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Amebix - Risen (resucitado)

::: Subtítulos traducidos por tromahawk2023 ::: el x-x-2025 (robertotapiola@gmail.com)

Escuché Amebix por primera vez

por un amigo mío, mine

y lo que significó para mí

es que provenían de una mentalidad diferente

respecto a otras bandas punk del momento.

Tenían una atmósfera apocalíptica,

un rollo misterioso,

algo así como un aura espiritual.

Resucitado

Sin dios ni amo.

[Canción: Axeman]

-Primeros días- Stig volvió y se fue de la universidad.

Se fue a trabajar a New Jersey

por un tiempo,

en un hotel, y luego volvió

y tenía una guitarra

con un amplificador

y dijo de formar una banda.

yeah and this kind of coincided with

something else in my life which was

at that yeah as i say at that point i

was doing quite well but i was in the

atc which is like the air training corps

i was a sergeant in the atc i was doing

very very well i was i was a

a deadshot marksman i had various raf

awards for it at that age sort of thing

was growing up

shooting all the time anyway i knew my

way around guns and stuff

and um i was set all together for a

career in the raf i was

that's what i was going to be doing you

know um and then

what happened was i went on a um on the

night megan marches which is basically

the six and a half thousand allied

troops this is basically you get

your um americans and canadians these

some of these guys were from korea and

vietnam veterans

and plus these young cadets and all in a

great big forest area outside nijmegen

in in holland

um the um the the thing of the event

basically you'd have to walk

20 miles a day would march 20 miles a

day with your hobnail boots on your full

uniform march march march

march 20 miles a day for five days so

you've done 100 miles and

at the end of it basically you get a

little little medal thanks very much for

commemorating the arnhem landings you

know whether all the paratroops came in

all this kind of stuff

so great we've been training for it for

ages went across there

did this um and

during the evenings i was hanging out

with a with a group of gis

up in their tent and they were a good

laugh and there's this one guy called

stanzarelli and um uh

we got on really well he said miller he

said i'm uh

i'm giving you an order son i said well

what's that he says listen he says i'm a

sergeant and you're a sergeant but i'm a

bigger god damn sorry in the new year

says we're going out on the town tonight

so

this is at the end of the week yeah

we're all tired and but yeah kind of

happy

so i went out on the piss with this

group of yanks and i'm just a young lad

you know

i was supposed to have been in by nine

o'clock i eventually got back in at two

o'clock in the morning pierced out my

[ __ ] face

with a huge fat american cigar stuffed

in my chops so

uh i'm wandering down through the camp

out of my head and

popped my head into the tent where we

were staying and the boys and there the

rest of the cadets were going miller

you're in [ __ ] trouble now boy yeah i

had

i got pulled up before the officers in

the morning what the [ __ ] how do you

think you were doing we had the mps out

after and all this kind of stuff it's

like well

[ __ ] so went back home and i didn't

really have much of a choice after that

i went back to the atc hut the next week

and the nco guys was saying well what

are you going to do now i said well [ __ ]

i'm going to form a punk rock band

and that was it punctuated

on the bandwidth name me and me and stig

and billy jurgy was a mate of mine from

school as well and we started basically

we got a tea tree and he was drumming on

the tea tree so that worked pretty well

for a little while along with the guitar

going to

and then we got uh clive barnes who had

this ropey old bass so he brought the

bass along

[Music]

to spend your time in a band trying to

play an instrument which you couldn't

tune

and having a laugh then the dull

[Music]

