Many bands have formed and folded over the years here in Exeter but one band have always stood out from the rest. The Absolute Zeros were one of the most raw and unique sounding groups to ever take to the stage in the early and mid 90's and their songs still remain relevant and inspiring. Jake Dyer, Andrew Walkey and Ed Lake discuss the past, present and even the possibility of The Absolute Zeros reforming. If you missed them the first time around then this could be your chance to witness one band that played every gig with uncompromising power.

PC: How and when did the band come together and why exactly did you decide to call it a day?

Jake: Andrew C, Ed and I all went to the same high school. By the time we were let loose at Exeter College we had hatched a plan to form a band. So instead of studying hard, we spent our time searching for band members. We had our first rehearsal in late 1991 and spent the first year or so learning to play. Most people would have become at least semi proficient at their instruments and then formed a band. We just wanted to get on and do something. Over this first year we had a couple of line up changes. One of which was our original bass player Shamus moving to Bournemouth and joining a glam rock band (big hair, make up and all). It wasn't until Andrew Walkey took over on bass, that we really started to take it more seriously. We could actually play by this point, and our teenage energy levels were reaching boiling point. We now had something focused to channel all that energy into.

All Four of us were always pulling in different directions. It was a constant struggle to keep everyone happy. Listening back to our recordings (especially 'take this and party') this conflict is what made the band much more interesting than the majority of more straight ahead bands. At the time though it got draining. Everything is always more of a drama when you're younger. In the end we were also all at different Universities and so geographically it was also hard to practice. We did a farewell set of gigs in the summer holidays of 94 (which turned out to be our best) and then ended with an appearance on Bristol Cable TV that Christmas.

PC: What memories do you have of Exeter gigs that you played back then and the whole music scene in general. How much support did you receive from people down here?

Andrew W: Great memories....lots of gigs - some better than others but always a laugh. Cavern Club in Exeter always had a good atmosphere (despite it being small). Other local bands we shared a line-up with usually guaranteed a fairly large turnout. Talented bands from Devon used to regularly play at the Cavern and similar venues - Does this happen any more?

J: The gigs were always chaotic to say the least. We would get so nervous and energised before a gig that by the time we took to the stage, we'd just tear through the set. Nearly every gig Andrew C would have bleeding fingers by the end. There would always be broken guitar strings, or the drum kit would fall apart, but when it worked it was great. There are so many memories it's hard to choose the highlights. The Cavern was always a cool place to play and we always got a good reception. We even had some young groupies there, who are all grown up now. I remember traveling back from Bristol in my clapped out Ford Fiesta, after playing with Goober Patrol and Guns N Wankers. We played a great gig and even survived a beating from one of the bands, when Ed bust the bass drum skin during our set. There were also great nights with Useful Idiot and Plasterscene, at the Arts Centre (now the Phoenix). I think that was one of the gigs Ed organised? Andrew smashing me in the face with the head of his guitar in Cardiff, after only one song. I sang the rest of the set with a bleeding mouth. I'll save the rest for my memoirs.

It was a good scene in Exeter back then. There were loads of bands an always lots of gigs to go see. I'm glad it still seems to be going strong and that Dave and the rest of the Cavern are getting the national recognition they deserve.

PC: Why did you decide to put the "Musical Roastings" CD together and do you have any certain plans or ambitions with it. Is the epo label your own and do you intend to put other bands stuff out there?

Ed: I think Jake had it in mind to put together the CD for quite a while because so many people were pestering him. As we are all approaching 30 it was a good way to document what we had achieved. The label is being put together by myself and Jake. It's a slow progress at the moment, which is mainly my fault as I've also recently started up my own business. The plan for the label is to become more a marketing company for bands. We have seen so many bands that were fantastic, only to fall apart because of a lack of commercial awareness.

J: When The Absolute Zeros were going it was cassette tapes, or if you were lucky and got the opportunity, vinyl. These days demos are nearly always cd's, so I thought it was time the Zeros got brought into the digital age. I'd been planning to do a compilation of our tapes for ages, but never got round to it. It was initially just for the four of us, as a record of what we'd done together, but then Ed and I came up with the epo idea. Creating a label gave the cd a bit less of a demo feel, more an anthology vibe. It was basically the product of a drunken get together and hasn't really been followed through yet. It's still in our minds to do more with it. Ed's more the business man than me, so when he's got more time to put into it, we'd like to release material by other bands. There's so many great groups out there who disappear without people hearing them.

PC: What are the band members up to and have there been any musical projects after the Absolute Zeros ended?

AW: Me, living/working full time in Torrington. Still playing but mainly as a hobby.

