Illicit
Biography
In 1999 Ashley Sheath, Simon Uphill and
Stuart Penman had their first jam
together. All three of them were
interested in being in a band so they
decided to join up. The first thing they
wanted to do together was play in their
schools 'Music Festival' in the foolish
hope of winning. They played 'Tourettes'
by 'Nirvana' and the first song Stuart
had written. When entering into the
festival it was necessary to name the
songs that were going to be played,
however, the song that Stuart had written
didn't have a name and so Ashley (who was
filling out the form) decided to call it
'The Soft Piece'. The name stuck. The
band still didn't have a permanent name
though. Various names were given to them
until they settled on 'Illicit'.
The three piece band that they had formed
was lacking something important. A
bassist. They played together for just
under a year before trying to recruit a
bass player. After numerous people came
and went they decided to ask Mark Higgins
to join 'Illicit'. He did.
Every week 'Illicit' stayed behind after
school to practice. At weekends they
would commendere Ashley's dad's bed
factory, an industrial unit, to practice
in. They continued to practice there
weekly until Steve Sheath (Ashley's dad)
told them they couldn't anymore.
The next step was to ask if they could
borrow they keys to the local Scout hut.
This was convenient as Simon and Stuart
were familiar with Angela Evans, the
holder of the keys. Practices there would
last all day and complaints by the
neighbours were frequently made.
Simon, Stuart and Mark became friendly
with Gordon Clark, the school sound
engineer. He did a sound and lighting
course that the three of them attended.
They talked to him about the band a lot
and Gordon offered them their first gig,
supporting signed band 'Black Nielsen'.
He then entered them into the 'Lantern
Theatre Battle of The Bands'. They
competed against the likes of
'Rat:Daddy', 'Toupe' and 'Metropolis'.
They were 5 votes off going into the
final. 'Toupe' went through instead and
went on to win the final.
By this time 'Illicit' wanted to put
their songs onto a CD. They asked Gordon
to book them some studio time and
recorded 'The Trilogy Of Separation', a 5
track demo CD, in February 2002.
'Illicit' felt very comfortable on the
stage by this time and wanted to headline
a gig. They asked a band they knew from
school, 'Fake Identity', to support them.
They did a few more gigs and found out
that they were being scouted by an
independent record company, 'Hackpen
Records', a label Gordon Clark was
involved in. Unfortunately they did not
sign 'Illicit' due to a concern that the
band was very young and therefore had a
higher chance of breaking up.
A major milestone was when 'Illicit' got
asked to support 'Thirst' at the
Southampton 'Joiners', a live act pub in
the area.
It was about this time that one of the
amps that Steve Sheath had lent the band
broke. It hadn't blown so Stuart and
Simon didn't pay him for the repair.
Steve did not like this and the whole
situation blew out of context. Ashley was
then removed from 'Illicit'.
For two months the remaining members of
'Illicit' searched for a drummer. They
tried to contact all if the drummers that
they knew from their days at school. None
would do it. No-one from 'Illicit' spoke
to Ashley for months. It was the Reading
Festival of 2002 that solved everything.
Stuart and Simon had gone together and
Ashley had gone with others. The three of
them met up and tried to sort things out.
It took time but they did it and a while
later decided that they wanted to play
together again.
The problem was that by this time the
entire band was at college and Ashley and
Simon had jobs. There wasn't much time in
which all of the members of 'Illicit'
could get together. We wern't allowed to
use the Scout hut in the evenings as the
local residents would complain. At this
point Becki Jewell (Ashley's girlfriend)
gave us the use of her converted Anderson
shelter.
They practiced there for a few months
until they put on a few more gigs and
decided to record another cd, this time
10 tracks longs. They settled on calling
it 'Gone Astray' after many futile
suggestions from Mark. Illicit entered
themselves in their college Battle Of The
Bands, unfortunatly they didnt do so well
when it came to the voting, Instad a band
called Wrapped In Plastic deservingly won
it.
Illicit are now doing gigs with
Wrapped In Plastic and are currently
involved in another Battle Of The Bands
at the Lantern Theatre. They won the
first heat and are through to the final.
That is where they are at the moment.
Watch this space to keep tabs on their
progress over the comming months.
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