| Scott Wardell - Lead vocals, guitars Mark Norton - Guitars Rich Preston - Bass guitar Paul Thompson - Drums North Yorkshire, England - not exactly the glamour capital of the universe - is a town where the residents work hard, play hard and drink even harder. The latter of these three ideals is what helped bring the delinquents known as Audiogasm together. The band�s initial line up was formed from other bands that had packed it in. Having all known each other over the years, Audiogasm (Scott, Rich, Paul and original lead guitarist, John Beardsley) emerged as the only band in the area truly committed to their cause - John and Paul being recruited for their talent, Scott & Rich however wanting to play loud, drink to excess, and nail anything in a skirt. Being truly committed turned out to be quite an achievement after playing every toilet that Britain had to offer. After several line-up changes, Mark �Dud� Norton, having acted as the band�s sound engineer, roadie and the one who intervened during bar room brawls, joined in 1999. With their collective influences of Guns N Roses, Foo Fighters, Def Leppard, Little Angels, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Zakk Wylde and Sting (whew!!!), the members of Audiogasm set out to create as much havoc and ear catching pop punk infused music as they could possibly get away with. �Basically anything with good riffs, cool lyrics and non force fed manufactured shite is what we�re all about,� enthuses guitarist, Mark Norton. �We try to do our own thing and, while we may not sound like the aforementioned bands those are the ones that we grew up listening to.� The band recorded Rain Machine, their full length debut effort with John Spence (The Cult). �The album basically reflects what was going on in our lives at the time,� reflects Norton. Relationship break-ups were quite a prominent occurrence at the time (as evidenced in �Fine Without You�, �R U the 1� and �You Don't Know Me�). Frustrations due to the lack of prospects when thrown into the real world (�Round & Round� & �Fear�). �Money� is all about facing a future with no cash, and was written in Florida, while the album�s first single, �Times� was written about the local bar where the band used to hang out. �Rain Machine�, the title track, is a dark song lyrically, again inspired by a break-up. Portraying a message of anger and resentment, the lyrics are relatively self explanatory. �You Shone Through Me� tells of how acting �on the rebound� can give a temporary sense of fulfillment and near revenge. �Speak My Mind�, through its jumbled lyrics, carries an image of simply �blowing off steam�, while �Nothing� was written about when things go wrong, �instead of the negative vibe just say bollocks and get on with it!,� relates Norton. With the current state of the pop charts worldwide, Audiogasm have a very realistic outlook on things: �At this side of the pond we seem to be pushed into listening to whatever is fashionable at the time, which most of the time is something we aren't interested in�, says lead vocalist, Scott Wardell. We just want to produce catchy songs which mean something to us and (hopefully!) to others. In all honesty, we just expected to make enough money from gigs to go out and get pissed!� |
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