One By One Biography.

One by One were born from the ashes of a quirky folky punk band called Anything But That.
When Anything But That split, Alec and I decided we wanted to do something with a harder edge… we couldn't think of anyone in Newcastle that we wanted to be in a band with, so we quite literally jumped in a car one Saturday morning and drove down to Leeds and door-stepped Sned.
That same day we got about six songs worked out in the cellar of Silly Ville and One By One was born.
It was never going to be easy as apart from there being a hundred miles between us, Sned was also drumming in Pleasant Valley Children as well.

Our first gig was at the Irish Centre in Newcastle and it was fucking awful, our second gig was the following night in Blyth and it rocked… so we decided to keep going for a while longer!

We recorded a demo at Studio 64 and we were so pleased with the results that Sned decided to put it out as the World on Fire 7" (Flat Earth 05). John Peel liked it so much that he offered us a Peel Session!!! Sad though this may be, that fulfilled a childhood dream for me. Sadly we didn't get to meet the great man himself.
The first time it was broadcast was the night of our first gig in London, which was also the first gig of our European tour with Oi Polloi. The gig was in a squat and the police chose that night to bust it. Some very nice people lost their homes and we never got to play.

The following night, the second gig of our European tour, was also in London… we did eventually get to Europe… honest!
Just to make sure we weren't enjoying ourselves too much the police showed up again! They didn't actually stop the gig but the night was not the greatest…
We left for the ferry after the gig and the adventure really began…

So we got off the ferry and drove to Liege where I met up with a bunch of folks who I would later come to know as Hiatus and Unhinged… we drank a few beers, showed them how to play football, and being the competitive geordies that we were beat them.

The following day we set off on the short drive to Switzerland!!! I can't even being to describe how hot the weather was as we ploughed through the continental interior of Europe on what was one of the hottest August days there had been for generations… the van was overheating and the only way we could keep it from boiling over was to have the heater on full... nice!

Eventually we got to the Swiss border and they were demanding that we bought road tax… Sned refused to pay for it, so they said that we couldn't drive on the motorway and that we'd have to cross the border at a different point…

Seeing as they though we were obviously too poor to come into their wonderful country they made every one get out of the van and searched the van. On checking passports they found that Arjen, the tour organiser, was in fact wanted in Switzerland on possession charges (cannabis). They arrested Arjen and that was the last we saw of him, for the next few months!
They made everyone go into a little room, strip, bend over and spread their ass cheeks. There was the thwack of a latex glove and then… they said that everyone could put their clothes on and get back in the van!!! Customs officials with a sense of humour whatever next!!!
I was so glad I was travelling in the car that day!
From then on every night Oi Polloi played "Victims Of A Rectal Probing"!

Eventually we go to the other border point, and there was no one there so we just drove straight through!
The shitty windey roads meant that we didn't' get to Zurich until some godforsaken time at night, and were just about ready to kill each other…

We were fed and watered before playing and retiring to Pablo and Fritz's very nice social housing project.

Next day we bought some road tax and set off to Geneva… eventually we got there and we played and awesome collectively run centre which had a cordon bleu vegan restaurant on the top floor, two cinema's two gig spaces, a bookshop, and loads more… oh the food.
They asked us what we wanted and we said we'll have whatever you have made for the band… they responded by saying 'No you don't understand, this is a restaurant, our chef will make you anything that you want."

... to be conintinued

One By One Discography CD in Pipeline.