Sounds From The Junkshop #30 - 3 Colours Red

 

"The end is just a breath away and if you ain't got a weapon then you'll never get a say" - 3 Colours Red, Nuclear Holiday, 1997

Look, I might as well just say it now, I basically got into 3 Colours Red because of their connections to two of my favourite bands a couple of years before. On one guitar you had Ben Harding, formerly of the awesome Senseless Things and on the other you had Chris McCormack, brother of the Wildhearts' Danny. I mean, there was no way I was ever gonna pass on that, was I?

I'm not quite sure how the exact deals went down but I'm guessing Ben and Chris met each other through their various Wildhearts connections as Mark Keds was playing guitar with Ginger and co around this time. Chris had also had a brief stint playing in Honeycrack with former 'Hearts CJ and Willie and after that fell through (he left before they released anything to be replaced by Mark McRae) had been writing songs with singer/bassist Pete Vuckovic who'd served time in the '90s incarnation of Brummie old skool British metallers Diamond Head* of In The Heat Of The Night fame. The trio added drummer Keith Baxter (RIP) and thus 3 Colours Red were born.

(* Incidentally, DH's '90s run deserves a mention for the Spinal Tap style way the group fell apart. The group were invited to open for Metallica, who'd frequently covered their songs in the past, at Milton Keynes Bowl with 50,000 plus fans present. What could have been a triumphant breakthrough for the band after 15 odd years of trying was promptly blown massively when after the instrumental intro, singer Sean Harris walked onstage dressed as the Grim Reaper leading to a massive howl of laughter from the denim and leather clad hordes present. Ah well. Another Wildhearts connection here as well - before he joined the 'Hearts, drummer Ritch Battersby had been manning the sticks in a band called Radio Moscow which featured Diamond Head guitarist Brian Tatler. Anyway, I'm drifting from the main subject here, back to the 3 Colours Red story...)

I first encountered the band supporting the Wildhearts (obviously) in Leeds in the summer of '96 (not the Sound City gig, the one a month or two later). They went down pretty well with the fans there and even at that early stage, there was definitely a notable similarity between the two in terms of sound. Although 3CR offered a much more stripped-back take on the formula with more of a punk influence in the mix - if I'd been a few years older and more knowledgable I'd have said they sounded like the Ruts minus the dub/reggae influences or a much heavier Dr Feelgood maybe. At the time, the group had just put out their debut single This Is My Hollywood on notorious indie Fierce Panda and the buzz it created led to them weirdly being signed to Creation. Alan McGee even went so far as to publish a full page ad in the NME that came out the week of the Sex Pistols' Finsbury Park reunion that summer claiming that they and Oasis represented the true legacy of the Pistols which had most people scratching their heads and saying "Erm, wot?..."

The group's chart positions were slowly improving with each release and early 1997 saw Nuclear Holiday become their first Top 40 hit followed closely by the panic attack of 60 Mile Smile and the vitriolic Pure which usually opened their set and was, in my humble opinion, their best track. Although the whole Britrock movement was starting to fall apart by this point with the Wildhearts, Kerbdog, Baby Chaos and the Almighty all splitting up that year and Terrorvision and Therapy? both starting to see the law of diminishing returns kicking in, 3 Colours Red were proving to be the exception to the rule.

The group's debut album Pure surfaced in early '97 and was generally a pretty sound effort with the likes of Sunny In England, Hateslick and Alright Ma being solid slices of Terrorvision style straight-up rock (albeit a bit darker than the 'Vish) with the frenetic Mental Blocks and Nerve Gas bringing the punk energy and the more moody Copper Girl providing the slower stuff. It was only the slightly ham-fisted attempt at a power ballad Fit Boy and Faint Girl that really missed the target and the album definitely holds up as worth revisiting now.

Similar to both the Wildhearts and Terrorvision, 3 Colours Red also managed to get a bit of crossover appeal in with the Britpop crowd - being signed to Creation definitely didn't hurt them and they were more than happy to play up to the whole "lads who like a pint and a riff" image to get a few floating Oasis fans on board. They were a good live band as well with plenty of energy and an impressive tightness to their sound - after the Wildhearts gig I saw them headlining a few times on their own (bizarrely, once shunted on a bill with the very different Hurricane #1, presumably as both were signed to Creation). However, the sea change away from the good times for alternative music in 1997 definitely had something of an effect on them which would bring them commercial success but ultimately tear the band in two.

