"Pernod and blackcurrant in a pint of Stella Artois." It could be a metaphor for York's SCARY, whose swirling, moody cover versions evoke a beat-up landscape of raw and powerful rawk noise with the ghostly remembrance of the originals lurking in their air-raid shelters. Actually, it used to be Roj's favourite tipple.
"I think I'll try it for breakfast," muses Roj Butler-Ellis, who, alongside Paul Martin, forms the central core of this anti-media musical militia. They've aroused attention as a band that spurns the over-hyped commercialism of releasing singles and albums, relying instead on word of mouth and unpublicised appearances to bring their individual vision to today's music scene.
One from the North and one from the South, they combine talents in a fusion of blues and progressive rock. Together they draw from a deep well-spring of accumulated material, their respective CD collections sample every conceivable genre.
It's half-past eleven, York time, and things have begun to spiral out of control. The double-headed rawk monster that is SCARY have been shoe-horned into a living-room near you. The amps are cranked up to eleven and the neighbours are crawling up the walls. Time for one last blast, and blast they do, into two final Oasis covers that make you itch to ditch the originals.
"We absorb everything that we've ever listened to," explains Paul. "It's easy to see the rock element in our music, but someone who's into Eric Clapton might listen to the guitar lines and and go, 'You were influenced by Clapton'."
SCARY are a band who might inspire people to shatter stereotypes, to debunk accepted iconography, to peer over the the edge and check out the view. They will inspire others to follow in their tracks. Their time is now.
Altogether, a cause for celebration then. Bartender, two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, PLEASE!
Hello fans, and welcome to our web-site. This is a bit of a new venture for us,
and one we hope that will enable us to keep you up to date with all the band news.
We are hoping to extend this site to include photographs of the band, sound-bites,
merchandise offers and maybe even video footage!
1998 has been a good year for SCARY, we have
greatly extended the range of our material, and hopefully, improved technically. This year
also saw our first appearance at V98 and there are plans afoot for V99 at Leeds.
We are looking forward to 1999 and the possibility of an album release. In
the meantime, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy
Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Rock like a ... rock!
There have been some changes in the management line-up, so let me introduce you to the new people. First up is our musical director, P Kay. Gary "Snapper" Smith has been appointed as official SCARY photographer, so tune in for band photographs which we hope to have on-site shortly. Future recordings from SCARY will be coming from MacAbre Records under the direction of Jolly Roger MacAbre (you can't miss him, he has a black eye-patch, honest!).
Just one more gig before 1999, so keep listening on the grapevine and you could be in the audience. If we don't see you there, have a Merry Xmas and we'll catch you in the New Year.
Dateline .. Thursday 10 Dec 1998, and a rare appearance by gig-shy
SCARY, when they turned up at a
well known cyber-cafe in York, England, and performed an impromptu set.
The band played a series of covers before mingling with net-sufers.
Joint supremo of MacAbre Records, Jolly Roger MacAbre, today confirmed rumours of the so-called SCARY missing tapes. Apparently, rhythm guitarist 'Sorry' Butler-Ellis had recorded a nine minute psychedelic backing track of distorted guitar noises on a karaoke machine. When he later awoke from a drink induced stupor, the tapes were found to be missing. North Yorkshire police were unable to establish whether the studio had been broken into as it is always a mess anyway.
SCARY were among guests at this years Brute Awards. These awards are sponsored by Fatbeige and take the form of a small, green glass bottle of after-shave with a distinctive silver emblem around the neck. The stage was decorated as a small cottage and hostess for the evening, Zoe Gonad, was dressed as Snow White. Some of the highlights were:
Strong rumours of a forth-coming tour were today being denied by founder band members
Paul 'Noodler' Martin and Roger 'Sorry' Butler-Ellis.
Pressure is mounting on the band to take to the road with their exciting new set-list
of covers, and their inedible stage-show.
The manager of York's Fibbers is reported as saying "Who the hell are you on about?"