dullness of living in the west country

really on the sticks the older i've been

over the jersey doing hotel work and

stuff when he came back

and i didn't have that much work so i

got this shitty job to a new opportunity

i was walking to work every day

you know and trying to hitch a lift but

like you know people were

wary of people looking a bit different

in those days like they are now but even

more so

and then it was more okay if like walk

along and think about things i was just

thinking about

a good a good name kind of like a

corporate sort of logo idea for

something that's real

simple and basic just some basic idea

and sort of came up with the mavics and

came back to rob and told him about it

that evening

it all kind of focused from that

the idea came together from that a bit

more you know because we couldn't

when we first started when we did the

bandwidth name well i used to wonder why

each gig used to sound different because

i didn't know that you had a tuner

guitar i thought you just bought it from

the shop

and i thought the machine heads were

just putting the strings on you know to

hold them on

i didn't know you should actually turn

things around to make it change notes so

we

did about 20 gigs of not knowing how to

tune guitars and thinking like

you know why why is this kick sound

better than the last one or this gig

sounds more [ __ ] than the other one you

know

so we yeah everyone really hated us punk

in the 70s was uh um

uk subs the rats bands like that um i

think um

you know just getting into i was living

in quite a small town in the west

country

um we were picking up stuff through john

peel discharge you know

crass all those bands but i think the

first band i was really into was the

the uk sub stranglehold that era

i saw the clash when i was 13 on the 16

tons tour

so it's just the energy of the moment

really i don't think we were

particularly politicized or we had any

agenda it was just that

general feeling of being youngster being

pissed off pissed off with school not

liking authority

and just finding that whole sort of punk

thing is a big outlet really

without really any kind of uh coherent

philosophy around it at all apart from

you know [ __ ] it let's let's go out and

have a good time

all of this time yeah as i said before

and never really learned to tune our

instruments

and so we'd consequently play these gigs

no

two songs would ever sound as they

sounded originally you know because

things were constantly going out of tune

and nobody bothered to ever tune

anything up so it's like well

just [ __ ] play on this string here

and keep going and it

sounds vaguely like it did the last time

so we had a bit of fun really we just we

formed this band

took the whole punk rock thing really

seriously got yeah copies of sniffing

glue magazine and stuff and

said these three chords going to form a

band that's exactly what we did

and really got our people's noses

locally because it was the time where

you had

saturday night fever all those bg's

disco stuff going on and

you know people would be turning up at

the local discos and the nice white

jeans and the

yeah the the the pearly bloody tops and

all the rest of it and we would just be

these skanky

[ __ ] kids in drain pipe trousers um

but it was enjoyable you know we had we

had a good time going and playing local

village halls getting canned off stage

and spat up

um getting slagged off in the local

press just doing the sort of small town

punk rock thing

and me and stig being pretty much the

the only people that are immediately

identifiable as punks in that we had

slightly spiky hair and and uh

bit tattered jeans and stuff like that

you know chris

and rob were

amoebics there was no one else amoebics

is

rob miller and chris miller and no one

else

i was just the catalyst that brought

them

into being the spark of life here if you

like

the glee was the womb of amoebics

there was one incident that happened

down there which i think

had a um a long lasting effect on on

stig anyway

it made the national news at the time

and he was attacked by a puma

and basically shredded cut cut to

ribbons as a six-year-old child

um 120 stitches

severe bleeding everywhere i mean these

these days he still

stitches all over him you know uh it was

a really weird really weird thing to

happen in

in the remote area of devon like that a

friend of our fathers was a

a millionaire but basically he was manic

depressive as well um

and he had one toy after another and he

joked about he'd buy it

by a helicopter at one point and go and

play around with that until he got

[ __ ] bored and the

the one of his latest things to come

around was to show us i've got i

got a puma but they didn't tell us kids

about it

um put the puma up behind the the um

the cottages at the bottom of the land

um and they they tied it

with a chain to the um to the telegraph

pole down there and

we didn't know anything about it and we

were just playing and we went to play

hide and seek stig went to hide behind

there

and um he basically the

the the puma jumped on him and shredded

him

but it was just apparently he was very

very lucky because the puma he was just

playing

uh otherwise he would have been dead it

was just

clawing at him and he he came out came

out stumbling out of there

just just a red mess of blood

you know side to side little white socks

full of blood

pretty grim really i was a little dark

black sheep sort of thing you know and

so i didn't spend a lot of time with him

with rob when we were young when we

when we were little kids together but

like from the age i was about

12 13 i really kind of went you know

off the rails and got sent to different

schools and got expelled and chopped out

of here and dropped out of there and

ended up going off to this maladjusted

kids school and coming back from there

and so we kind of

didn't see each other for quite a few

years really i didn't live in the family

home i lived away

in the school which is full-time

boarding you know

and that was like the influences and

ideas i think

in some ways come from the kind of

family we've grown up in you know

none of our parents ever went to church

or nothing you know it's all like kind

of

second third generation pagans if you

know what i mean the the norse

kind of side of things you know and all

different

philosophical ideas you know things i've

always been interested in you know

just trying to alleviate the boredom of

living in a chicken [ __ ] town just to

make a good

noise and maybe put a decent idea out

there you know

basically though just to make

a difference somehow or maybe inspire

people to do something different you

know

when i remember devon i am haunted to

the depths of my soul

by a beauty and warmth that has filled

me completely by the poem that was never

read

but there was written within me by a

graceful and perfect hand

the smell of plowed earth and the

croaking of rooks in the witch's wood

shadows of the stream beds with a

speckled trout wave like weeds

and the soft flowing current still dry

stones of the tours on lonely dartmoor

a way to tavistock a way to plymouth

plunging

down once more into the wiry hedges and

maize like lanes of peter tavi

i drank and i drank deep and i am

utterly haunted still by the fields of

my youth

winter 1980. the glebe is a large manor

house on the edge of the mall

it stands high on a hill overlooking the

sleepy village of peter tavi

saxon burial mounds lie beneath the

foundations

a thin membrane separates us from the

ancient voices that stir beneath

our feet when the doors of midwinter

open into the other world

this is the place of many ghosts

[Applause]

i think it really started when

when i moved into the sky martin's house

who used to be our drummer

as i have to be kind of i don't know

things people kind of go different

directions i think billy and clive went

off to do their sort of thing

i think they were learning to play

properly or something

and then i think me and rob just wanted

to

have a good time basically we wanted to

do this band so we ended up um

moving into this uh old vicarage on the

edge of dartmoor

and that was where the real atmosphere

started to come in

we used to sleep all day and wake up at

night and play

and down there you wake up like five

o'clock at night and you've been off

your tits all day long

and the mist is going oh rolling it off

the moors just like those old

baskerville sherlock holmes movies

weren't you know it's like this high

little bits of twig and trees digging up

out of it i think [ __ ] you now this is

surreal man but living on that like six

seven months

that's where it really started to kick

in a bit more and we started to sound

like a surroundings you know

dark and mysterious

it is only

the belief that the man

was probably the greatest single living

human being of the 20th century

who came he was he

he seemed to be always at the glebe

even before i discovered him

because sometimes destiny and fate

throws

humans together in strange ways and if

you have the

courage to admit that someone who has

been

[Music]