The group would resurface in late '98 with Paralyse which sounded like an angstier version of the Beastie Boys circa Fight For Your Right and...well, let's just say I wasn't sure about it. However, the follow up power ballad Beautiful Day (memorably described in Melody Maker as sounding like the theme to Titanic 2 where they raise the ship and blast it off to Neptune on a space rocket!) would take the group all the way into the Top 10, becoming comfortably their biggest hit. Second album Revolt would break into the Top 20 (albeit peaking one place lower than Pure did) and it seemed the band were pretty much set.

Behind the scenes though, things were falling apart for the band. While Pure had very much been Chris' album as he'd written the majority of the material for it, Revolt saw Pete doing the majority of the writing and even just a cursory listen reveals that the pair are very different. Although there's the odd nod back to the first album sound on Pirouette and Back To The City, the likes of Paranoid People and Cancel The Exhibition although they definitely rock out are definitely a lot more angsty and thoughtful lyrically. The pair were basically at loggerheads over which direction the band should go and they split up that summer - a massive shock to most people at the time (I was at their final gig at the 1999 Leeds Festival - it was definitely an emotional experience) but looking back, the signs were definitely there.

Chris would go on to link up with Ritch from the Wildhearts and Jay from RealTV in the excellent Grand Theft Audio, one of the few decent nu-metal bands who I'm sure we'll cover in SFTJ in due course. Pete and Keith would move on to Elevation who managed one single before disbanding. However, following both of the above splitting up a few years later, 3 Colours Red would reform albeit without Ben (which resulted in some bad blood - I seem to remember he claimed in an interview that he'd asked Chris and Pete for time to think about it and then they just went ahead and did the reunion without him anyway) who was replaced by Paul Grant on guitar.

Unfortunately the group's comeback Union Of Souls was a big disappointment - it sounded as if they'd aimed for the middle ground between the first two albums but it lacked the energy of the former and the tunes of the latter. There was the odd good moment such as menacing lead-off single Repeat To Fade but overall this just felt like one comeback that should've been left well alone. It seems the band knew it too and they split again, this time for good, soon afterwards. I did still go and see them a couple of times during this era and they still packed a punch live - the first time at Bradford Rio's they had Danny McCormack (recently booted out of the Wildhearts) guesting on bass for a few songs and the second time in Leeds they were sharing a bill with Danny's late '90s/early '00s band, the excellent Yo-Yo's (again, more of whom in a future SFTJ) and I found myself having a pint and a brief chat at the bar during the evening with Danny and then-Robochrist frontman (and future Eureka Machines head honcho and Ginger collaborator) Chris Catalyst at the bar which was an enjoyable turn up for the books! It has to be said that I remember the Union of Souls songs actually sounding pretty decent in the live environment so I'm not sure what went on with that album - bad production maybe?

Chris would go on to be a gig promoter in London including masterminding the excellent Camden Rocks festival and has recently been playing guitar with the 21st century version of the Professionals. Paul would go on to join CJ Wildheart and Lee from Zen Motel in the Satellites who managed one under-rated album in the late noughties and would also reunite with Pete in Bassknives who I have to be honest and say completely passed me by. The next time I would see Ben would be at the excellent Senseless Things reunion gig in 2015 and he's also now playing guitar with socialist folk-punk types Thee Faction. Keith would fill in on drums briefly for Therapy? following an injury to Neil Cooper but would sadly pass away in 2008 at just 36 years old.

The funny thing is that going into writing this I was fully expecting 3 Colours Red to not be as good as I remembered them - there was always kind of an underlying feeling that they just happened to be the right band in the right place at the right time when Britrock needed a new leading light as others were falling by the wayside. Even Ginger Wildheart said a couple of years after their run that he always felt like they were a bit Wildhearts-lite and that he was a bit pissed off that they never credited the 'Hearts as an influence (presumably he and Chris have since made up as the latter has guested on guitar at a few of his birthday gigs in recent years). However, I was surprised to listen to Pure and Revolt and find myself nodding my head and singing along like I was 17 years old all over again. Yes, there were better Britrock bands out there but I've got to say - 3 Colours Red have held up surprisingly well in the intervening two decades plus since their run in the big time. If the Bluetones were, as I said a few weeks ago, the Ole Gunnar Solskjaers of Britpop then I think there's certainly an argument to be made that 3CR were Britrock's equivalent. Go listen to their first two albums again, you may well be in for a pleasant surprise.