The Rezillos
In nineteen months The Rezillos went from being local heroes to having a top 20 hit, major tours and a major label and then promptly split up. Were they a punk band? power pop? a joke band? or a beat group? … who cares… The Rezillos were f***ing brilliant both live and on record.
From the ashes of the never gigged Knutsford Dominators arose The Rezillos, so named after a cafe in a marvel comic. Formed in Edinburgh their first gig was on Guy Falkes night 1976. Their image was fun and with a futuristic bent but with the energy of punk and featured two great front people Eugene Reynolds and Fay Fife. Originally a four piece with Eugene on drums they eventually expanded to an eight piece with saxophonist William Mysterious and backing singer Gail Warning.
“In March 1976 a guy called Alan Forbes turned up at my door in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh. He had heard I was a bassist, and did I want to join a fun rock ‘n roll band he was founding? I disappeared for a moment, and re-emerged wearing a teddy-boy fancy dress outfit, plus my guitar – You mean like this? I said. I was in.
The original Rezillos line-up was:
Alan Forbes – drums, vocals
Dave Smythe – bass
Jo Callis – lead guitar, vocals
‘Hi-fi’ Harris – rhythm guitar, vocals
Like me, Alan Forbes couldn’t really sing and play an instrument simultaneously, although he was a very good drummer. We drafted in Ali (Alistair) Paterson as drummer instead, and Alan moved to the front to concentrate on singing and general image. Ali and Alan, together with other Edinburgh Art School students, played together in a rather serious heavy rock band featuring two drummers. Now Alan was never really a great singer, although I admired him for his creative ideas and business acumen. He turned up at rehearsal one day with two female backing vocalists Sheila and Gayle. They were fashion design students, and making and wearing authentic Mary Quant mid 1960s stage costumes was really just part of their studies. After we added a sax player, another Ali, we had the eight-piece Rezillos by August 1976.
Stage names were adopted:
Eugene Reynolds (Alan Forbes), Fay Fife (Sheila Hynde), Gayle Warning – all on vocals
William Mysterious (Ali Donaldson) – sax
Luke Warm (Jo Callis) – lead guitar
Hi-Fi (Mark) Harris – rhythm guitar
Dr D K (Dave) Smythe – bass
Angel (Ali) Paterson – drums
This line-up spent several months practising until we were ready to gig. In contrast to the laid-back, casual, self-indulgent ethos of rock bands in that era, we were slick, highly professional, well-rehearsed, and offered 60 minutes or so of frantic, non-stop fun rock looking back to the late 1950s. The first venue was Edinburgh Teviot Row Student Union on 5 November 1976.
To our astonishment, the Friday night student audience of around 500 students loved us, and we had to do several encores before being allowed off stage. Note that we had played no original material at this stage. Starred numbers were played by the guitar/bass/drums line-up only, with Luke singing, to give the front-line singers a break. All this was for a band which was just supposed to be for fun – and it was. That was the secret of its initial success.
In hindsight, the early success over the next seven or eight months was due to hard work, brilliant art-school publicity, no drugs or groupies, and good organisation. We had enthusiastic volunteers like Alpin Ross-Smith who ran the sound system, and roadies who worked just for the free beer. As the only wage-earner I suppose I subsidised the band indirectly, with the use of both my Volvo saloon and my long-wheelbase Transit van for travel all around Scotland.
Jo Callis began to write some really excellent original songs. Sheila and Alan became a couple (no surprise there), but Gayle was gradually edged out as being superfluous. Even at this stage the band had two distinct factions – Sheila/Alan versus Jo. We ploughed all the fees back into buying more gear.
By the week of the Craigmillar Free Festival the following July we were gigging practically every night – during that week we played 8 gigs in 7 days. The band decided to go pro, and those interested obtained a year’s sabbatical from their Art School studies. I already had a promising career as a research geophysicist and had turned thirty, so I decided to quit. Ali Donaldson took over from me playing bass, Mark Harris also left, and the remaining five-piece band went professional.
