Since this edition of the magazine has focused on Independent Venue Week, it only seemed right that this month’s artist spotlight went to a band that embodies the true spirit of independent music – Teesside’s beloved Pellethead.
Forming in 1991, the core three-piece of Pellethead has always been guitarists Al and Richie and bass player Shaun, with all three sharing vocals at some point. Al’s love of Richie’s other band Shrug spurred him on to learn guitar, and the then flatmates started writing the first Pellethead songs. Bassist Shaun soon joined and also gave the band their iconic name – after one of Shaun’s seven brothers who got shot in the head with an airgun.
The revolving door of drummers reads like a who’s who of Teesside drumming royalty – initially Nick and Sarah before the band settled on their longest-serving drummer, Michael Gillham. Lately, the band have used the services of Danni Johnson, Ben Muriel and Michael Kitching.
Describing Pellethead on a sonic level has always been a challenge. Al pointed out that the band are all huge music fans of all genres, and humorously concedes: “We are all self-taught idiots, so we don’t know what we’re doing. To us, writing songs is like magic: the final result is never what we expected. ‘Proper’ musicians who are fans are amazed by some of the off-the-wall stuff we come up with.” Despite selling themselves short, that sums up the Pellethead sound perfectly, unassuming and blissfully unaware of its own brilliance.
For a band with such a long history, their recorded output is surprisingly thin on the ground, which Al admits is due to them operating on a shoestring budget as an independent band. A CDR album from 2006 called ‘Sleepwank’ was warmly received, yet it took a further 10 years before a vinyl release would finally arrive courtesy of Vic Goddard of Subway Sect’s label. The relationship between the band and Vic Goddard was born out of a concert in The Georgian in Stockton (“we’re now best buddies”), after he was blown away by Pellethead’s opening set. The band have since become something of a regular fixture on Subway Sect bills.
Following their first LP, future self-recorded releases are very much in the pipeline, whilst also continuing to perform anywhere and everywhere possible (Al conceding Brexit may have made touring the mainland unachievable for the time being). Whatever does come next will always be uniquely Pellethead – and Teesside is always better for it.
To find out more about Pellethead, head to pellethead.bandcamp.com.
