THE SAMPLES
from
Burning Britain - A History Of UK Punk 1980 to 1984
by Ian Glasper

Click here to go to The Samples Web Site Home Page

Moving an hour south to Worcester, The Samples were responsible for one of the very best singles on No Future, but never had the opportunity to release a full album. If they had have done, they may well have shot to the upper echelons of the punk pecking order, such was their instinctive grasp of strong song-writing. They paved the way for other Worcester bands, such as Exacerbator, Achtung and the Iranian Teaspoons, none of which actually released vinyl but tapped into the punk network they helped establish.

The original band, formed in 1978, consisted of three schoolmates – bassist Pascal Smith, drummer Tony Allen and guitarist Dave Sanders – who were soon joined by Sean ‘Badger’ Taylor on vocals.

“The local scene was pretty poor,” claims Sean. “Although there were a couple of bands from nearby Malvern, most noticeably The Vendettas and The Tights (who released the first ever single on local label, Cherry Red). Of course, there was Satan’s Rats from Evesham too, but not much else – certainly not from Worcester anyway, which seemed to be a very backward city.”

“The one great thing about the local scene was that Cherry Red regularly promoted Punk and New Wave gigs at the Malvern Winter Gardens,” chips in guitarist Dave Evans, who joined just before the band’s first self-released single. “Without those there would have been nothing of any significance locally. It always seemed weird to me that this town [Malvern] which was basically where people went to retire or die - at least that’s what it looked like to an average sixteen year old - had punk rock gigs in the local theatre hall…very strange but I’m also so glad they did. These gigs drew their audiences from the bigger towns roundabout, like Worcester, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Hereford, so were always well attended. I just remember this surreal scene off all these punk rockers getting on the train at Worcester, arriving at Malvern and then threading their way up to the Winter Gardens – it felt like something was really happening and felt great to be part of this scene.”

The first Samples gig was at Worcester’s Blessed Edwards Oldcorne RC High School, an establishment that had actually been attended by three of the band, and where they played an eight-song set that included two Ramones covers.

“The most memorable thing about it was that there were two nuns selling crisps,” laughs Sean. “How punk rock is that?”

Dave’s first gig with the band, bolstering them to a five-piece, albeit briefly, was at the Nags Head in Malvern, supporting The Denizens.

“I was shitting myself with nerves,” he laughs. “I also remember that the reason I joined The Samples was a) they had a manager and b) they had a transit van. This was almost like joining a real band!”

More gigs around the area, including one supporting The Fall at the aforementioned Malvern Winter Gardens, saw them accruing a good local following, and suitably encouraged they decided to self-release their first single, the three-track ‘Vendetta’ EP in 1980.

“We just wanted to put something out!” says Sean. “Basically no one else in Worcester had done this and we saw a chance to get there first. Also, in those days, releasing a self-financed single was all the rage and easy to do. All the independent distributors around meant that it was very difficult to fail! I seem to recall that all of the main ones were more than happy to take copies and get them distributed out to small record shops, which were everywhere in those days but seem to have disappeared now.”

It was recorded for a pittance in a local four-track studio, but what it lacks in technical elegance, it almost compensates for in youthful bluster.

“We did the whole thing in a day… and it sounds like it!” says Dave. “I seem to recall hiring a guitar from the local shop as I thought that my Les Paul copy wasn’t up to the job. It didn’t seem to make much difference, though – the sound is/was terrible. I remember that ‘Vendetta’ was one of the first tunes I’d written and presented to the band and, at the time, it was miles ahead of most of their old stuff. ‘Computer Future’ and ‘Rabies’ [the 2 B-side cuts] were older Samples songs from before I joined – ‘Rabies’ was always great live.

“At that time, we were all very much learning our craft – literally, as each week went by, I remember us getting better and better. By the time we eventually released the single, we had moved on and were writing much better songs. It’s fair to say that it obviously represented a time in our development but if we had recorded it two weeks later it would have been a lot better – that’s how quickly we were progressing in those days.”

As if to ring the changes, original guitarist Dave Sanders was sacked soon after the session, because of the lack of progress he was making with his instrument, and Tony Allen was replaced behind the kit by Rick Mayhew of The Tights for similar reasons a few months later – but not before the band had gone back into the studio to record some more new songs. Until now still unreleased, the five songs in question are the missing link stylistically between ‘Vendetta’ and what was to follow.

Even before that first single though, The Samples were managed by Chris Berry who, of course, later set up No Future Records and eventually gave the band a recording deal.

“He became our manager sometime during 1979,” explains Sean. “I was on talking terms with Richard Jones who had started Cherry Red Records and who also promoted at the Malvern Winter Gardens. He worked with Chris and knew that he was looking to get involved with a band, so he told him that we wanted a manager. Chris’s background wasn’t in the punk scene, but he seemed to be keen and helped us put out our first single.

“Right from when he started No Future, Chris more or less promised us a single release, but, for whatever reason, it took a long time before it actually happened. I think us knowing Chris somehow worked as a bit of a hindrance, and we all felt that Richard Jones never really liked us much either.”

