History of the Band

We met in Leeds in 2006, at the Royal Park Pub when Edde answered an advert Pumo placed in a local guitar shop.  We were both students at the University of Leeds at the time, trying to find some kind of foothold in the world of music.  Pumo was trying to put a reliable band together and Edde had taken to busking in the streets, either alone or with friends Phill Durham or Sam Davis. Having landed his own student radio show, Edde had started writing songs to play live on air and at local open mic nights; including My Legs and No Potatoes.  Although nothing came of our initial meeting, we exchanged contact details and, on the 1st February 2007, when Puma sent out an email asking if anybody knew of a spare room going at the end of the academic year, Edde received the message.

Despite having only met Pumo once, Edde offered for him to move in with him, Phill and Sam at the start of the next year.  Puma accepted and, come September 2007 the four of us moved our lives into 36 Harold Place, Hyde Park, Leeds – complete with Sam’s drum kit, a PA and close to a dozen guitars.

As the year progrssed, Edde starting jamming with what became Beretta Suicide and Pumo was gigging in a band called Glasshouse Boutique; a name that Sam regularly shortened to Glasshouse Bum.  When Pumo left the band towards the end of 2007, we nicknamed Glasshouse Boutique “Gay Bum”, in support of our friend and in reference to the Glasshouse Gay Night in Leeds.  Being a musical household, it didn’t take long before Puma and Sam were jamming in the basement, naturally using the name Gay Bum.  A guitar-player himself, Phill soon joined in and eventually Edde picked up an old bass and joined the chaos in the basement.

In a matter of days we had written three songs and, one year after Pumo’s email, we carted our guitars into town and started playing our way around the open mic nights, with acoustic versions of our songs.   Before long, however, we located the Monday night Lyrically Justified open mic night at Carpe Diem; home to rappers, confused emo girls and…a drum kit!  Here, before varying sizes of audiences, we would plug-in and blast out our three songs in full rock glory: Gay Bum, The Manly Song and Riders of Rohan – a ridiculous rock/metal epic in which Sam would drink beer through a funnel whilst drumming!  Before long we had added Big Face, Delta Dog Drive, Kraken, Vengeance By Fire and Hammer and Glory To Spetsnaz to our set and had established ourselves as a truly ridiculous alternative to the conventionally over-serious nonsense dominating the Leeds music scene.  We continued to play for the remainder of what was the final year of university for Edde, Sam and Phill – including piling all our stuff into a Mazda II and driving all the way to Cambridge University, where we played a summer garden party put on by Edde’s brother, Will.  When the year ended, we packed our stuff, sold our souls and caught a plane to California – stopping off at Edde’s the day before to record our first demo, Demonstration of Power: Gay Bum, The Manly Song and Delta Dog Drive.

Having spent two months abroad, Edde, Phill and Puma returned to the UK and our respective hometowns.  Sam, on the other hand, stayed in the USA to continue travelling; something he has continued to do ever since, with the exception of a brief visit home.  During that visit, we hit the studio again to record our second demo, Bloodlust and Boobies: Vengeance By Fire and Hammer, Riders of Rohan and Hooray For Boobies – technically the first song ever written by Gay Bum.  Before long, however, we were itching for some kind of new adventure.  Having caught the travel-bug, Phill jetted off to the Far East to continue discovering the world.  Edde and Puma however, being hungry for more music, decided to return to Leeds to see what new chaos they could cause.

Exactly one year after our first open mic performance, Edde and Puma moved back to Leeds – this time to number 240, Cardigan Road.  Within a matter of days, we had penned a collection of new songs and created ew, acoustic-adaptations of our old music.  We returned to the open mic scene at The Ship on the 3rd March, hammering out our new two-man style with all the balls of our old band – to find it went down rather well! From that moment onwards, we embarked on a relentless attack of every venue that would have us – boosting our sound by joining forces with bass-player Scott Wiles, Jon Bryan (drummer from Dexter Dexterous and the Fingersmiths) and local DJ, producer and all-round musical badass Mark Parvin.  Over the next five months, Puma and Edde played together over fifty times – we played everywhere from football clubs Wakefield to The Roadhouse in Manchester; to audiences ranging from groups of three to crowds of hundreds; we were loved and we were hated, but we kept on playing.

By the time our housing contract for 240 Cardigan Road ended in July, we had written a full album of music we affectionately named Tales From Cardigan Road.  Being broke and overly precious of our songs, we decided to record our next demo at home and, towards the end of July, Edde and Jon hit the studio for seven hours to record only the drums to our next project.  Armed with a CD of drum tracks, Scott then took to his bedroom and spent an afternoon laying down his bass-lines, before handing a flash-drive of drums n’ bass to Edde and Pumo to play with.  Staying in Leeds for another six weeks to work, Pumo started laying down the guitars to the demo and, on the 8th September Puma bought the music to Edde and we added the vocals to our third demo, Tales From Cardigan Road: Gay Bum, Sweet 16, Fuglies, Stay Away Bears!, 240 Cardigan Road, The Manly Song and All The Ladies Love Gay Bum. 

Armed with our new demo and a six-month housing contract for a place in Shoreditch, we headed to London to play the capital. For the first couple of months, things were hard; in London, people don’t want to put you on unless you can pull a crowd. Naturally, if you’ve never played in London, it’s pretty hard to pull a crowd… So we couldn’t play because we hadn’t played before…this wasn’t what we were used to. In Leeds, people put music on becuase they love music and people come to see bands play because they love music and want to find new bands. In London, people put music on because they want to make money and people go to see music because they want to be seen to be seeing whatever is popular at the time. Needless to say, this is why the London music scene is so hard to break into; people only want to see you if you’re cool, but to be cool you need to be seen.

After a few months of effort, things finally started to pay off and the gigs started coming thick and fast. Our final three months in London saw a mass of gigs, some of which we had the pleasure of playing with drummer Dan Spiller and bassist Kris Sawkins, of Sanctorum. Come the end of our housing contract, Edde moved back home and Puma stayed with various friends as we continued to play some gigs before Puma eventually left to go travelling in Canada with Phill and Sam, towards the end of May.

After a collection of gigs over the summer and some hard-earned holiday on either side, who knows what the next installment of Gay Bum is likely to be!