misinterpreted all those years

for all those years should find a safe

haven

at the glebe house is is pure enough

because it's only destiny and fate that

brings people together because

death came to crowley on december the

first 1947 and of course

i wasn't born until 1959 he said 12

years after

so you know it's a strange thing quirk

of fate really

once i had made contact with the crowley

spirit in my mind every mom

i knew he was there forever more see and

that's it

there's no other and of course crowley

will live forever in the uh

pantheon of all the great prophets that

ever lived on earth because um

he he told it how it was he showed the

world

what it was and of course there was only

one thing he actually produced that was

like a blip in the whole of the universe

was

libra alveolus the book of the law and

that was the most crucial book that was

ever written

in history rob and chris came into the

gleep and they didn't know what they

were coming into

but i opened my arms to them i opened up

the whole house to them we had the whole

house to ourselves

and we were able to do whatever we

wanted to while they were there we could

we never locked the house up we were

never burgled there's no

fires we just lived our lives and we

could live as happy as well

there was no it was a time warp in the

way there was no

the world outside didn't matter we were

walking in a bit of a dream

for the day state really because we knew

that we

had total freedom and of ourselves and

all the people around us in the local

area

would all come and visit the cleb but at

the end of the day it was only

me rob and chris there and people came

and went

girls came and went

people came and went and yet this part

of the meebix myth that the glebe was

maybe not hidden but should be shown now

that glebe was the birthplace of

amoebics and there is no doubt about it

but of course from

when they left the glebe they then went

to bath

bristol and did what they did and had

such a short

lifespan but that short lifespan those

two albums arise a monolith

has created a sort of myth and legend

and count status all over the world that

will always persist

because the glebe had infused

chris and rob with the spirit of crying

and his legacy

it is approaching up the long gravel

driveway

headlights sweep over the front of the

house as the cast turns around

martin parks the curtains in the kitchen

then turns towards stig an eye to softly

announce

it's k k has been

shopping up in london she walks into the

kitchen

in full kit paisley print head scarf

barber wax jacket and court shoes

every bit the country girl she's

carrying two plastic bags in each hand

the contents softly clink together as

she lifts them onto the table

i am so glad to be back she says

stick deeps into one of the bags and

retrieves a bottle of vodka he nods

sagely

nice one kay looks in his direction

briefly

talking as she unpacks i hit three cards

for the maximum 50 quid each piece of

piss

i just hang around the ladies changing

room in harrods lifted the cards out of

the bags and never raised an eyebrow

it's all down to look in the part she's

good very good

and she begins so i took a little wonder

down harley street to see the man

she takes out a cardboard box the size

of a box of chocolates and opens the top

i cram my neck over the other two lads

to see a row of small glass ampoules

for september she announces so who wants

a hit

this is an important question so

important that time seems to slow down

for an instant

i realize that something fundamental

hinges on this moment

kay's man is her doctor in harley street

she's a bad girl from a good family

when she fell into the junk scene her

parents could make sure that she got the

best help the money could buy

for september synthetic heroin clean and

legal if you had a harley street doctor

no you're all right thanks i decline our

offer martin stig want a shot

no cooking up no filtering straight into

the works from there into the raised

blue vein of the forearm and tap in

drip drip drip martin buckles over

as pale as a ghost stick is thrown up

outside

he comes back in and sinks slowly into

the armchair softly exhaling

a smile briefly touches the side of his

mouth before the eyeballs roll back

and up into his skull his lips begin to

turn a powdery shade of blue

there you go darling says kay she pats

him affectionately on the head and turns

her attention back to the box

i look on the raybun stove crackles and

flares into life as the wind and rain

lash against the leaded window panes in

the ancient earth beneath us the

forgotten spirits move slightly in their

long sleep

a die has been cast this winter night i

gave them the nourishment they needed

i filled them full of my

what is it my being then i gave them

all i needed but i couldn't do anything

more for them when they left

because i had to um

recover myself in london and

but i was back very soon and of course

then my life

changed in other ways i was still doing

my photography

and i had friends and i was still doing

my artwork you know

you know we did you know tarot cards you

know

deck of thoth you know book of thoth

gems from the equinox

library just all his books

whenever when one had the money one

later on of course you know one would

buy the books read the books one must

study astrology one would

delve into all those writings of account

forces and you know when you have

time on your hands and you don't have to

do anything special

you have the time to delve into things

that people never even

can do they're too busy working their

nine to five bollocks off

they're too drunk or too pissed and have

no imagination

but when you are calm and collective and

you know exactly what the hell is going

on then you can practice whatever magic

you want

and these days doesn't matter what you

practice because as long as you

do it with imagination and will

and love love is the most important

thing of all if you have love

you can achieve anything you like but

martin i hope he's okay

he's a good drummer as well he used to

really build the sound up

it's a bit he wasn't really um

psychologically capable of coming with

us really i don't think it was really

what he wanted to do you know it's good

living in this house it definitely

formulated some of the sound

that rob was saying it's like um living

in that atmosphere of sleeping all day

and

being awake at night certainly um even

if you didn't want it to affect you it

still would affect you you

i know to like that edgy dartmouth thing

live on the edge don't we just walk up

the road you're on the moors and there's

just no houses or nothing anywhere

it gives you that feeling like people

probably used to feel before they were

surrounded and crowded into little small

spaces

it's nice to feel that sometimes you

know just to get away and

feel there's nothing to constrict you

well rob

was like a witness a witness to the um

he was always a witness rob he was a

witness

to some of the um drug excesses and

excesses in bristol and some of the

horrors of the backstabbing years you

know i mean music generally you know

he was still the person that kept it all

going because chris couldn't have done

it on his own

and rob couldn't have done without crisp

because they were like black brothers

you know

twins almost but i mean you know rob was

the one that kept it all going because

he didn't do the excesses that

christie's scene he was always

straight rob is good because he stayed

true to his art and um

while i was losing their heads all

around him and people were dying around

that flies

he still kept going

[Music]

so

[Laughter]

[Laughter]

[Music]

so

[Music]

so

[Music]

is

[Music]

catch up

[Music]

through

[Music]

is

[Music]

plymouth bretton side bus station early

summer 1981.

four scruffy-looking characters are

boarding a city-linked bus

pushing their few tatty belongings into

the hold

two of them are brothers both carry

guitars which they place carefully into

the overhead

back baggage racks on board the precious

tools with which they hope to start a

new life

they have traveled a few miles over

dartmoor on a fine sunny day

the tour is standing proud behind the

elverton and horror bridge and the

familiar dark more ponies resting in the

shade of the few trees that there are

the first of the brothers is chris

later to be known as stig six feet four

in his brothel creepers and drain pipes

hair groomed and spiked meticulously an

extraordinarily handsome young man of 19

fresh and optimistic with a slight sid

vicious type snarl on his face

his brother rob sits opposite him in the

back of the bus a little shorter

and less striking apart from the spiky

peroxide blonde hair and a military

stance

a short dark-haired boy dumps his kit

unceremoniously

into the seat and slouches down against

the window

his clothes are dark his hair is swept

in one long fringe down the side of his

face

in the style of phil okay of the human

league his bag contains a few clothes

and a small wasp synthesizer this is

norman

the new romantic k comes along the aisle

last

swaying slightly from one side to the

other she has a gallon of rough cider

clutched in one hand

and the other steadying her course kay

is tall too

fairly plain looking from a well-to-do

family out on the moor

she holds herself well she and robert

planned this trip today was a fine day

to leave

when she talks there is a dry crackle in

her voice

but very little else to tell her apart

unnecessarily as you look at her arms

purple and yellow bruises in the crook

thin threaded veins collapsing under the

skin

a happy looking guy in the back starts

to talk to them and hands around some

mogadon

the cider helps to wash away the taste

the rumble of the bust and the diesel

fumes are the last memories before the

violent hess of the air breaks and rob

comes too

wandering down the aisle falling out of

the bus in a motorway car park

and vomiting over the side of it on

hands and knees as the inquisitive and

disapproving passengers

take turns to look around the side of

the door stig hangs off the stairway

railing

rocking you want to learn to hold your

drugs mate he drools

a hand going up to his lips to wipe away

the telltale sleep dribble

i laugh weakly and wretch again

another 20 miles on and we all begin to

come around the streets of bristol

become sun bleached and hazy

curiously empty after the riots that had

torn them apart just months ago

when the furnace of racial tension had

erupted within britain's inner cities

and thatcher's bully boy police had

finally got a slapping down

[Laughter]

