One young group of aspiring musicians decided to do this very thing to combat the boredom of everyday life at Boston Grammar School.  That would be us, Endemic, a five-piece rock band jamming out a mixture of covers and some of our own original material. 

We formed in mid 2003, when the summer was coming to an end and we needed something to do to stop ourselves from going completely insane.  It started as just an idea; me and Mike were both in bands that were going nowhere (partly due to a complete lack of practice, organisation, and in some cases, instruments), and Fred was toying with the idea of playing the drums again having previously given up a few years ago. 

Having heard the new album by The Darkness, Fred’s passion for smacking skins with sticks had been relit and he suggested starting a covers band.  Mike and I agreed to give it a go, and after one or two jam sessions at school in the lunch break, we agreed to make it a permanent thing, and promptly quitted/got thrown out of our other bands.

Meeting up at Fred’s house the next weekend, we managed to knock out a few half decent Darkness covers, and improvised at Electric Six’s “Gay Bar” song before realising that it would be a good idea to learn the songs individually before practices…. DUH!

Things improved over the next few weekends, and we turned our attention to looking for a singer to complete our line-up.  After trying out a few friends, we settled with the dynamic duo of Kayleigh and Abi, and began to flesh out our repertoire with new songs.

We played our first gig at a friend’s mum’s 40^th birthday party (thanks to Ady for getting us there, and to Dicky for lending us the P.A. system) and although we only got to play 4 songs, it went down well and we got invited to play at a huge piss-up in a barn, which sounded a bit good, so we said yes.

Our second gig (thanks again to Dicky and to Rod for the P.A. systems), at said piss-up, didn’t go down quite as well as we’d hoped, but it was still fun, and we soldiered on, having played 8 songs before hitting the bar!  This gig did not include Kayleigh singing for us, as she decided to take a break from the band for a while due to other commitments, but promised to return soon. 

Our third gig (again, without Kayleigh) was at the old motor club (thanks to Brian for booking it for us) in front of half a scuba diving club and a few of our mates, and featured guest vocals from our mates Nic and Laura.  It positively kicked ass, despite a bunch of chavs gate crashing and turning the power off (this resulted in a legendary drum solo from Fred until the power was regained!), and we’ve been invited back for repeat performances!!!

Shortly after the gig, we added Steph to our ranks as second guitarist, and began rehearsing furiously for a gig which ended up being cancelled due to the sudden departure of Abi from the band.

Now, as I write this, we have just recruited Nic as full-time vocalist,  and we will be practicing in preparation for our next gig at the motor club and other “guest appearances” in people’s garages, gardens, and attics… maybe…

SEE YOU IN THE PIT, YOU CRAZY MOOKS!!!