Heard Ya Missed Us WELL WE'RE BACK!

Formed in 1976 from the ashes of two great protopunk groups, London-based The Boys rode the first wave of the new musical revolution, recording four albums before disappearing only to rise again.

- Chris Wheatley

Ahead of their forthcoming new album, their first in over a decade, founding members singer/guitarist Matt Dangerfield and keyboard player Casino Steel recount the tale.
“For me,” says Steel, “it started with Jerry Lee Lewis. He just knocked me dead. I'd never heard anything like it, ever. I immediately loved it.” Steel, a self-taught musician, honed his skills playing in bands while at school. The keyboardist was still living in his home city of Trondheim, Norway, at the time, but later followed what seemed to him an inexorable call. “I had to go to London. I wanted to walk on Carnaby Street. I wanted to walk on the same soil as The Beatles and the Stones.” This was in 1968. “I loved it so much that I had to move there. And my first band in England was The Hollywood Brats, 1972.”

Now rightly regarded as an important precursor to punk, across their short lifetime The Hollywood Brats gained a large amount of notoriety but little commercial traction. “Everyone hated us,” he says, “which was intentional from our side, because we wanted to play something to annoy and disturb.”

Things could have turned out quite differently. “Malcolm McLaren called us up and asked us if we were interested in a new concept that he was going to start. Andrew [Matheson], our singer, said that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard in his life. So, fuck off.' That’s how I ended up passing on the Sex Pistols.”

Also self-taught, Matt Dangerfield had been playing with local bands around Leeds while at art college, before a move to London, where he joined influential proto-punk outfit, London SS, whose ranks included future Clash guitarist, Mick Jones. “We'd all heard of The Hollywood Brats and we knew they lived nearby. So we invited them to a sort of jam.”