TEEN SPIRIT

Of all the first-wave punk bands, Eater were arguably the truest to form.

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Aged 13 to 17, with three of the four members still at school, they gobbled up the movement's DIY ethos and rebellious style and, on learning three chords after listening to Ramones' self-titled debut album on import, wrote songs in their bedroom which they then honed onstage at London punk Mecca, The Roxy. Theirs was a firework career, lasting just one album before they split in 1979. Now leader Andy Blade has reformed the band to release their long-awaited second LP. “We’ve given them what they want,” he tells Lois Wilson

On a video call to Record Collector from his Surrey home, Eater's affable founder and singer, Andy Blade, in his trademark baseball cap and shades, looks back.

“We had no baggage. Conceptually we were the purest,” he declares. “We started from a standing jump then we were off.”

Formed in 1976 and all over by 1979, Eater, named after a line from the T.Rex song Suneye – “Tyrannosaurus Rex, the eater of cars” – issued a run of five singles beginning with 1977's Outside View. None charted but all were naive bursts of spunky energy, while their album, 1977's simply titled The Album, embodied the teen punk ideal. “It was fun,” Andy Blade reminisces. “But then punk changed. When we started out, the bands were all different: Sex Pistols, The Damned, Buzzcocks etc. Everyone did their own thing. Later, it became a caricature.”

Born Ashruf Radwan to an Egyptian father and English mother, Blade grew up in Finchley, north London and was touched by glam: Sparks were his favourite, but he also loved T.Rex, David Bowie and Alice Cooper. After reading about The Sex Pistols in Sounds magazine, he had his head turned and formed his own punk band with his school pal Brian Chevette, his bandmate's real name Brian Haddock.