History

For pressing legal and security reasons it is not possible to go into any details regarding Brock himself just at the moment. This situation could change at short notice, and Brock has assured everyone that he will let us know as soon as possible when we can reveal further details regarding his identity. We live in hope that one of these days he'll actually turn up at a Badgers' gig….

Anyway, for some reason best known to himself, Brock insisted we put some blurb here about ourselves and what sort of music we liked etc. - so here goes...

GEAR

Main guitar used is a PRS Swamp Ash Special. I like PRS guitars because they’re easy to string and they stay in tune no matter how hard you bend them (strings as well). They should be paying me for saying this…
I do have five other guitars (2 more PRSs, a Yankee Strat, a Tom Anderson Strat, and a really nice 1997 Les Paul Standard) – but I’m not one for chopping and changing and for the last few years simply cannot stop playing the Swamp Ash. Strange really, coz the big selling feature of this guitar is its versatility of sound, yet I almost never use the Vintage Rails single coil pick-up at all…

After trying lots of different amps (including Marshall, Kustom and Mesa Boogie) I am currently very happily settled with my Diezel VH4 100W head and angled 4 x 12 Orange Cab (superb construction and miles better than the Marshall 4x12 cabs in my opinion). My second favourite is a VHT Pitbull 50w combo which I use as a back-up when playing live.
I have loads of pedals but rarely use anything other than the Dunlop Cry-Baby. The Seymour Duncans and 6L6s seem to obviate the need for most pedals …

Charlie Chandler in Hampton Wick looks after my guitars (guitarexperience.co.uk)

INFLUENCES etc.

I was born in 1954 and started playing electric guitar in 1968 after borrowing a copy of Hendrix’s first album and buying a copy of his second (Axis). But before that I’d been listening to all my mum’s top twenty 45s from the ‘fifties and very early ‘sixties. Although no-one else in our family played any musical instruments, my folks bought loads of popular music and I spent endless hours listening to everything they bought. I’ve been listening to all kinds of styles ever since and now no longer know what “type” or “genre” of music might best describe my musical proclivities. However, without doubt Hendrix has been my musical mentor from the very start of my introduction to the world of making music…but along the way more and more musical doors keep opening…

GUITAR FAVS

In the interests of brevity I’ll keep this as short as possible. Hendrix; Clapton; Gallagher; Green; Lee.

BAND FAVS

Hendrix; Temperance Seven; Stranglers; Groundhogs; Rory Gallagher; Aynsley Lister; The Attendants; Mano Negra; Dylan; The Ruts; Barry White; Peter Green; Undertones; Tim Rose; Nat King Cole; Bonzo Dog Dooh-Dah Band; The Clash; Mozart; Yello; Taj Mahal; John Martyn; Johnny and the Hurricanes…

ALBUMS

Are You Experienced; Disraeli Gears; Piper At The Gates OF Dawn; 33 Not Out; Fleetwood Mac (the first album); Electric Mud; Tres Hombres; Highway 61 Revisited; The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse; South Sea Pacific; Safe As Milk; Gutbucket (and Son Of too!)

SONGS

Up From The Skies; Love Will Tear Us Apart; Lost In The Supermarket; SUS; Red House; My Boomerang Won’t Come Back; Sympathy For The Devil; Strawberry Fields; Astronime Domine; Big Shot; On Safari; Rockin’ Goose; Good Vibrations; Fire; In My Own Time; Pretty Vacant; Magic Bus; Voodoo Chile (Slight Return); Cherry Red; Morning Dew; Man In The Long Black Coat; The Electric Co.; Going Up The Country; Walking On The Moon; I’m Going Home (by Helicopter).

Gear:
It has been well established that Badger 2 has a growing collection of axes, soon to rival the now infamous collection of Mr. Entwistle himself. However, despite the slings and arrows of outrageous financial misfortune at present, Badger 2 maintains to uphold the ethic of all good musicians, "I want two of everything". With this in mind, his gig setup is prone to change from venue to venue. Currently Badger 2 favours a heavily customised Fender Urge I and an active fretless bass made by Vintage to give a nice resonance to the low end on such new and original numbers as "Lemme Down (Real Slow)" and "Don't Leave Me Now". A heavily customised Peavey Milestone III Bass was also used during the studio sessions for the new album "Tales From The Riverbank". Other axes include his original Peavey Milestone III, a Gibson EB-3, a Brunswick acoustic, a Brownsville “bat” bass, a custom Gibson Explorer/Firebird, a rare Kramer 8-string, and his Jazz Double Bass.
Live, Badger 2 plays through a Peavey 450 Watt ¾ stack with the bottom mid EQ pushed slightly and the speaker horns slightly muted to give a tight and funky sound. To this end, Badger 2 favours a high gain, mid-treble set up on his bass which allows him to effectively switch between plucked, strummed, tapped and slapped passages. A 300 Watt Trace Elliot is held as a spare, although it has been used live in stereo alongside his Peavey cab.
Pedals include the Dunlop 105Q Bass Wah, Electro Harmonix Big Muff, Sovtek Small Stone Phaser, an Artec True Bypass Analogue Tuner and a Boss RC-20XL Loop Station. However, the pedal most in use is the MXR Microamp, which allows a boost in gain needed for his slap and tap work to cut through live.

Influences:
Badger 2's eclectic taste in music includes too many great artists to mention here. However, several bass players' styles have left their mark on his fingers and thumb, including Jack Bruce, Stu Hamm, Flea, Victor Wooten, Andy Fraser, Stanley Clarke, Jean Jacques Burnel, Leo Lyons, John Entwistle, Larry Graham and Abe Laboriel amongst others.