[Music]

steve curtis had moved into a hostel

me and nil followed afterwards and then

the doll was paying

absolutely ridiculous amount of money to

the hostel so that

so that we could stay there and then

after a while

steve curtis found an empty house down

the road and said you know

[ __ ] this i'm going to go and squat down

the road instead

and so we did the same thing we went and

squatted down the road but

we knew the check was delivered sort of

at a certain time so we always made sure

we were there to get the check that was

supposed to be going to the hostel so we

became

like not millionaires but at that point

we we felt like we were millionaires we

just had a ridiculous amount of money we

lived in a squat for free

um we used all our money on on partying

basically we

yeah i don't know so that what happened

is we had one squat that

got out of hand and got closed down it

had no electricity it had no

no water in the end it had no windows it

was winter

and we moved to over to another squad in

st paul's

that was at the the point in time of the

the bristol

bristol riots so what what happened in

st paul's became a police

police free zone so it was an

amazing place to be a punk it was also a

very very dangerous place to to be

a punk in in some ways because just the

community there was

wasn't sure we it felt like the st

paul's community and the punk scene

both kind of it was kind of misfits in

society in a way not

not fully accepted not understanding how

we sort of fitting into society so there

was some kind of

acceptance for us in some ways there

wasn't acceptance for us

we moved into uh to a squat in st paul's

and

i remember by that point we picked up a

bass player called steve robinson

and one day he he brought home the

amoebics

rob chris and norman

and that was that was the whole start

what they came into was

it was it felt very free for

authority there was just the police

didn't come into the area it was you

could do whatever you want if you wanted

to

get drunk and run naked up and down the

street no one was going to stop you i

mean

it was just you could basically do what

you want but that then anyone could do

whatever they wanted to you as well so i

mean you

could get stabbed in the area or

um there was no point having anything of

value in

in your house at all because it would

get stolen people would break in we did

have like gangs coming into the house

sneakers lying on the floor a few feet

away from me

he too is now wide awake what the [ __ ]

