Briar were formed in 1979, by
schoolfriends Kevin Griffiths (Vox/Guitar), Dean
Cook (Drums), Dean Rogers (Guitar) & David
Tattum (Bass), initially as a bit of fun to
impress their mates, it is said the guy's played
many gigs for friends in drummer Dean's
frontroom......actually miming to Black Sabbath
records, the mates were apparently impressed
until one day.....the vinyl record they were
miming to started to jump and kinda blew the
guy's charade out of the water !! mmmmmmmm......
The band had used names such as Lucifer, Ark
& Emerald in the early days....eventually
settling with Briar when the they got pissed off
changing names all the time !, the band started
proper when Dean & Kevin went to see a band
at the Solihull YMCA (no jokes please !) the band
were called Streetcruiser and were fronted by a
cool dude vocalist, as soon as the chaps saw this
event they were hooked...........drummer Dean
later said, "it was like a wonderfull dream,
we watched the loudest band we had ever heard in
our lives, they were like so loud, I couldn't
hear for about a week after !! and they were
fronted by this geeza who screemed as loud as
possible over this noise, that kinda resembled
music !!......it was bloody awesome
!"..................the two guy's were
hooked, they soon found out the vocalist in
question George Bond only lived around the corner
from them !.
His life (sadly for him ! tee hee !) would never
be the same again. Briar needed a manager and
Dean & Kev were determined he was their man.
Dean remembers "George had this little
Marshall Amp a little 30 watt combo, I think and
we were round their everynight asking to borrow
it for our rehearsals at David Tattum's
house", George allowed the guy's to use the
amp, but was apparently none too impressed when
he found out, 3 guitars & 2 vocalists were
all plugged into it, George remembers " I
was invited to check the band out at the bassists
house, they had turfed his mom & dad out for
the night and set the gear up in the front room,
the band started playing....it was the worst
thing I had ever heard, I stopped them and said,
have you tuned up, they nodded....and smiled,
then I realised, they had, but not together, so
you had 3 guitarists, tuned perfectly in
completelly different keys.....they never sounded
(quite) that bad again !".
The bands first gig under the Briar name was in
1980 at The Cameronian Club, Bromford, Birmingham
to a huge crowd of friends.
George was eventually convinced that taking on
the band was a wise move and soon the band were
gigging all over The Midlands, in this time a new
bassist was recruited named John Smith, they
quickly went from strenght to strenght,
supporting the likes of "Cryer",
"Bandanna", "Shy" &
"Trouble".
In 1982 the line up changed and Darren Underwood
& Dave Fletcher were recruited for the
departing Dean Rogers, soon after John Smith also
left the band and Kevin Griffiths took up bass
guitar !, the new linup was Kevin Griffiths (Bass
& Vox), Darren Underwood (Guitar &
B.V's), Dave Fletcher (Guitar & B.V's) &
Dean Cook (Drums & B.V's).
In 1982 the first Briar 7" single was
released on (producer/writer Muff Murfin's)
Worcester indie label Happy Face Records, the
vinyl recieved brilliant press from the start,
metal magazine KERRANG claiming "Another new
band on their way to stardom !".
The first big break came when (then) top radio 1
DJ Peter Powell gave the band their first (of
many!) BBC radio session's plus he dicided to put
the band on their first live TV appearance on his
top viewed programme "The Oxford
Roadshow".
The appearances were a huge success for the band,
who were now commonplace names at such top London
venues as The Marquee (Wardour St), Dingwalls
etc, the band then won a top Birmingham band
competition called "The Hottest Band in
Town" run by magazine Brum Beat, soon after
that the band inked their first proper record
deal with FM/HM Records and the first album
"Too Young" (recorded at UB40's DEP
studio) was released again with great reviews
from UK rock press.
The band then started playing to full houses at
such bigger venues as "The
Hummingbird", "The Powerhouse"
etc, in Birmingham plus playing support to (at
the time) top bands such as Tygers Of Pantang,
Statetrooper, Eddie & The Hot Rods &
Angel Witch.
The band biggest break came in 1986 when they had
put out a new longplayer titled "Take On The
World", a great album of powerchord 80's pop
metal !! still a favourite with many fans, pop
guru Jonathan King rung the band up and decided
Briar were just what the UK rock scene needed,
the band were signed to his management company
"JonJo" & George Bond was installed
as full time personnal manager to the band, with
Jonathan & (his brother) Andy as business
managers.
A new record deal with PRT was signed and a new
single put out "Edge of a broken heart"
was the bands first hit, No 1 in the national
rock charts, ahead of the likes of Def Leppard
& Whitesnake, the song eventually reached
only lower reaches of top 50 in the national
singles chart, owing to Gallup (chart organiser)
banning it because Jonathan King had plugged it 2
weeks running in his "The Sun" national
newspaper column.
Things went one better when top USA metal band
Stryper picked Briar for their only UK date at
The Hammersmith Odeon, this was a huge success
for Briar, one Metal Hammer (Magazine) reviewer
wrote: "I turned up late and went home
early, I only regret arriving late, because Briar
took the roof of The Hammersmith" he went on
to slag Stryper off....Briar members weren't too
pleased tho ! as they were huge Stryper fans !!.
Briar now were doing gigs everywhere to full
houses and in 1988 a new worldwide record deal
was signed with CBS/Columbia and a new album
album was released titled "Crown Of
Thorns" and a new single titled
"Frankie", in the UK thru JK's label
UK/Pinnacle & CBS the rest of the world, but
altho things were one the up the band were
becoming dissalusioned with things, the band had
recorded a new album's worth of material titled
"Reach Out" which was never given an
official release (much to their dissapointment !)
and there were still influential people who felt
with a major label release "Take on the
world" would break the band worldwide.
This wasn't to be and officially the band parted
company with Jonathan King in 1990 after the
band's last major label 7" release "One
Monkey" on A&M Records.
At this point band manager George Bond set up his
own label Shotgun Charlie Records and put out
7" Gimme All You Got, this marked the return
of Briar to their powerchord pop/metal roots, but
years of struggle/success/struggle had taken its
toll on the band and the first to leave the ranks
was Dave Fletcher, then Darren Underwood, by 1992
the lineup had almost totally changed Kevin
Billington (Vox), Kevin Griffiths (Bass &
Vox), Dean Cook (Drums & B.V's), Mark
Carleton (Guitar) & Jez Prosser (Keyboards).
The band put out one more single "All She
Wants" & an album "Hard
Times", the album being a neat keyboard/Bon
Jovi'esque release, but alas by 1993 Briar was no
more. iSOUND.COM
