The History of Ebola

Ebola Monkey Attack!!!

Ebola live in Antwerp 1998
Ebola are five people who live hundreds of miles apart from each other trying to keep together the idea of a band friendship in the face of adversity. We all work full time, and we all have other time consuming commitments in addition to that.

Ebola came into being some time in the summer of 1995 and played two gigs in Belgium under the name of Spite after which we decided to change our name to avoid confusion with the other band of the same name!
As were sure most of you are aware there is an Ebola in Berlin, and apparently one in Australia and the USA. Also there is supposedly an Oi band in France called Ebola! Never mind!!!
We chose the name for no other reason than it sounded apocalyptic and we wanted to have a name which would reflect the type of music we were trying to play. ..

Ebola is a heamoragic fever which broke out in the equatorial rainforests of Africa. If you want to find out more about the disease just type the name into any search engine and you should be presented with thousands of sites on the subject.

We recorded our first, and only, LP for Flat Earth in December 1995 (the song you are listening to at the moment is "Mass Production" from that LP) which was released in March 1996. In May 1996 we did a small European tour and got to meet and play with the German Ebola in Leipzig, after this tour we parted company with our singer Jonathan and drafted Nick into the band on shouting duties. Jonathon now plays guitar in Tyre Iron.

In October 1996 we did a short tour of England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland with Los Crudos.

In February 1997 we recorded the Imprecation 7" which was also released on Flat Earth.

We did another European tour in September 1997 and subsequently parted company with our drummer Chrissy who used to play drums in Sawn Off.

We then spent a long time trying to find a suitable person to replace him and eventually settled upon Skater who stayed with us long enough to do another European tour in July 1998 and record some material for a split 7" on Clean Plate .

We found a permanent drummer, Set from Active Minds, and were working on new stuff when we parted company with our bass player Andy Nolan. Eventually we decided to ask Duane (formerly of Eradicate and Bloodshot) to join us on Bass and Andy Irvine (formerly of Disaffect and currently of Scatha and Stalingrad) to join us as an additional guitarist.

We spent some time working things out and finally hit the road again in July 2000.

The tour was great but some of the driving excessive. Notable highlights for me were Berlin and Bratislava. Notable low point for everyone was getting turned back at the Czech border, having to miss the two gigs we had organised there, and having to drive the long way round to Leipzig. We didn't arrive until 8.30am the following day.

On our return we had to get on with the various activities that take up the majority of our time. However in December 2000 we managed to head into In A City and record 12 songs which should be finally released as a split LP with the German band Y... sometime in 2002. (when updating this today I had to laugh as the original sentence read "which should see the light of day sometime in May 2000" I wish!).

At the beginning of 2001 Andy Irvine announced that he was leaving the band for a second time and is concentrating his activities on his new band The Devils who feature a number of ex Stalingrad folk and some other notable punk rock luminaries!

Following this we managed to recruit mad bad Penguin unfriendly Steve (formerly of Orin DeForrest and Morgue) as new guitarist. Things went really he managed to learn the new songs in two practices and we even managed to write some new songs.

Sadly in June 2001 Duane decided that he could no longer continue balancing his studies with being in Ebola and handed in his notice. Our planned gigs with DS13 and ETA at the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford on the 20th July, the 13th Note in Glasgow on the 21st of July and in Scarborough on the 22nd of July would be his farewell to the band. At about this time, Karin and I found that we were expecting a child and that as she would be commencing her 'band maternity leave' at a round about the same time we would be sorting things out with a new bass player, she decided that these gigs would also probably be her last with the band for some time.

Throughout this period of time as a band we had an intractable dispute about the format of the recordings, the majority of the band wanting to release it as a mini LP, get out and get on with the next project.

The first two gigs with DS13 and ETA went really well, but the final gig in Scarborough proved to be a bridge too far, the people in the venue were complete arseholes, there were lots of equipment problems and ... well lets put it this way, Glasgow was the last gig of the tour for Ebola!

We spent a couple of weeks trying to find a new bass player and Nick then decided that he didn't want to be in the band any more as he fealt that the mammoth effort that is required to keep Ebola going did not equal the rewards.

Well that's it for Ebola, we are no more, the distances between us became too great an impediment.

I was trying to form a new band with some of the Ebola folk but the restrictions my personal commitments placed in the way mean that this is no longer a possibility.

Some of the others may regroup in some form and rise again, but as I live in splendid geographical isolation in Newcastle it is highly unlikely I would be in position to participate.

I am reluctant to hang up my guitar after all of these years but realistically other than forming a one man band I don't really see what options I have got, as I know no one in the immediate geographical area with the same musical tastes and the ability to participate in a band.

The stuff we recorded last December will eventually see the light of day as a split LP with Y. As yet no final release date has been set.

Keep checking back for details .

Thanks for sticking with us through thick and thin for so long, especially to those who have put us up, fed us, put us on and put up with us through the course of our checkered history!

Cheers

Micky / 07/11/2001