was that he asks

i mumbled downstairs as i call out on my

sleeping bag

and over the yellow street lit

floorboards to the stairwell

someone is running up out of the

darkness below behind them the inhuman

screaming

it is dog running towards us wide-eyed

with panic

a bread bag of glue hanging from one arm

as his mouth opens and closes like a

fish on dry land

it's steve he says he told me to lock

him in the cellar

he's going off his [ __ ] head it was a

crash and more wailing

stickers appear beside me whilst norman

and k huddle in their corners blankets

wrapped around them

there's nothing we can do now i say best

leave until the morning

we tried to get some sleep steve

robinson is the

bass player for disorder i met him

walking across city road the other day

he's slight and fahrity looking with an

intense angry glare

he wears a studded leather jacket his

hair shaved at the size to leave a short

mohawk

what we call a borstal hecan the length

of the heating shows how long the man

has been out of prison

this is our first squat a derelict

four-story building in albert park just

off ashley road

both the stalking ground for prostitutes

and their punters

steve is a casual visitor he isn't

allowed to sniff around the disorder

squat

so they've grown tired of his displays

of random violence and screaming fits

so we have the honor of his company by

default along with half a dozen other

vagrant youths moving in and out of the

place over the next few short weeks that

we are there

the disorder squat is just around the

corner in west grove a smaller place

with a resident hippie

jitter john he cooks up flower chapatis

on a small wood-burning stove whilst we

take a look upstairs

steve robertson and becky bondage share

a room one stained and damp mattress and

posters on the walls

these are the only furnishings here

becky is the singer for bristol's big

name punk band vice squad

we saw her on the way down the street or

at least her buttocks she pushed him out

the window to pee into the garden below

well they weren't just like normal a

normal punk band

norman came over as sort of a emo type

human league when because human league

was actually cool i mean a lot of people

think

about the this sort of stylophone pop

that they turned out but before then

sort of being boiled

it was kind of very industrial and dark

more towards the sort of cavalry

voltaire side of

of uh electronic music that was the sort

of electro punk that was brewing

sort of post 77 um

and they weren't just drunk punks they

they seem to

have some kind of know sort of an idea

and a mission

coming to to the big town bristol to do

something

it wasn't quite clear what they wanted

to do but

and yeah they had like

they had their roots in music they had

the band and

um no just

interesting bunch of people not not the

normal

sort of punks that we were hanging

around with at the times of the post

7778 punks which were

either absolute lunatics football

hooligans

or

yeah rejects really a lot of sort of

rejected people basically

they were slightly more intellectual and

just different

just a more interesting bunch more

creative they felt like

i'm more of a creative energy around

them i have a lot of really good

memories of

from that time and and like some of the

sort of crazy antics and

with bands like disorder and and

um chaos uk and rocking used to go up

and

play dungeons and dragons with chaos

well stig and i used to get mashed out

of our face and probably why rockin's

memory of it as well isn't so you know

happy is because we were probably

oblivious to

a lot of the crazy [ __ ] that was going

on because we'd be out of our face a lot

of the time tonight

and it's a shame in some ways that we

were out of our face because there was a

lot of really good things that were

you know that that you you did get

involved with at the time

yeah and and a lot of good gigs but

there weren't as many people as

who now claim to be have all these

people that say i wasn't maybe it's his

first kick right or maybe it's his first

gig man we'd be

rich

when people go oh that's not punk rock i

don't want to [ __ ] listen to that

that's the way it is because it wasn't

it wasn't a popular thing then you know

it wasn't

was it it wasn't the you know what

everyone was into yes it definitely

inspired people i mean people like

antisect

came along yeah you know i mean

another band who had a brilliant sound

at the time and who would you know doing

something different and they'd been

through it a bit like

yeah and i think like stick said you

know at that time there was this whole

idea that maybe if it was like

loud and heavy you know crossing the

sort of a narco thing with something

that was

more metally than it it was a bit too

macho and there was some people who were

thinking that that was the case that you

know

maybe it's just too mature i i actually

think the

the amoebics were kind of rooted in it

and i think that that gave them

credibility

for them to hang on to their fans when

they went off to do something a bit

different

which was their first album that sort of

more heavy metal

that kind of crossover was already

happening i know it's happening in

america in a different way

but i think it gave them credibility

that they had that a sort of

a narco pass that they had been

squatters and stuff like that so

they had that credibility but they also

seemed like they weren't part of it

anymore they seemed they sort of moved

on

they weren't openly political they

didn't have a particularly political

politicized agenda

they just seemed to be sort of

reflecting the kind of

um i don't know what you would call it

of that

particular moment of british history or

or where

you know culturally britain was at it

was a pretty kind of bleak sort of

moment in british history

um in terms of being young um

mass unemployment you know there's

general feeling that we were all sort of

thrown onto the scrap heap there was a

sort of mutterings of

you know there is going to be a war

between russia

uh the soviet union and the west you

know it was kind of

sort of bleak days really so um

a lot of the hopes of that narco scene

would start to unravel

you know um i think crass would have

split up by that point at 84 or

stop making records so the amoebics i

think they kind of

in some ways captured that turning point

i suppose of the movement of the

maturing of the

narco scene but um they did sort of

represent

i believe a break from it to be honest

it was a hell of a good punk scene it

was a lot of bands

a hell of a lot of energy

loads of gigs all the time

and a good close-knit family of people

there was a lot of people writing

fanzines there was a lot of people with

you know independent record labels and a

lot of bands came from that area of the

country

you know bristol baff and warminster

so for that 40 mile radius

there was a huge number of great bands

came from that area

they didn't gig much and so there was a

lot of anticipation around their music

you know they were kind of they were

slightly they weren't gigging all the

time like disorder or gigging all the

time like chaos uk so

it felt like their gig was a real event

and i think it was just after they

released that first album with the

uh um with alternative tentacles and so

it was like

that album was kind of really

anticipated at that time and everybody

was very excited and they had a

different sound about them they seem to

be doing stuff quite differently

i think one thing they did was they sort

of brought together some different

groups so that the bike has seen that

they were into some of the sort of

x or periphery of people who were on the

convoy the punk scene the sort of

hardcore scene a lot of people they did

seem to be creating something new but

it wasn't particularly accessible in

terms of the scene i mean the thing with

disorder

chaos uk they were quite accessible as

people quite easy to kind of approach

um the amoebics always kind of seemed a

bit like standoffish a bit separate

not so um like i said so accessible they

were a bit kind of cooler dark glasses

leather black leather

you know which wasn't really what we

were used to

i suppose they were you know huddled in

the corner and

you know the [ __ ] was already had

already overtaken them you know

they were with you know winter and i

mean

[ __ ] you know i no words really to

describe the

the power of the emotion of what they

what they do to us you know

it really isn't it's far beyond that

truly you know the beginning of a rise

you know the intro to arise i mean

[ __ ] man is

nothing peter definitely with with chris

and

he had his alastair crowley books and we

had

kind of very very long conversations

i wasn't really super interested in it

but i knew they were and

so i knew there was some

some background there you know it was in

the time when

everything that came out in uh

underground

was always digested you know and

everything came through

i lived in a kind of a community um

where neurosis started we lived in we

were in a warehouse with

25 other people and a lot of different

music was starting to happen at the time

and we were always

it was all we did was music you know we

just you know would work and

work on music at night and bands all

practiced there

and kind of created and so um

and i remember i remember really clearly

actually

him putting on the meebix record seven

inch i think it was no sanctuary

[Music]

you know as i immediately grabbed me

because

of the the different sound to it it was

slower

it was darker which is much along the

lines of where my head was at at the

time

where my head is at permanently

basically

i i kind of immediately felt something

in my

in my soul um when i heard them that i

hadn't really felt

um with very many things

um i don't really know what that is you

know it's very

much very earthy you know like very um

it just i just just felt like a direct

connection you know like sometimes you

hear something and you just know

like well this is this is for me

this is something that i can really

identify with

chris's guitar playing was pretty good

pretty superb because it was original

and it's

in like it had an inflection like

celtic frost drumming it was a minute

sound that was picked almost like

strumming but with notes

and not chords there was an original

guitar sound

if he had been say okay he would have

carried on to have been a brilliant

brilliant musician because two albums it

was good enough but he could have gone

on

further because monolith opened up the

door to many possibilities

there's so many things you think about

all the tight things you've done not not

on purpose but just

you know feces occurs you know it does

[ __ ] happens

you know and a lot of people have died

along the way and a lot of people have

been

not hurt by us but they were kind of

people drawn to that sort of thing and

it was

yeah yeah we've had a good laugh but a

lot of people died along the way you

know it was

some hard times and some

but some funny times as well and you

just end up smiling through the tears in

the end because what can you do you know

no it wasn't it wasn't good it was you

know what i've what i've said to people

before is that

the whole thing about bristol is it's

something that

it would have been much better if we'd

had a year if we'd had a season in

bristol you know

um rather than four years the the the

longer it went on there the more deeply

mired we became in this mud you know and

it's

it's unpleasant talking about it because

it was just like just increasing despair

really i mean we had something going for

us in the

the fact that the band was going

somewhere but looking back on it we were

just getting

deeper and deeper and deeper in this

sludge you know

the the the image that that i sometimes

use is

just just a dead city walking around

um in between different squats and

everybody's asleep eventually you know

everybody's [ __ ]

gouched out there's just drugs

pulling the soul out of the whole place

the

the whole creative impetus of the

bristol scene just getting

drained away by this perpetual

[ __ ] erosion of drugs you know of

smack

culture of the selfish [ __ ] nihilism

or the whole thing you know

i don't have much i don't have much

sentimentality toward bristol at all it

was a very very hard time

there was constant insecurity constant

um constant trouble you know

by that time the punk metal crossover

thing had

taken off in this country in europe and

i think

somewhat they were forerunners of that

as well

so they they appealed to a more to a

more metal audience as well

not just that standard punk rock

audience

and uh i think they've taken punk rock

to a different vein as well you know

it wasn't three chord punk rock and it

wasn't

real like crusty core

and it wasn't them like the american

hardcore it was i think they were

they were very unique a very unique

sound

and they were great they were great at

it you know fantastic musicians

fantastic people

[Music]