In the long run the factional conflict killed the band, but they had about 18 months of fame. This is about average for UK pop groups. Sheila and Alan went on to form the successor Revillos, and Jo Callis later joined the Human League. “ David Smythe
They gigged around Scotland before attracting the attention of the newly formed Sensible Records who released Can’t Stand My Baby / I Wanna Be Your Man (1977). They made the journey down to London playing the Roxy Club among other places before being snapped up by Sire records after being courted by Decca and CBS.
In December they toured the UK as a five piece with labelmates The Ramones and were on the lineup of the famous Ramones’ Rainbow gig captured of course on Its Alive. So good were the band live visually and sonically, that they scared the bejesus out of bands like The Ramones and Blondie.
In February 1978 they travelled to America to record their debut album Can’t Stand The Rezillos which reached number 16 in the charts and was a mixture of three covers and ten originals. However while momentum was growing behind the band the label let it sit for 3 months before releasing. The band were deeply unhappy with the sound, their producer and their record company Sire. For those three months the band were left almost penniless.
Fay Fife We’d walk into the record company, not having eaten in two days, and instead of them giving us the ten quid we needed…they’d take us out to posh restaurant for an £80 meal – which was the last thing we needed. Record Mirror, 30.12.78
In true fashion the ironic Top Of The Pops single gave them a hit and you guessed it an appearance on Top Of The Pops. Another tour was lined up this time with label mates the Undertones. 6 dates through a 36 date tour however the band split up as Fay and Eugene left. Fay Fife had caught laryngitis, but basically she and Eugene weren’t happy with the production and direction of the band and hadn’t been for some time. The Destination Venus single stalled and a lot of money was lost leaving the ex-members a £1000 in debt.
They played three farewell gigs, the last of which at the Glasgow Apollo, was released as a final album in April 1979 Mission Accomplished which has its moments.
What a difference a year makes – from the heady Ramones support of 1977 to splitting in 1978
After the split Eugene Reynolds and Fay Fife both went on to form The Revillos, a band in a similar vein, but who only ever really enjoyed moderate success and a high turnover of personnel. .
The rest of the band:
Joe Callis – Guitar
Simon Templar – Bass
Angel Patterson – Drums
formed Shake before they split and Joe Callis joined The Human League for their mega album Dare, co -writing such mega songs as Don’t You Want Me.
Hi Fi Harris We’re definitely not a punk band!…Having fun is what we are all about, and if that’s what the New Wave stands for, then we are definitely New Wave. NME, 27.8.77
In their own terms the Rezillos were a new wave beat group. A dizzy 18 month rise to fame was in my view unsustainable. Brash visually and fantastic tunes but how do you progress? In the end out of all the punk bands who railed against the faceless record company monoliths like The Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Rezillos were the ones who in the spirit of punk said f**k you to Sire, rebelling against being forced make records to order and then have them packaged and promoted in a way that reflected the latest market trends.
That takes balls, and The Rezillos my friends, had great big flashy cohones. God bless ’em!
There band reformed for Hogmanay 2001 and since then have kept on playing and still a ferocious live act. Another album surfaced in 2015 Zero, which is well worth checking out.
Reproduced from the excellent Kingdom Come fanzine No.14 from January 1979. Lovingly compiled by Johnny Waller the tree charts the beginnings to the end of the mighty Rezillos and all points in between! The page will take a while to load…its big!
For quite a while the Rezillos set consisted purely of high octane cover versions of established songs.. Gradually Callis introduced self penned songs into the sets all displaying comic and ironic charm coupled to great catchy melodic punk (or call what it you will). When this was allied with the stage antics of Eugene and Fay it was an explosive mixture that couldn’t help but move audiences and bring success.
The Rezillos – I Can’t Stand My Baby/I Wanna Be Your Man (Sensible Records August 1977)
Signed to Lenny Love’s Sensible label, this is up there with the finest punk wax artefacts.