E: As I mentioned above I've started my own business and am also studying part-time for my M.B.A. I also want to get the label up and running as well as loads of other projects I've got in mind.

J: Since moving to Cambridge I dabbled in a couple of noise rock bands and then finally got something decent together a couple of years ago. We are called The Visit (now The Furious Sleep). In lots of ways it reminds me of AZ. It's another bunch of musicians, who don't necessarily like the same sort of music, but we really like the noise we produce. Lots of energy and shouting, but there's also lashings of intricacies. It'd been described as weirdocore, or a mix of Post/Rock/Punk/Prog! Who knows? http://www.thefurioussleep.com.

PC: I've never been able to put a definite musical tag on your music. What would you say influenced your stuff the most and what have you been listening to recently.

AW: My taste is quite heavy. Used to range from Smashing Pumpkins to Metallica. Now Deftones, Foofighters, Incubus.

E: Of course Bad news have always been a big influence! We all had pretty diverse tastes in music. I was mainly in to bands like Buffalo Tom, Fugazi, Manic Street Preachers, The Supersuckers, New Bomb Turks etc. Recently I've been constantly listening to a band called Small Brown Bike, absolutely fantastic!! Others include Boy Sets Fire, Everclear, Transplants and some Rollins spoken word stuff.

J: We didn't ever say we want to sound like this band or that style. We just brought whatever we had to the band and chucked it into the mix. In my early teenage years I was really into bands like Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Metallica. It wasn't until I discovered the Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Misfits, Mudhoney or ever AC/DC and Guns N Roses that I even thought about being in a band. The heavy metal image is all tied in with more of a fantasy theme, which was cool for an escape when you're into comics and star wars. It was the reality of punk and the more down to earth rock groups, that made me sit up and listen. Girls, politics, angst and booze, now that was interesting to me.

The best live band I've seen in ages are the Wolves! (of Greece) (featuring ex-members of Bob Tilton). They are the most intense 20 minutes of music you'll ever see. Last time I saw them the singer had blood pouring out of his nose within the first track, and by the end one of the PA speakers was smoking. I still listen to all the bands I used to, but now there's lots of others as well. Fugazi, Alice Donut, Ride, Chris TT, Madonna, The Beatles, Public Enemy, NWA, I am Spartacus, Pavement, Six by Seven, Jane's Addiction, Girls Aloud, The Stones, Thursday, and that's just what I've been listening to this week. When it comes down to it though, it's still hard to beat a great live guitar band though. Loud guitars and energy, that still gets me going.

PC: Will there be any chance of getting the band back together at any point for a one off gig or perhaps something more than that?

AW: Attempt is under way to reform the band. Difficulty is distance problem. We don't all live in Devon anymore.

E: Well, I'm sure somewhere in this interview someone's mentioned that we've had a few dips back into playing again. I've bought myself an Arbiter Flats portable kit so can travel a bit more easily to our now disperses locations. I'd love to get the band back together again. I have been thinking of organising some more gigs. I've promoted a few in the past and they were great fun. Perhaps we could go third on the bill and ease ourselves back in gently!

J: As soon as I'd sent the others their copy of Musical Roastings, they were on the phone or sending me an email, saying how much they loved it. I think we were a bit shocked at how good the songs still sounded, and how well we played together. So inevitably the talk did come round to playing again. The news so far is that this month we are getting together for our first rehearsal in 7 years. Ed, Andrew W and I (Andrew C was on holiday) had a quick jam at Easter, which was great fun and made up our minds to do it again. There's no plans for gigs yet, but I'm sure it would be a great laugh if we did some.

PC: From the three demos that you put out you seemed to cover a lot of subjects. What inspired a lot of your writing and for instance what are songs like "Cabbage Farm" and "No Matter" about?

J: Personally it's cool that so many people have picked up on the lyrics as being one of the bands strengths. I'm dyslexic, can't spell and I used to really hate writing! So how the words came out so well, I'm not sure. I only ended up being the singer in AZ because I got too scared to play guitar at the 1st rehearsal. I just picked up the inaudible microphone and shouted away for the rest of the session. It didn't even occur to me that I would have to write words! 12 years later I'm still doing it, so it must have been the right move. Subject wise it's always been stuff that pisses me off, that gets written about. I wouldn't say it was negative, there's always been a certain amount of humor in what I've written. That's the Englishman in me. Even if your going to put the boot into someone, you don't have to be rude about it.