because i remember at the time there was

the there was a lot of what

anarchists found around and i

personally i was i was always interested

in in heavy metal as a musical

form but i thought the lyrics were [ __ ]

you know throwing

every minute were pathetic at that time

definitely you know more so

than now maybe there's a lot of [ __ ]

around now but you know i'm not down

with the kids i don't know

but um i thought that i used to love all

black sabbath i liked the way that

the music made you feel something rather

than just the words

and i'd listen to something like crass

or whatever and i like grass you know

but

the words would make you still feel

something but the music really didn't

have

much of a resonance you know like in

deep

you know that's that's why i thought

let's try and do something a bit more

powerful musically and we can make good

lyrics and good music to kind of

get a bit of force together you know to

really push a point home

with some a bit of intensity you know so

even if you couldn't understand english

you'd understand basically

the song was saying this or that was

going this or that way

for us when we first started neurosis

we were looking to

build a foundation for a project

that would last for our lifetimes and

we were able to separate

about six bands from

all the other music that we knew of and

say okay these

are the things that that we these are

band these are examples you know

people who came before us who did things

that we

really respected for any number of ways

and um

amoebics was at the top of that list

because

of the the power of what they did

and you know i really

one of the things that i really liked

about them

and one of the things that we were never

interested in doing was getting involved

in any sort of real

politics with our music because we felt

that you know music needed to transcend

all politics and just be

emotion driven communication

um to a larger you know group of

of people and amoebics would at the time

there was a lot of very political stuff

especially

punk rock whatever you want to call it

scene and a lot of

anti-religion uh

stuff going on and amoebics were kind of

had stepped beyond that

and they were basically writing

for my interpretation these almost

religious

songs but from a pagan perspective

but there contribution was

totally unique in that in that way

because they

again they didn't come from this super

political thing

there's a little bit in there at the

beginning you can tell that they have

this tie to it and

and i know from watching uh what the

[ __ ] movie is it's uk dk

where they're with disorder and you know

and living together or something you

know at that time that that's their

that's kind of their tribe you know but

something happened to them that

which i have no uh knowledge of

that that brought them to a more primal

pagan

warrior sort of

sound and communication you know

whereas everybody else was kind of

getting caught up in details

they were just like way past that

immediately

you know

so

[Music]

i just want to make music that was

extremely powerful so i want

personally i wanted a mixture of because

i used to take a lot of acid and i used

to love to listen to black sabbath on

that one

taking acid and it's really really

cranked up full volume you know

because it's almost frightening you know

some of that music because it's

especially when you're dripping it

off and you've got hairs on the back of

your neck and oh [ __ ] you know you know

i thought i want to get that sound with

a medicine that heavy oh

you know but with less [ __ ] lyrics

basically that was kind of my deal with

it

and it and it wasn't really discussed me

and rob just knew what we wanted to do

you know so me and him had these ideas

between us you know and we didn't really

have to even talk about it you know when

you

there's something about taking acid

together you don't even need to discuss

things you sit and listen to a piece of

music you're just going

[ __ ] yeah you know what i mean that's

the [ __ ] way man that's it you know

like

i said sabbath bloody stuff i love that

riff man it's a [ __ ] menstruation

especially want me to sit around eating

nasty just listen to that

we used to take acid from about like two

o'clock in the morning and then sit

around and watch the sun come up you

know in st

paul's the

music that we've been playing um prior

the releases that we put out before as i

tried to explain

they had this sort of desperate um

desperate songwriting qualities and then

there was nothing was really cohesive

nothing was really tight

we'd been putting together the the ideas

and the songs for a rise

when neil announced in radstock one one

time after he and i had been living

there in these sort of pretty much

squat conditions but in a village but

quite happily you know he just announced

that he'd had enough and he was going

back to

cleveland or wherever it was at the time

um

left us having to look for another

drummer and we we asked some of the guys

that we knew

in the in the bath circuit and they said

oh well there's this guy from a band

called scum

called dumb spider you know maybe go and

approach him so

they had they had this sort of weird

kind of bar

particular bath type of squat which is

very quite nice you know

on the edge of the railway there and

went around to see him

gave him a tape and he was just like

spiders the spider has always been

spidey

he's just missed a regular guy you know

he's i'm a drummer and a band i like

drumming in the band he's brilliant

absolute [ __ ] sort of the earth you

know we clicked straight away

um gave him the tape and he came back

and he started practicing with us

and what he did was he brought us a

solid beat in we were doing you know

basically no more of this pissing around

on the toms it was just

it was more of a more of a rock rock

steady kind of thing you know

so applying that to the the songs that

we're writing and finding out you know

first chorus first chorus middle eight

making things exciting making them

dynamic really having having a drummer

and this new energetic force there gave

us the opportunity to

to really um really explore the sound

that we

that we wanted that's when we started to

hang around in bath a bit more and met

spider on that you know so

something got spider drumming for us

that's when we started to get it really

sorted out the sound i think it got a

lot better than you know

because with virus it was a bit it was a

good drummer on that but it was a sloppy

kind of style because he was used to

playing that very

fast punk rock for disorder you know so

when it came down to playing something a

bit

of a different speed it was good but it

was

i don't know it could have done with a

bit more an edge to it and i was glad

that we got spider

though virus was good you know i was

glad we got spiders which is that um

no sanctuary we did that i can't

remember who paid for that one i don't

know if we paid for that

because that's the thing with the movie

it could have been the production could

have been a lot better on our records

that's the

only thing that i do get pissed off

about sometimes i think [ __ ] hell the

man that sounds so [ __ ]