Piledriver riff with Faye’s almost detached vocals nestling on the top intoning “This is uncool…”
Tell me this isn’t punk rock at its finest?
“I can’t stand my baby
It’s a real drag
I think I’m going crazy
I’m gonna go radge
[Chorus]
It is uncool
Oh yeah”
The Rezillos – Good Sculptures/Flying Saucer Attack (Sire December 1977)
Everything great about the Rezillos is in this song. Great tune, bass line and lyrics about a manic love sculptress. All at warp speed!
Sadly not a hit. Their first for Sire Records.
The Rezillos – Top Of The Pops / 20,000Rezillos Under The Sea ( Sire July 1978)
That a piss take on the famous music show should earn them their- biggest hit and an appearance on the show itself is irony indeed.
A perfect pure pop punk song that’s a cert on any punk compilation from the time.
Irony indeed that Tony Bongiovi their producer wanted to leave this track off the album.
“Does it matter what is shown
Just as long as everyone knows
What is selling what to buy
The stock market for your hi fi
Take the money – leave the box
Everybody’s on Top Of The Pops”
The Rezillos – Destination Venus/ Mystery Action (November 1978 Sire)
It was just released when the band split causing it to bomb. The band were clearly jaded, but its still a cracking single and they did another TOTP performance.
Costing £5000 to record in 24 track studio the band weren’t happy.
“I wouldn’t buy it.” says Fay
“You get to the point where your original sound is so watered down, you’re getting no pleasure out of it”. Eugene Record Mirror, 9.12.78
The Rezillos – Flying Saucer Attack and 2000AD as performed on Rockpop, Germany October 14th 1978.
The Rezillos – Cold Wars/Flying Saucer Attack/ Twist & Shout
(all live) (Sire April 1979)
All pulled from the live album and just as it was about to chart Fay and Eugene said ‘enough’ and left the band.
Sire wringing what else it could out of the band.
The Rezillos – Can’t Stand The Rezillos (Sire July 1978)
The album is an absolute classic. There’s hardly a gap between songs and they come thick and fast with re-recorded versions of Good Sculptures, TOTP and I Cant Stand My Baby….buy it or steal it. The band hated it; hated being sent to America to record, hated 24 track recording, hated their producer Tony Bongiovi and ended up hating their record label to the point they imploded. Listening to it even now I love it still.
Eugene Reynolds The guy who produced the album is American and hasn’t got a clue about what British new wave is about…Some of the album tracks definitely suffer from being played too fast…he kind of thought that if you play it fast its new wave. Sounds, 29.7.78
Fay Fife The best sound we ever got was in an eight track studio, producing ourselves. That cost £150 to do. Record Mirror, 9.12.78
This review from Amazon says it all! “If you never saw the Rezillos live, you can now (partly) redeem yourself with this album. They were the absolute peak of what was great about punk. None of your angst-ridden, political nonsense here – just a superb and exciting, pulsating vision of everything that was good about punk’s high-voltage energy and very little that was bad. They deserved to be far more popular than they were and this album is the best way to catch a glimpse of a bygone age. It’s utterly mad, the music is crazed and addictive. It’s happy music, and that’s why the Rezillos were sneered at by many of the punk cognoscenti. They were sooo wrong.
Don’t expect to be put right about unemployment, fascism or anything else of whatever was bothering the spotted masses back then. Just clear the room of loose objects and prepare to move bits of your body very quickly. I just can’t stop playing it – and to think it’s 25 years since I last sweated it out with the Rezillos!”
The Rezillos – Mission Accomplished But The Beat Goes On (Sire April 1979)
Recorded at their final gig at the Glasgow Apollo, the album is a patchy affair. To be honest, it’s Sire trying to get some of that money back from the fallout when The Rezillos split. New tracks, such as No and Teenbeat, indicate which way the Rezillos were going.
TalkPunk
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