Bands that have shaped his musical palette range from funk to jazz, rock to electronica and blues to folk. Most notably, these artists include The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Bob Dylan, Cream, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dispatch, The Knife, Hangman Charlie, The Beatles, Free, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After, John Frusciante, The Beach Boys, The Who, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, War.

Desert Island Albums
Axis: Bold As Love – The Jimi Hendrix Experience Blood On The Tracks – Bob Dylan Californication – Red Hot Chili Peppers A Rush Of Blood To The Head – Coldplay White Ladder – David Gray Deep Cuts – The Knife The Roaring Silence – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band Fever To Tell – Yeah Yeah Yeahs Bang Bang – Dispatch Uprising! – Bob Marley and The Wailers

Drumming influences – Ginger Baker definitely; and too many others to mention, most of which are dead too.

Equipment used – I am a collector of ‘classic’ drums (as opposed to ‘Vintage’ drums); so at the last count I had 13 bass drums, 38 toms and 7 snare drums, 34 cymbals, 22 pedals and enough hardware to re-build the Eiffel Tower.
With Brock I use all double kick drum set-ups, either a double chrome Premier birch shell kit, a double chrome Pearl mahogany shell kit, a double Ludwig stainless steel kit or my latest acquisition a double black Ludwig maple kit. I use all Paiste cymbals and have also recently changed to Vic Firth ‘American Classic’ 7A Hickory nylon tipped sticks and mainly Evans heads.
I am a quiet and pensive drummer; mainly because I am normally so exhausted after setting up all my gear, that I sleep through the rest of the sett.

Musical History - I am most well known for being Gary Numan's first drummer, first with Tubeway Army and then with his own backing band. However I have been much more unsuccessful in many more musical spheres than that.
I have gigged and recorded with a host of musicians over the years from players in Motorhead to Tommy Cooper, backing magicians, playing jazz, blues, pop, rock, avant garde, sequence dance, folk through to theatre work. Some I even got paid for.

In recording terms I played on the No 1 single ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric and No 1 album ‘Replicas’ earning Gold and Silver discs around the world and the hit No1 again playing on the 2002 Sugarbabes hit ‘Freak Like Me’. I played on a further 3 Top singles and 6 top 20 albums together with over 30 compilation albums, including a further 5 top 20 compilation album chart entries. Of course, there is also the Brock and the Badgers product, which is predicted to outsell everything.
On radio, apart from normal airplay, I have also broadcast live from Radio Luxembourg, done Radio 2 ‘in concert’ and a number of ‘ live in the studio’ tracks on the ‘John Peel Show’. (before he died, of course).

In terms of commercials, jingles and TV themes, you may have heard me play on Channel 4's ‘How to be a fashion model’, BBC's ‘Lenny Henry show’, the London Fashion show, London Congestion charge theme and the jingles for Carling Beer and Rimmell hair products (which is a bit ironic as I’m a totally bald, wine drinker.).

My film and TV drum credits include appearances on ‘Top of the Pops’, the Old Grey Whistle Test’, the ‘Kenny Everett Show’ and not forgetting ‘Sunday Worship’; although I should forget the music to the 1980 Robert Stigwood film ‘Times Square’. Somehow I also managed to get interviewed for a 1985 ‘World-in-Action’ programme and Channel 4’s “Top Ten of” series of programmes in 2000 and 2002. The last appearance being particularly embarrassing as some 80 minutes before interview airtime, I accidentally knocked my 2 front teeth out. Desperate to retrieve the appearance fee, I ‘superglued’ my teeth back in but also succeeded in glueing them to my top lip. This meant I did the whole interview facially looking and sounding like some incoherent old colonel. Curiously that was the last programme I was booked for.

The biggest gig I have ever played was the 1981 ‘Save the Children’ concert at Wembley Arena, which was simultaneously broadcast in stereo on Radio 2, televised on BBC 2 and a number of European TV channels to an estimated total audience of some 20 million people. This concert is available on video and most would conclude that the look of total terror seen on my face is because of the size of the audience. That would have been the case had I worn my spectacles so I could see them; but the terror was much closer than that, as the 12’ drum riser that I was perched on started to come apart and I was trying to play and stop my drum stool going down a 6” crack immediately beneath me.

I would like to say that was my most ignominious exit, but that particular dismissal belongs to the time when I was sacked from the big band at a large London hotel, when the director realised that the music arrangement that I was supposed to be sight reading on my music stand was actually ‘The Daily Telegraph’ ( it was a really interesting article on compost, actually). However I was sacked.

Finally to end my story, I first met and started arguing with Badger 1 – Mark Bond, about 1972 when we were both booked for a scratch band called ‘Arnold and the Wasps’. That argument continued for a few years whilst various combos metamorphed into ‘Brock and the Badgers (Mark1)‘. Then we paused for about 20 years; mainly so we could become unsuccessful elsewhere and our bass player could be born.

At the start of the century, I heard that Mark was trying to contact me again, obviously for a decent row.

Badger 1 had formed the new millennium ‘ Brock and the Badgers’ band with his son Bert.

I joined this new band and immediately started a decent argument with Mark; unfortunately he is an extremely inspirational guitar player and gifted songwriter, but is wrong about almost everything else and won’t admit it.

It was about this time I first met Badger 2 - Bert Bond and realised that he was going to be both the ‘heartthrob’ of the band and a very clever,creative,dynamic and driving bass player. Unfortunately I also realised he had also caught an affliction very early on, that affects most life long musicians. That is EGS (Excessive Gear Syndrome). In fact, I calculate that by the time he is my age, he will own 3062 bass guitars and 19 double basses. I just hope that they discover some sort of placebo substance soon to help him.

I don’t know what I am supposed to write or play now, but whatever it is I just hope and dream that I will get paid for it.

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