but it could have been so much more

powerful you know but if we'd had the

money and it's just

it's recorded with our gyros usually we

just put like four or five gyros

together and save off the money for a

couple of weeks or whatever you know

arise was clearly a uh

more of a refined beast than

uh winter who's the enemy or even no

sanctuary which kind of pointed in that

direction

it was a little more honed they had a

little bit more of a focus of what they

wanted to do

it was starting to go a bit in a metal

direction

but it was still very crude

very raw and in a way a distinct

advantage that stig was not a

flashy fleet-fingered guitar player who

could put in a lot of wanky solos it

just was this

collective thing that nobody else really

had by that time it would be it would

become quite

rigorous in the um its own introspection

that that whole scene

um and claustrophobic because there were

so many people making up rules about

what you could say what you could think

how you could express yourself

what you could wear what you should be

eating and all these [ __ ] micro

microcosmic rules that you were all of a

sudden faced with from a

a yeah a free thinking philosophy that

originally started out and

really had inspired us as a band to say

create your own music create your own

identity and then to find yourself

in this cul-de-sac of conformity within

you know a so-called experimental and

interesting

and a live scene which was gradually

dying which gradually choking itself

with its own

um with its own uh will will for

conformity really

we really needed to to stay outside of

that

and i think it was a difficult step for

a lot of people to accept what we were

doing we got slagged off

really badly for a rise by um by some

people when it came out they couldn't

stand it at all they just didn't like

[Music]

so

[Music]

[Music]

eyes

[Music]

what

[Music]

is

[Music]

[Music]

me

[Music]

[Music]

is

[Music]

out

[Music]

is

[Music]

one

mix was a very foundational piece in our

uh growing as men and spirituality

you know a very influential piece and

when you're when you're young men you

know or young people you're looking for

you're looking for your tribe you're

looking for who your people are for who

your brothers are that you're going to

be with

you know for the rest of your life the

people are going to have your back

and we were looking for that i think in

our different ways and we were looking

for

um a sense of who our tribe was

and part of that we found just an

independent music in general you know

i'd say

you know a lot of the people we've met

who we hold dear over the years are

involved in independent music

uh you know brothers we've toured with

and and what have you

um and i but i think that was kind of

the soundtrack

at that time of who our tribe might be

out there you know

the people that we'll meet around the

world might all just have something in

common with this music

you know because it was uh especially

from an american point of view you have

a tendency to mythologize what you can't

be near i'm sure it's different for

people uh

who grew up in england but for me i i

kind of mythologized the

english music and something thinking oh

that you know

amoebics has that same kind of

ancient stone stonehenge festival vibe

that

the early hawkwind stuff had and that um

other guitar driven psychedelic music

had it felt like it had the celtic soul

or the saxon soul in the music

there was something in it that could

have only happened on this place

you know and for those of us looking

back over the water for our roots

uh that was extremely important to try

to think that you might

have something in common with this other

group of people over there who are

closer to the source we were just

rocking out you know

just [ __ ] tracking we were just

really

just right into it it was um i was

always overwhelmed by the music you know

if you get

if you get a good pa and you you get the

equipment working right and you've got

the volume right up and it's all clear

and stuff

you just get completely buzzed up by the

whole thing and it was

an electric and an electrifying

experience to be able to play

some some songs yeah were

so powerful to play live they were just

the hairs are standing up on the back of

your neck as you're playing this stuff

and it was really

manifesting presence for us you know we

we drew everything up from from

within ourselves and tried to get it

there in that room

i always liked the things that i

discovered in punk rock that had

bigger guitar sound you know they've

been a more uh

thunderous thing and it had the texture

that you liked from motorhead or venom

but it had you knew it had the ethics

from the do-it-yourself mentality

because of the the scene it was coming

from it was coming from

you know the english craft southern

records kind of

scene but then like scott said it was uh

it brought to mind something deeper it

brought to mind even though it said no

gods no masters to me it brought to my

mind pagan gods

the unconscious um

stuff that was uh it's difficult to

explain but the

um the the the spiritual element of amex

if you like

um was uh an integral part of everything

that we did

it was like stig and i were both very

much

tuned in to the same place when we were

playing

and it's like we we saw the same pot

that we were drawing from

and we knew that that was there we

didn't know quite how it worked but we

knew

that we were trying to draw energy up

from this source and

that we were aware that it was um

it was like like the the group

unconscious of the band itself if you

like you know our connection with the

the the the deeper root of things i mean

i always take all those things as with a

picture so i'm an atheist you know and

i'm i'm

i believe i don't believe in in mystical

mumbo jumbo

to me it's just nonsense i don't believe

that fairies at the end of the garden

and i don't believe in jesus christ and

i certainly don't believe

that there's some uh um you know kind of

underlying dark spiritual currents man

you know people do

bad things and you'll attract bad stuff

you know that's my view

um so i don't necessarily you know

missed the mystique of the amoebics no i

i don't buy it at all

after a rise was recorded that was our

kind of

seminal album i think then it kind of

went down a bit then we recorded

monolith which is in a different league

i think monolith was a brilliant album

but

different and not as good as the rise

either really was it well

i don't know you say not as good

i don't know i wouldn't like to say that

i could listen to the risers of fans i

suppose

is that there's a rise there on modern

affair

and we kind of peaked about there you

know what i mean

but after monolith we kind of started to

run out of ideas really we tried

different ideas and thought this ain't

working

so we decided to knock it on there then

it was either that

we do more of the same which wasn't yeah

we decided to quit

while the government was good basically

bath changed everything bath bath gave

us

i don't know it's it's exactly the other

the other side of the coin when i think

about it

you know if i look at bristol i see

bristol as cold hard winters

difficult um yeah streets full of

wind and rain just desperate times

always

constantly hung hungry constantly bloody

skin

uh always trying to get the next thing

together

and bath was a yeah aqua solace is

the image of the sun

the idealism started to break up in some

ways i just it just felt

all very very wrong in in some ways we

went from

it felt like something that was creative

and good went into

it felt like it was it was being

corrupted in in some ways by

kind of the sort of this traveling

attitude kind of thing a lot of the punk

sort of moved into the traveling scene

um started dealing drugs it

it just felt all wrong at that point as

it was kind of a split

off point for me in in some ways i came

in about 1987

basically i i met spontaneous stig at a

party

and um i was playing in a band at time

and we were talking he said about

supporting them

send a tape sort of thing so i went back

to them because they're a metal band

they

i had a bit of a ride with them about uh

and they would they want to play with a

punk band

so i left and so i sent stick a note

saying sorry mate you know um

i uh can't do it because i'm got a band

anymore

and they asked me if if i fancy playing

keyboards playing fl

mined on play seen a keyboard before i

was a bass player

i thought why not you know and then um

what's it about a week later i met you

he was handed out flyers a gig that was

a weird wallet yeah

i just joined this man he said oh i'm

the drummer you know because he hadn't

been told daddy

of course then he went and punched me

outside washing that bike didn't you

flatter

yeah cold we've been friends ever since

i'd seen amoebics loads of times before

because i was i was in previous bands

before and i just thought they were

[ __ ]

