Sullivan under the name Psyco9.

We took it to the extreme at 200bpm as offensive as we could, - John Peel loved it and we shifted a few units… Three ep’s ‘Fuck Musical Boundaries’ Genetic Experiments’ and ‘Alien Foecis’ released on Area51 and S4 records.

A good laugh and not to be taken seriously.

As I kinda liked the bassdrum thing I was pleased to have an experiment with some of the Nefilim tracks and ended up doing some re-mixes for the Penetration single. This is where the Saints Of Eden was born.

Next was a demo of the song ‘The Other Side’ which I sent in to Future music and they decided to put it on the cover of the magazine and label it ‘demo of the month’.

This gave me the positive feedback I needed to carry on with this tricky unfashionable style, I carried on writing with beats and guitars to see where this could go. Next thing I knew I had quite a few tracks I was happy with and an album was taking shape.

So I had a GothTechnoIndustriaMetal album I was trying to sell! Not so safe, but then this is what I was doing, exactly what I liked, no band just as it happened, when it happened. I’ve had some pretty raw deals in the past, so it just seemed easier to set up a label and see if I could get someone into licensing and or distribution. Luckily, (probably ‘cos I was in Nefilim in some cases) I managed to do it and shift enough units to progress to doing a second album.

As work started on ‘Proteus’ the second album, I considered how this could go out live, or at least as live as possible. I spoke to Nick Evans, who had played guitar with Nefilim on the live gigs and he was into playing live for my project. For bass a friend of mine Andy Kendle was my first choice and he joined willingly. Grant, who I had worked with on the Psyco9 project took on the keyboard and effects parts. I created some backing tracks and we started gigging over a DAT backing track.

With the release of the second album ‘Proteus’ came a more refined sound. The Other Side (album reviews) had been an aggressive album and with ‘Proteus’ - (album reviews) I got a chance to sit back and move the dynamics more. As I write music over a period of time, I find my moods and experiences get drawn in. ‘Proteus’ was like a big question mark hanging over what’s happened, what’s happening, in my life and the world around me - a warped outlook through confused eyes…

Another three years went by, in the summer of 2003 Ross Anderson joined the live line-up and Nick moved on. With Ross in the live line-up, gigs have been real positive and exciting

Flow joined the band playing triggered drums... The backing track only consists of samples & strings and a hidden click-track... The album ‘Overload (video) ’ is released

Following 4 years of construction, with little daylight and sleep, the project continues with the album Forbidden Pleasure..a twisted journey.

With writing contributions from the established band members. Flow playing acoustic drums

Another live member joining Ross on rythm (Dave XM), and from the beginning and still there Andy Kendle on Bass.

…Cian

Saints Of Eden

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