Crud World Domination Enterprises give you
SYMBOL OF FREEDOM
Symbol of Freedom
originally formed under the name Drab Confusion and consisted of Steve Bloomer
(drums) Rodney ‘Yan’ Leyshon (guitar), Lyndon ‘Foxy’ Fox (bass) and a guy
called John Jones (guitar).
They first started around 1981 in Pontypridd practicing in Steve’s
grandmother’s front room. John left soon afterwards
Kevin ‘Scottie’ Hunt
(vocals) joined around 1982 about the same time the band changed the name to
Symbol Of Freedom.
By this time SoF had the luxury of practicing in a garage and actually owning a
drum kit, before this Steve was using tins, bins etc and they used to look for
straight bits of wood before practice as drumsticks. 5 watt practice amps were
replaced with 50 watt amps and even a fuzz box.
This was the start of
the “real” SoF. Steve was writing most of the songs at this point with a few
from Scottie. They did mostly their own stuff with a few covers thrown in.
Steve and Scottie were
the politically minded members although if my memory is correct we all used to
go to young socialist meetings and marches supporting the miners who were on
strike. We soon tired of the socialist movement and started
To get more involved
with the animal right movement that was more direct and to be honest far more
exciting. And this is where most of our lyrics
came from.
As for how we all met
simple we went to school together and were already good mates with a love of
punk rock (Foxy also had a fondness for Chas and Dave strange we would be
buying Crass records and he would buy “gercha”and “rabbit”etc)
When we were not
practicing we used to go to the local YMCA which was run buy a woman called Mrs
Price who encouraged what we were doing and offered us the use of the building
when it was not in use (Sundays) by this time we were all out of school and out
of work. The miners had been defeated Thatcher and Reagan ruled the world there
was a threat of nuclear war. We were skint bored and angry just right for the
scene at the time we were listening to Conflict Crass Flux icons of filth etc
along with more mainstream punk anti nowhere league peter and the test tube
babies and not forgetting Chas and Dave
Also at the time a
number of other band sprung up All Teeth And Make Up, Rachael’s Ravenous
Offspring to name but two although these band were not punk bands we all got on
well eventually coming together to arrange the first gig to feature SoF
The gig was ok with mostly our own songs but also covers of
pretty vacant and so what. The gig took place in the Victoria club in Pontypridd
Jan 1985 20yrs on people still come up to me to talk about the gig not for our blistering set our rabid energy
or because it changed their lives forever
why then I hear you ask
because the ceiling of the stage was very low and in the middle our one
of our songs I jumped up and smashed my head on a strip light cutting my head
and covering me and the stage with glass the rest of the band were laughing so
much we had to stop Steve fell off the
drum stool
Soon after this we
recorded our first demo we did it in the YMCA recorded as if it was live but
with only the band and the engineer there. This turned out ok and feature one
of my favourite SoF tracks “What’s your alternative? “ which I happened to
write and was about Anarchy and what alternative there are to the “system” and
basically saying I didn’t have the answers. Around this time a skinhead band
formed from a group of guys we used to hang around with “society’s Rejects “ we
did a couple of local gigs with them before they moved on to the skinhead scene
and did quite well for themselves
In the scene at the time
violence at gigs started to rear its ugly head the worst I was involved in at one of our gigs was near Merthyr
Tydfil when we were supported by Foreign Legion and a new romantic type band called “la resistance “ who most of
the people at the gig took an instant dislike to and decided to have mini riot
smashing up the venue (Hirwaun YMCA) 2 pubs and a chip shop as well as a few
cars on the way a few people got hurt and we had a police escort from the town
and warned if we went there again we would be arrested (that’s the thanks you
get for playing for free to raise money for their community) events like this
made me write songs about the scene pissing me of because loads of people were
missing the point of it all
Around this time a tape came out featuring
welsh bands called There’s more to Wales than male voice Choirs it featured
“what’s your Alternative?” and brought us our first contact with Shrapnel Who
we met up with at a gig in Newport and became good friend and did a few gigs
together by this point we were playing sell out stadium gigs
Well small halls in
Newport Swansea Pontypridd etc with Bands like Shrapnel Liberty The astronauts
Kama Sutra and political Asylum
We also did our 2nd demo recorded in the
same way as the first it was a lot tighter
And more powerful than
the first And feature “You Cant buy me “which hope fully will appear on one of
the cds that Shaun McGee is involved in the demo also featured “the suffering
persists “ which was later re recorded and released a joint single with
Shrapnel and is in the pipeline for re-release on cd but you’ll have to find
out more about this from Steve as I had left the band before it was recorded
Towards the end of 85 I
had got a job a girlfriend and has started to show less and less commitment to
the band .the rest of the band had
rented a house (the young ones had nothing on this lot) I had decided at this
point to call it a day doing my final gig back
In Pontypridd the rest
of the band carried on with Steve switching to vocals and a guy called Hitler
came in to drum they also added a female singer Alyson. Steve will have to take
the SoF story from here and you probably were more involved with SoF than I was
after this we still remained good
friends and still are me and foxy actually worked together for a while in a
furniture Factory
But what Happened to you
I hear you ask well usual story work married daughter divorce married again another
daughter and working for a car insurance company
Rock n roll eh! Hope this has been ok for a start for you I
have answered as accurately as I can but it was 20 yrs ago would I change any of my time with the band not a minute of it except I left to early
Were they now?
Steve same Steve nothings changed not working still angry
Yan recently married
with kids and working as a plasterer
Foxy living with his
girlfriend and still working in the furniture factory
Hitler No one seems to Know ask Steve and the same for Alyson
And I've already told
you what I'm up to
(Scottie)
Visitors to this page
wear no knickers
Designed and Developed by
the CWDE Inc
(Copyright Control)