No Matter was the first set of words I wrote. They were a general kiss off to many of the idiots we had to put up with at school. Cabbage Farm I remember being very pleased with, at the time. That one was spawned from my Saturday job at Whimpy (which was soon taken over my Murder King). I hated it. It was so boring, all I did each saturday was put the burgers and buns on the grilling machine. The only good thing was the flame grilled meatballs that I used to make for myself and the cathartic expletive shouting sessions, we used to have in the sound proof freezer. As the band developed so did my words. The later lyrics, like We Were Geeks, No Revs No Maids, This Song isn't About You, Another Day Wasted, God's Toilet (a bit of a crap title, but great words), were more human and held more of the humor that I was talking about earlier. I think these work best. The early stuff was more subject specific: work, bad friends, music business, rules etc. Some of these are a bit too blatant for my taste now, and I was too obsessed with making them rhyme, but they still make me smile. I think even these older one's could still strike a chord with someone, and that's the main point really.

PC: Are you quite happy with what you archived during your time or are there things that you think you could have done?

AW: Very happy. Of course, some gigs & recordings could have been better but so what? Especially happy with tracks like We Were Geeks (catchy tune).

E: There is so much more that we should have archived. It's hard not to have some regrets. It would have been nice to have the confidence I have now back then and perhaps had more courage to pursue the band rather than go to University. We had just learned how to play and then it all fell apart!

J: When we split it felt like we hadn't really reached our full potential. As soon as we became good enough to take the band to a higher level, we called it a day. Which is a shame, but the same thing has happened to many a great band. Looking back on it now, it's easier to be more satisfied. Considering we were just four boys from Exeter, with no money and hardly any equipment, we did great. Off our own backs we played gigs in Bristol, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Gloucester and Cardiff. We recorded three demo tapes, which we sold and distributed loads of. My only real regrets are we didn't really know what we had at the time and that we didn't manage to get a 7" released by a label.

PC: In the early 90's there was the grunge and indie scene which was very successful. Do you think that modern day music is lacking that type of movement where people can identify with the music and each other?

AW: Not to mention that some/all modern music seems boring (of course I realise I remember things from my teens being exciting because I was young). there seems to be a lack of identity and general sparkle with modern day music. I never liked pop so I won't comment on that, but I just hope that the existing rock music scene will inspire kids to pick up the guitar in the way it worked for my generation. About the Grunge scene, I remember how it seemed that everyone was into Nirvana. I liked them too, although I didn't have the T-shirt and every CD. While I always considered Nirvana to be disproportionately popular as a result of the hype and timing of Nevermind, I look back and miss the grunge bands, long hair, doc martins and simple guitar parts.

J: I'm not sure if it's a lack of movement so much, but a lack of balls. Record companies are too worried about making a profit to take a risk on anything they can't easily market. There are so many great groups all over this country that would sell loads of records given the chance, but all the major labels are worried about is trying to stop music file sharing. If they took their heads out of each others arses they might realise what's going on. Instead of trying to stamp out this development, why don't they use it as a tool for advertising. I've lost count of the number of cd's I have purchased after first downloading a song. Anyway sorry for going off on one there, and now back to the question. Grunge spawned some great bands, but scenes always fall out of favor with the press. The bands involved than spend their time explaining how they were never part of it in the first place. So I don't really like scenes. I just love great music.

PC: On the "Year Zero" compilation it mentioned that you had your own zine going at one point. Do you still involve yourselves with that style of underground communication and are you unhappy that you never made it onto the compilation after being involved in the Exeter punk scene for quite a number of years?

E: The zine was something I put together in conjunction with the gig promotion. I would like to publish something again, if I can find the time. Perhaps I'll start again by writing some articles for zine's etc. If anyone wants any help, let me know.

J: The Dead Naive zine was Ed's baby, but I remember writing a piece about Andy Christ and His Biblical Mice. Actually they were probably my favorite Exeter band, from that period. They were so funny, and sloppy, but yet so good. Exeter has had such a long history of producing music, that it must have been difficult to select the bands for the YZ compilation. I think we would have stood up well with the one's that were chosen. If there was a second volume, I would expect to be on that one more. It's basically just nice to be remembered.

PC: What are your future plans?

AW: Keep playing.

E: I think we'll see how the rehearsals go and if we can still play....who knows..

J: I'm hoping to play some dates around the country, hopefully including the Cavern, with The Visit. Then depending on the Absolute Zeros imminent rehearsal, hopefully with them as well. Getting epo records off the ground would be great too.

PC: Final Comments.

J: It's so much more creative to spend your time playing in a band (no matter how good/crap you are), than hanging around on street corners causing trouble. Plus you get laid a lot more.

(This interview was first published in Positive Creed Fanzine Issue 6. To get your self a copy of this great fanzine please contact: Positive Creed Fanzine. 17a Charnley Ave, St Thomas, Exeter, Devon, EX4 1RD (50p + A5 SAE))