No Future did however include The Samples on their celebrated ‘A Country Fit For Heroes’ 12”, with the belligerent ‘Government Downfall’, one of the compilation’s highlights that generated the band a great deal of critical praise and saw the gig offers come flooding in from around the country.

 As well as locally, The Samples played many well-received London dates, including several shows at the prestigious 100 Club and a No Future showcase at the Lyceum, and storming gigs in Bridgend (with label-mates The Partisans) and Presteigne on the Welsh borders – a punk festival they headlined that turned into a mass brawl. Unfortunately such outbreaks of mass violence weren’t uncommon in the early Eighties.

“I remember we played the Queen’s Head in Stockwell, London,” sighs Sean. “It was another one of those ‘taking your life into your hands’-type gigs, haha! It wasn’t unusual back then to have complete and utter silence as the audience reaction to a song we’d just played – why is it that crowds are so much more polite to support bands nowadays? But I know three things that went through my mind that night were: will we even get from the car to the venue without getting beaten up? Will we ever get from the venue back to the car without getting beaten up? And what are all these West Indian guys doing vanishing up the pub stairs with little suitcases?”

Thankfully the band survived several such close calls and recorded their second – and final – single, which to this day remains one of the finest, yet criminally overlooked, of all the Second Wave punk releases. ‘Dead Hero’ racked up a respectable 7500 sales and made the Indie Top Forty when it came out in July 1982, although why it sold so few copies compared to many far lesser bands on the label at the time is one of punk’s great mysteries.

“Twenty odd years after its release and people still say to me, ‘Have you heard ‘Dead Hero’ by The Samples?” says Sean of London’s Rough Trade Records, a huge fan of the band. “I didn’t realise it was so good immediately, but it’s one of those classic pop moments where for three minutes everything’s perfect. Also in this category would be Demob’s ‘No Room for You’. The verse of ‘Dead Hero’ is actually catchier than most bands’ choruses; this is a phenomenal single and the golden nugget in a near perfect No Future catalogue!”

High praise indeed, but not without good reason – ‘Dead Hero’ is a truly memorable, raw, infectious anthem, and the two songs on the B-side are almost as good, the forceful ‘Suspicion’ and the vicious, high-speed ‘Fire Another Round’.

“Without sounding arrogant, we weren’t surprised at how well it turned out,” reckons Dave. “When we first wrote it, we knew it was the best thing we’d done by a mile. When we recorded a demo of it, it sounded even better. And when we eventually got booked into Cargo Studios in Rochdale and, for the first time, got ourselves an engineer that actually knew what they were doing [Colin Richardson] to record us, we all just looked at each other and knew that we had something really great on our hands. I remember there were smiles all round – even we didn’t think we were that good!

“I can remember that we multi-layered the guitar, got a fantastic drum sound and Sean came up with his best gruff vocal style to date. Also I seem to recall that we got a quick visit from some of the Blitz boys during this session. It was just one of those days when we were really up for it.”

However No Future encountered financial difficulties and folded before The Samples could push home their advantage and release their proposed third single, ‘Nobody Cares’.

“No Future’s change of musical direction with Blitz’s second album was a complete wrong turn and damaged the whole scene immensely,” reckons Dave.

“Garry Bushell left Sounds and just seemed to drop all his support overnight,” adds Sean. “And unfortunately without him, the scene couldn’t survive.”

Although they soldiered on for several years more, they never regained the momentum they lost when No Future went under, and split in 1986 after a Famine Relief benefit at Worcester’s Perdiswell Leisure Centre.

“It was a combination of boredom with the band and the scene in general,” says Sean wistfully. “I remember playing the 100 Club with Broken Bones and thinking then that it was all over. They refused to lend our drummer their snare drum when he broke his… whatever happened to the punk spirit of camaraderie? And I suppose we were all maturing and getting into serious relationships and stuff. We just realised that the punk scene we’d been around and grown up with had finally run out of steam and clinging onto that for the sake of it seemed a little backward.”

Sean went into a band with his brother Guy (who also played in local bands, The A Brigade and The Spotty Boys) called Charity’s Child, who split after a few demos, whilst Dave and Pascal formed Take The Fifth, who generated some label interest and several demos but little more.

“I think ‘Dead Hero’ stands out amongst a lot of dross at the time and still sounds good today,” reckons Dave. “And I don’t think much other stuff from that era does. The music will always be there but the memories are the things we’ll take with us. Johnny Rotten sang ‘I Wanna Be Me’… and really that’s all you need to be. This was what the time of our lives was like – I hope that anyone else wanting the same gets it.”

Select discography:

7”s:

‘Vendetta’ (Sample Records, 1980)

‘Dead Hero’ (No Future, 1982)

At A Glance:

Captain Oi’s 1997 Crux/Samples split CD, part of the label’s Oi Collection series, features much of the band’s recorded output, plus their unreleased final session from which the third single was to have been lifted (not to mention eleven songs from Crux as well). As is usual for Captain Oi, the booklet is packed with photos and informative liner notes from both bands.