amazing really i couldn't really work

amex out i didn't know what they were

all about you know they were there was

something mysterious about amoebics

and then someone said do you want to

join

us and i said so it's a learning

process really it's [ __ ] great yeah

[Music]

i was in the thrash metal at the time i

came from a wooden background myself

still got a wooden head to go with it

whatever

stig really still wanted to be playing

so

he's he went into forming a band with

zygote with spider

they still wanted to keep things going i

was in the situation where

it was both the the the inspiration had

dried up but also the fact that i was in

this relationship which was

really uh really asking a lot of me as a

young man who had

previously known no responsibilities

whatsoever all of a sudden to have i've

landed in a situation where i had a

woman who was wanting a serious

relationship

with whom i had a child um against my

express [ __ ] wishes initially um

and who all of a sudden gave me a big

bundle of this stuff called

responsibility and

a relationship to the so-called real

world which i hadn't had up until that

moment

i've been living this really strange

fringe existence ever since leaving

school um and then all of a sudden to be

landed with this

with a big blow around the head which is

you know you're going to need to get a

job

you're going to need to be a proper

upstanding citizen you've got to be

[ __ ] adult about this

and yeah sure she was right but also

what that did was it sucked or

sucked all of the the the juice out of

the creative vein that we had tapped

until it was just this with a little

stump you know

maybe it's like you know with people

people who die young get remembered as

being something brilliant

and i think with bands amoebics are a

bit like that you know they're like

because they died young they'll

they've they've left something which

stands shoulders above the rest

i think another thing that's kept

amoebics music

and vision alive is people including

myself

are always deeply drawn into the artwork

it doesn't look like other hardcore

or a narco punk artwork it doesn't look

like puss head it doesn't look

like mad mark roode or ray pettibone or

winston smith it was something very very

different and when we were getting ready

to

release a rise on alternative tentacles

i i

rob was the only person i ever made the

offer to that he ought to redraw the a t

bat logo just for the amoebics release i

thought that would have been really cool

but

i guess they decided not to do that the

artwork

has been on patches and bootleg t-shirts

and real t-shirts

ever since and i think a lot of the

people who

are drawn to that in this case anyway

are also drawn to the band themselves

because people clearly are still

listening to them to this day and

getting something out of the amoebics

they're not getting anywhere else

things went wrong after the band split

for me personally getting stuck in a

difficult relationship

uh moving into a house and i found it

difficult to afford to run having to get

a

proper job in a factory uh then working

in a you know as builders labourer doing

this doing that doing anything i could

for money

but being very unhappy basically and

really stuck

in in in an unhappy part of my life

um eventually split up and i was on my

own

and i ended up having this a bike

accident

i broke my arm trashed the bike even my

clothes were ripped to pieces so i had

absolutely nothing left

and for funny it was it really it was a

real big epiphany in my life i

i am i i was finally you know

right down on my ass with nothing

nothing to to show for a life at all

um and just thought well [ __ ] i'll go up

the sky visit my folks up here because i

had six weeks off

for my work because of the broken arm

and and maybe

you know maybe something will happen

when i got here i just thought

take the hint do something different

change your life just um

this is an opportunity you know the door

only opens once for you for you to see

and and i jumped maybe if i was 21 and

really oh my god man you know they've

sold out but i don't think they've sold

out i mean rob's a decent person he's

not living in some palace he's not

driving some

some rolls royce i mean this is a guy

with a family to

to provide for and he's trying to do a

you know decent thing and i think

it was really important for them to kind

of get a proper closure

around this you know we can't live on

some utopian fantasy

about what we expect scenes and people

to be like

we've got to be realistic we're all

human beings and like i said i'm really

supportive of it and

i wouldn't tell those people to shut up

but i just say get a bit of perspective

on it you know

develop a bit of maturity around what

you're thinking and saying and then

maybe

people might take you your comments a

bit more seriously

we swear allegiance to none be not

become you know

we haven't really got no allegiance to

anybody except ourselves in the end and

that

and that's the truth at the end of the

day there's a universal truth in it you

know however close you are with your

friends when you

you know you're born alone and you die

alone you have to be

you have to be an ally to yourself in

the end and that

and that's certainly true for me because

i think maybe i'm getting a bit of my

own ass about all this but

i don't know how people perceive us or

how they possibly think that we are or

what they think

that we feel or that with dark satanic

people or whatever you know i don't know

how i'm thought

you know so i can't it's kind of hard

for me to answer

these things you know maybe in a way

that people understand honestly

i've done some weird [ __ ] we've done

good things for bad reasons and bad

things for good reasons we will help you

know

life's tough get through it but i think

amiibos definitely kept me going in the

time i was just [ __ ] despair and

giving up all together you know

you've got to have something to to live

for

if you look at the artwork from amoebic

stuff it's you know it's just

chock-a-block with these

swords and axes and spears and all these

weird sort of images which are

just underneath the surface and when i

arrived on sky i

met up with this guy who was really into

his mythology and and

other sort of esoteric um lines of

inquiry as well

he really encouraged me to to think

about

what i what i fancy doing which was i

thought you know i'd love to be able to

make a sword

uh at that time there was no internet or

anything like that so

i um i looked for information for

library books and things like that that

could um

show me how to do this uh it was very

very difficult to find but eventually

got got some books

and started up making a little forge

just for fun really and um

uh practice and practice and practice

and now you know what i do

is recognize worldwide for the the basic

the the quality of the work that i do

but it's taking quite a long time it's

been

a really a really interesting thing to

be doing but something that i never had

a doubt to do at all it's just

a logical extension really of what i was

doing back then i mean

people aren't surprised by it it's the

weirdest thing i had an email from

somebody the other day

you know rob miller went on from being a

uh

as a singer in the band of ebik's on to

to to making swords on the isle of skye

of course he did you know

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