Eater’s Andy Blade releases new album

Andy Blade+Buddies – ‘Being Alive Is Fun’ out 23 February 2024 on Holy Dotage Records

“The UK’s very own bedsit Phil Spector” – Derwood Andrews, Gen X

“A complete artistic rebirth, concentrated doses of acerbic wit and vitality from the legendary former punk rocker.” – The Observer

“An English Lou Reed” – NME

Andy Blade, former teenage punk star and founding member of Eater continues his artistic renaissance with the release of his new album, ‘Being Alive Is Fun’, which sees him teaming up with friends and similar like minded musicians as Andy Blade+Buddies.

With guitarist Derwood Andrews (Gen X) and drummer Rat Scabies (The Damned), the 15 track album also features co-creating singing conspirators Katerina Sharkova (The Others Are Dead, Steve), Myura Amara (PollyPikPocketz), Paige Brooklyn Cook (Voodoo Radio), Mathew Cartiledge (The Molotovs), Roxi Gregory (Glitterkick), Elizabeth Westwood (Westworld), Ananda (AlterModerns) and gifted singers Bernice and Tizane.

“It’s a quote from Jeffrey Epstein to his lawyer the day before he was found dead in his cell”, Andy explains about the album title, “his lawyer had asked him why he was so concerned for his safety in a top security prison and Epstein sarcastically replied, ‘Because being alive is fun!’

Forming Eater from a standing jump while still at school in 1976 when Andy, of Anglo-Egyptian heritage was just 15, the band became known as the youngest on the scene and were consumed by the synchronicity of the coinciding burgeoning Punk explosion. Having played with the likes of The Damned, Johnny Thunders and Generation X, they were also lauded by Lou Reed and Marc Bolan, while Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy even offered the band a song he had written. Two years later, with one album and five singles under their belt, Eater split up, leaving Andy all washed up at the age of 17, the band becoming an albatross around his neck.

Immersing himself in songwriting and his solo career, Eater reappeared sporadically from the mid-1990s with line-ups Andy put together to play dates with the likes of Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr and Buzzcocks, Andy has since gone on to release five solo albums and two books, one of which, his autobiography ‘The Secret Life of A Teenage Punk Rocker’, went on to become a best seller and is about to be republished. Despite consistently great reviews, unmistakable cult status and even an offer to write for Robbie Williams (which Andy turned down as it “went against my aesthetics”), mainstream success had so far eluded him, leaving Andy feeling increasingly isolated.

“The older I get the more I find out I’m unplugged from the mainframe”, explains Andy, “even more so than when I was a punk, at least I had a small but very identifiable community there to belong to, before it got trampled on and flattened for popular consumption. Nowadays I feel like I’m on my own, so it’s down to me to create a scene of like minded musicians & bands. That has always been my aim, to create my own ‘family’ where everyone feels at home, with no pressure to conform the diktats of mainstream thought.”

Although having already turned down a Netflix type series, “‘Pistol’ put me off that idea!”, Andy has also recently completed writing a screen play which is currently with a production house and looking to be turned into a full length movie. He has also mastered the art of recording and having gained a lot of press and radio acclaim for his last trilogy of albums, is enjoying something of a rebirth with his new musical family.

Amongst this family are Rat Scabies and ongoing collaborator Derwood Andrews, with whom he wrote two of the tracks on ‘Being Alive Is Fun’ – ‘You’re Strange’ and ‘London Loves You’. As Derwood says, “I became a bit of a fanboy after hearing what Andy had been up to.” “Funny thing is”, notes Andy, “after Eater I was in various bands. The first one I went into songwriting with included The Damned guitarist Brian James and Mark Laff, the drummer from Gen X, and on this record I’m working with The Damned’s drummer and the guitarist from Gen X on a couple of the tracks. Although this album has nothing to do with nostalgia, it’s come a funny kind of full circle.”

With 14 of the album’s 15 tracks all written by Andy, the new record also features a cover of a Sparks song, ‘Girl From Germany’. “My music is often cited as bring influenced by Sparks and they were early heroes of mine. Fortunately they have enthusiastically given the thumbs up to this version.”

“When I first started recording my own material, I used to rope my daughter in on backing vocals because when writing, for some reason, I can always hear the female part of the vocals”, he says. “With ‘Being Alive Is Fun’, I decided to go all out working with female singers whose voices & vibe I was drawn to, to share vox with. It not only opens up the songs, but aesthetically, it stimulates.”

Now a long term member of Andy’s new band, Katerina Sharkova sings on three of the album tracks including the first single, ‘You’re Strange’. “As soon as we’d finished recording the first track, it became very apparent that her voice is my voice’s soul mate” says Andy. “It made sense that we should work together on an ongoing basis, which is what we are doing. Kat is so inspiring to work with because she’s such a natural singer and she stridently defies convention – and with such style.”

Seeing the new album as being the definitive masterpiece and rebirth, Andy concludes, “My music doesn’t belong to any genre, and the songs I am writing transcend trends. My only brief to myself is to make alluring, irresistible music that takes you on a journey to some place you didn’t expect to go – least of all, me. This is what music should be doing and this is what Andy Blade+Buddies is all about – getting cerebral, in an increasingly uniform & dull world.”

Andy Blade+Buddies will be playing some pop up shows followed by a tour in support of the album release in the Spring.