In this second part Drew talks about recording with Forgodsake and Automatic, plus bringing his story up to date with new band Dawn after Dark.

At the same time as Shotgun Brides was ending, I was doing a few gigs with our former singer Kev Wilkinson’s new band – Drill. They were a wall of sound. Three guitars, bass and a drum machine. All on full volume.

Very entertaining and great fun, but I like having a drummer to bounce off so after a while I backed out and made way for Simon Moore to take up the reins and I left to concentrate on the new band I was in.

The new one had a different sound and feel to The Shotgun Brides, more rock focused with everyone’s influences coming to the fore, so we decide to leave the past behind and changed the name to Forgodsake.

We started writing songs and quickly went into the studio. The early demos got picked up by the rock press and independent radio stations and we got good coverage across Europe.

With influences that spanned punk, heavy rock, rock ‘n’ roll and the new grunge bands, Forgodsake played a load of styles all blended into one, it worked well.

We toured with Skyclad, Dogs D’Amour and Mr Big among others, and headlining shows in various places around the country.

Also one-offs with the likes of Neds Automic Dustbin, Honeycrack and The Wildhearts. An eclectic mix, but some great bands and some really sound people. We also did a Marquee show with Johnny Thunders to close the circle.

As well as gigs out of town we played lots of local gigs, two of which were the pre- and opening nights at Trillians.

The first night was for the brewery staff and we put the vocals through the CD PA – the Public Address system the pub played their Compact Discs through.

We were asked to advise the pub on what PA to get in to make it a viable gig for touring bands and we gave them the PA specs, but they decided to save money and put the band through their CD player. Luckily the free alcohol got us through the night.

The Vaux management were there, and we told them it was utterly shit, so we got them to hire in Don Morton’s rig for the first public night and pinned everyone to the back wall. It was loud as. 

They then upgraded the in-house spec immediately so there was a decent PA there.

Forgodsake made two albums for Bleeding Hearts record label managed by Venom’s management company Bear Dawn. It was a subsidiary of Music for Nations I think, or was it licensed through them?

They owned Lynx Studios in Shieldfield, Newcastle which had previously been owned by AC/DC’s Brian Johnson.

Both albums were self-produced as our vocalist Kev Ridley was their studio engineer. The first with the original five-piece line up of Wallace/Binns/Gallon/ Ridley/McCormack on guitar. And the second record with me, Gary Binns and Kev Ridley singing and on guitar.

They got great reviews and I think both stand up after all this time. I was, and am, proud of the two albums, but we didn’t have that bit of luck you need, so nothing sold in great quantities.

I also recorded a few tracks on a Venom tribute album around this time, adding the bass to the tracks recorded to Abaddon’s (Antony Bray) original drum tracks by Kreator, Nuclear Assault, Candlemass and Paradise Lost.

The album was called In The Name Of Satan. I enjoyed giving my mum a copy of that one. 

And then that was it for Forgodsake. Kev Ridley went on to sing for Skyclad, Chris McCormack formed 3 Colours Red, Steve Wallace put a new band together, Automatic, with his brother Mal on drums and a guy called Weeb on vocals.

Steve asked me to join Automatic, around ‘96, and we were back to our earliest roots. A high energy punk influenced band, with nods to the Clash and Compulsion.

Part way through my time in the band we got in Billy Gilbert as a second guitarist. The gigs were great, and the audiences seemed to take to it well.

We didn’t tour as such but played gigs around the country with a couple of Marquee shows thrown in and did local gigs with China Drum, Feeder and A, and a few with Stiff Little Fingers, including two Riverside shows and one at Newcastle Mayfair.

Automatic released one four track ep for Dental Records which Dave Hills, who manages Newcastle Trillians, may have recorded – not sure. We certainly recorded some stuff with him. Another album which unfortunately didn’t get released.

In 1999 I called it a day, but Automatic kept going for a while after. I headed south, working in Indonesia as a diving instructor for a while, then going to London and then Brighton where I now live.

Although I did do some recording with a group of musicians who came together for a week and hired a studio to see what we could come up with – Jef Streatfield from the Wildhearts, Paul Bate from Plan A, and Nathan Maddison from Hydra Vein. And that should have been it.

But earlier this year I was approached by Howard Johnson from Dawn After Dark, the ’80’s goth/groove/rock band who I saw back in the dim and distant past.

Howard is a journalist and had written one of the first Forgodsake reviews and we had become good mates after I moved down to London. So I’m now playing in a band again.

The first single came out on 27 August. We’ve got an album, headlining gigs and a short tour with Balaam And The Angel all before the end of the year with more planned for 2022.

I go to as many gigs as I can. Once you’re hooked its always part of your being, I just love live music. I tried to get bands together in Brighton, but it never seemed quite the same without Steve and Gary.

Steve is in Penetration and Gary is working with Pauline Murray and Rob Blamire in The Invisible Girls. Maybe we will get up on a stage together one day – never say never.

To get a free download of the new single Maximum Overdrive join the mailing list at www.thedawners.com

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/M6dbQajOwsI.

Interview by Alikivi  September 2021