Arjun plays the guitar and electrics ¤ Basith plays the guitar and the keyboards ¤ Emma does the singing for us ¤ Jeremy plays the drumming man ¤ Simon plays the bass and does the recorder.
We make kind of rock music with hardcore tempos and nice melody things and bits where we overcomplicate things by accident, we try and cut out the crap and keep things brief to get our point (when there is one) across. Ok?
What About An Ace Bushy Striptease History Lesson Then?
We started in October 2007 when Jeremy wanted to be in a prog band and Simon wanted to be in a cuddlecore band. Arjun was drafted in to play some guitarz because Jeremy and Simon already had a drum n bass with spoken word side project and having two bands the same would be pretty redundant. The first practice went pretty well and then we met Meryl in the pub afterwards and she was made to be the singer.
A few months later after we'd written some songs and had loads of rad adventures we were due to play our first ever concert! We were understandably nervous about this and we were struggling to play our songs all the way through as there were samples and all sorts that were very complicated. We found Basith bloody and deshevelled in a ditch and made him play the keyboards and the guitar so we didn't have to do samples and stuff.
Our first show was a battle of the bands at Aston University where we go and it was in the bar on campus. We played all our songs and then watched as the other bands played. We were very lucky and came second in the competition and won some guitar strings and drum sticks which were much appreciated.
Meryl left us in April 2008 which was pretty crappy but we managed to find another singer pretty quickly after scouting out the university karaoke night like proper predators. It turns out that Jeremy will approach anyone about anything after a few ciders. An invaluable skill for networking it seems.
Irini was the singer from karaoke and then she had a practice with us and then we we're like, "woah everything sounds so rad when you sing, please join our band". And she said yes.
We went to a recording studio and recorded seven of our songs in one day. It was very fun overdubbing recorder and ukulele and hand claps. We had to go back to finish them off with singing and such. The best bit was putting a crappy casio keyboard line on one of the songs, no-one will ever notice but I think that makes it all the more special.
We played some more concerts and made some more zines and wrote some more songs (that made the older ones we'd just recorded sound even more rubbish). Then Irini found out that she had to go back to Germany to work which was pretty gutting as she is basically the best singer in the world ever and the fastest learner and the only girl who would put up with us with a smile. We tried to cover up her departure with various guest vocalists which was distressing but fun.
At the moment everything is a bit up in the air. Jeremy is leaving to go to India for 5 months just as we're getting offered shows and stuff so we're planning on carrying on while he is gone as Ace Bushy Squirrels and play as many of our songs as well can all cuddlecore like. Fingers crossed that actually works.
Ok, it turns out that brilliant idea and all, Ace Bushy Squirrels doesn't really work very well live. I think we were too into shouting at people to do quiet and considered music. We shall bring it back for radio sessions and the like if we're ever big and famous maybe.
We got a new permenant singer though, her name is Emma and she is charming and articlate and musical. We met her through the whole incestuous We Aeronauts thing and she was lovely and agreed to sing with us. We played one final show with Jeremy and Emma and then Jeremy departed for a while. Rachel the drum machine will be put on for the second half. We're playing with rush goalies.
We didn't really use Rachel much, she was more eye candy than the pop-hit machine we'd hoped she'd be. Emma Champion stuck though like blu tac. Arjun however left which was pretty much the sadest day because he'd been with us since the start and we're really going to miss him y'know. He bought a lot to the band with him.
There were some shows with and without Emma Champion as she was a busy grrrl but then Jeremy arrived back from India and then some more show happened with everyone involved. It's a happy time.
This about page is a constant work in progress...
Someone asked up to write a bit about ourselves for the university newspaper before our first show, we wrote this.