The Snake Corps

The story... So far

The band came together in 1984 following the break-up of Sad Lovers And Giants (SL&G) the previous year.

Aiming for a harder-edged sound, core members Tristan Garel-Funk and Nigel Pollard advertised in the Melody Maker for the necessary musicians.

After many auditions they settled on Marc Lewis and Liam McGuinness on vocals and bass respectively.

This original incarnation set about establishing its own sound - recording demos of songs later to appear on the band’s albums as well as a video of Look East for Eden at Kingston Poly where Marc was a student.

After some initial success building a local following and reconnecting with many of the fans of SL&G, Nigel left the band and was replaced by Jon Greville from the extreme hardcore three-piece Rudimentary Peni.

This line up recorded the first album: "Flesh on Flesh", released on Midnight Music in 1984.

Tours in Europe helped to build and consolidate the band's following, but despite being championed by the legendary DJ John Peel in the UK the story was largely one of press and radio indifference. Feeling a need to broaden the scope of The Snake Corps sound the band decided to add keyboards.

This resulted in the return of SL&G founder member David Wood. With the addition of Jim Blanchard from label-mates the S-Haters now on bass guitar, this line-up recorded the band's second album Smother Earth. More gigs followed but UK recognition continued to elude the Snake Corps despite growing interest from around the world; the bulk of the band's record sales going overseas. Ian Gibson (recently having left the Mk2 version of SL&G) replaced Dave Woods on keyboards.

Free from their contract with Midnight Music but with their commitment to release the next album as a one-off, this line-up recorded (at their own expense) "The 3rd Cup" at Midnight-owned Berry Street Studios. With Brad Grisdale at the controls, a creative meeting of minds between the band and their engineer resulted in was what many consider to be the Snake Corps finest album. But behind the scenes all was not well, Midnight Music went into receivership and was bought up by Midnight Music. The band suddenly found that all their music: back catalogue, stock and copyright had now changed hands.

The Snake Corps split.

It seemed that the best-of compilation "Spice" released by Midnight Music would be the band's swan-song.

Thankfully, the finished master tapes of "The 3rd Cup" were already in the band's possession when Midnight Music went under but it was to be couple of years before the album was finally released on CD.

In 2010 Marc & Liam reformed the band, later joined by Jim. In September 2010 the band played with sister Sad lovers & Giants in Barcelona, the gig was a huge success more gigs in Berlin, Madrid and Valencia followed. The band also played with the Chameleons at the 02 academy in Islington 2012 and again put on a wonderful performance, helped by their acclaimed new session drummer Dave Vigay. The band played to a sell-out audience in Tarragona, Spain, in November 2015 playing a new song ‘A Far Cry’ from a forthcoming release, the EP ‘The Ocean Calls', which was released in September 2016, - the band played in Berlin and Madrid in October and November 2016. In Italy, Spain and the UK in 2017, again with the Chameleons Vox - In 2018 at the Gotham Music Fest in Germany in April, Barcelona in Sept, and Turin in November, a return to Barcelona followed. In 2019 the band released 'She'll Rise' followed by an return to Valencia and Tarragona. 'Ghost' was released in 2020. The band will return and play with the Mission in Germany in June 2022 and in Brighton and Madrid in Sept 2022