GRAHAM GYFORD

"My first band was Vulcan's Hammer which was formed at Northgate Grammar School, Ipswich in 1979 playing original Heavy Metal material. In 1980 I joined Overload as the vocalist, another band that had formed at Northgate Grammar. We played a mix of classic rock covers and original material. Overload did a session on Radio 1 on the Andy Peebles show. In 1981 I formed Wolfbane playing original hard rock.

  In 1983 I looked to a more commercial power-pop direction and formed Vertical Smile. This was a successful regularly gigging band, but we were having to compromise on the material to get gigs. The common phrase that we were confronted with by landlords was 'Ooh, you don't play any of that ole 'Orrible 'eavy rock do ya?' in 1985 Manning and I decided that we preferred that 'Orrible ole eavy rock and broke away to form Jack the Lad. This was a very successful outfit specialising in covers by the likes of AC/DC Status Quo, Whitesnake and Deep Purple etc. This was a golden age when pubs were full of people wanting to see bands. We had a fortnightly residency at the Gainsborough Hotel, ?? at one time and people didn't seem to tire of coming to see us. The issue with Jack The Lad was that we became too popular and the pressure to learn new numbers starts to ramp up. This is when musical differences start to set in and the first casualty of that was me and I was replaced by Phil Eden and in hindsight, rightly so!

  In 1987 I formed Black Tower with Steve Whyte formerly of Muff. We brought in Kevin Buddy Bachelor on guitar and vocals, formerly of The Cursed, a rockabilly band and a new young self-taught very talented drummer called Julian Parker. Black Tower played a combination of self-penned numbers and interesting and different rock covers by Ted Nugent, Budgie, Montrose, Sword and other stuff from Tommy Vance's Friday Night rock show. We were getting quite popular and i recall one particularly good night at The Kingfisher when all the stars aligned and a good size audience came to see us. People had largely come to see the exuberant performance that Buddy would put on. Buddy very much had a style of his own, a kind of psycho-Presley edge to our would-be classic backing. I can still remember Adam Shelswell (Chaser, Bad Lover, Shattered) sidling up to Steve and me in the interval one night asking if our singer was going to roll around the floor that night? True to form Bud didn't let him down. Red in the face, balls to the wall psychotic energy erupted and true to form, he rolled around the floor until he threatened to detonate! No-one performed like Buddy in 1987 and it was a damn shame when he went off to replace Dave Reugg in Choi Choi. It was also a blow when Julian also left to join Bay-X.

  Steve and I soldiered on and in 1991 decided that perhaps a girl singer would bring in the crowds. We brought in Jo Kerr on vocals who was predominantly a folk singer and Trevor Swain on drums who had previously been with an outfit from Norwich which many will remember called Zorro. we called the band Passion Play. Passion Play played mainly in Colchester at the Picolo Padre and The Oliver Twist, though we did play a couple of times at The Drum and Monkey. Playing heavy rock over the top of a talented folk singer was not a good idea and poor Jo probably still has overdriven Marshall induced tinnitus to this day. Jo got married and had children and parted company with us and the three of us went on to form the Noizy Boyz. Steve left shortly after and in 1993 the Noizy Boyz line up consisted of me on lead guitar and vocals, Trevor Swain on drums, Robin Jennings on bass and Tim Frazer on guitar. The Noizy Boyz were predominantly a covers band covering The Cult, Zodiac Mindwarp, The Four Horsemen and other hair metal stuff. This band was only moderately successful in fairness and to gain more popularity we decided to go down the female singer route once again.

In 1994 Robin and I formed The Kate Gibson Band or KGB as we were known and the group consisted of Kate Lasky on vocals, Robin Jennings on bass, Ray Budd on drums, Paul Beavis on keyboards and me on lead guitar. This was a reasonably successful gigging band doing a combination of original material and covers by the likes of Heart, The Eurythmics, Quarterflash and other female orientated vocal acts. The band soon fizzled out for one reason and another, personal relationships, a guitarist that was far too loud (that would be me) and other stuff.

In 1995 I got the opportunity to join a band called Roxoff as lead singer. Roxoff consisted of Steve Warner on lead guitar (now of Beautiful Dangerous) John King on guitar, Steve Eichberger on bass and Ace Finchum (Tigertailz) on drums. Roxoff was a hard gigging band and played all over East Anglia including The Railway and had a good following. The band covered everything from Nirvana to Metallica to Ozzy Osbourne to AC/DC. I sang for them for two years, but the band decided that to stop them from getting stale, fresh blood was needed and Steve Eichberger and I parted company with the band with no hard feelings. Roxoff continued for another 15 to 20 years with further line-up changes.

I was set to call it a day at this point having started a new family, but on the day of Princess Diana's funeral, as I was watching the procession head up the M1 on the telly, I received a phone call from Tony Jarrard of Shady Deal asking if I could stand in for them at a gig in Ilford. Shady Deal consisted of Tony on guitar, Dominic Murphy on bass and Neil Connor on drums. Shady Deal will largely be unknown to Ipswich audiences, though we did play a few times at The Railway. Shady... was the hardest working band, gig wise, I was involved with playing regular gigs in London which started early and often finished very late. Shady... played covers by AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Billy Idol etc. Inevitably the strain of a young family, day job and gigging took its toll and I left in 2000 with the idea of retiring from singing in bands. I would say that the turn of the millennium was the end of the golden age of people going to see bands. In the words of Spinal Tap, audiences seemed to be becoming more selective at this time.

In 2005 I was made redundant and set up my own company specialising in Learning and Development and rock n roll. Having a bit of free time rekindled my enthusiasm; and inspired by my 40th birthday party in 2002, which had a glam rock theme, I set up a new band called The Chocolate Fireguard Experience, specialising in the nostalgia of the seventies. The name was inspired by my father who in-jest (I think!?) would often refer to me as a 'useless article'. I started the band with Steve Whyte who became bored with the idea reasonably quickly. Gavin Vaclavik (formerly the drummer of The Reptiles) volunteered to stand in for us for a couple of gigs in 2005 and 15 years later is still standing in for us and is godfather to my daughter. not bad going for a dep drummer!? Over that time we have had a variety of bass players of all different creeds cultures and personalities. the stories we could tell - but won't; before ending up with Garth Elgar from Wayne's World on bass who reminds me strongly of someone I used to gig with back in 1997. Chocolate Fireguard continued to perform up to the Pandemic and hopefully will be doing so again after. 

Since the pandemic, I have been setting myself up as a You Tube solo artist under the guise of Ozric Slakalis doing self-penned, tongue in cheek, politically incorrect hard rock and pop numbers. The idea is to promote me as a music video and training film producer.

Band timeline:

Vulcan's Hammer 79-80

Overload 80-81

Wolfbane 81-??

Vertical Smiles

Jack The Lad

Black Tower

Passion Play

Noizy Boyz

The Kate Gibson Band / KGB

Roxoff

Shady Deal