Acme Sewage Co.

Biography

It all started in 1975 - Ozzy joined a band in Welwyn Garden City named 'Bullfrog'. At the time Ozzy was a big fan of the stooges, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, MC5 etc etc. During the next few months Ozzy developed his sound within this band but the other members were after a more traditional (Bad Company, Lynyrd Skynyrd) type of sound. At this time the Punk scene was starting to emerge in London and Ozzy felt a kinship with the music that was being produced and so in 1976 he left 'Bullfrog' and w...

It all started in 1975 - Ozzy joined a band in Welwyn Garden City named 'Bullfrog'. At the time Ozzy was a big fan of the stooges, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, MC5 etc etc. During the next few months Ozzy developed his sound within this band but the other members were after a more traditional (Bad Company, Lynyrd Skynyrd) type of sound.

At this time the Punk scene was starting to emerge in London and Ozzy felt a kinship with the music that was being produced and so in 1976 he left 'Bullfrog' and with a bass player (Pete Barber) and a drummer (Simon Coxhill) that he'd met whilst in 'Bullfrog' he formed a new band.

The band rehearsed for several months but were, as yet, unnamed, On the eve of their debut gig they still had no name. That day Ozzy and Simon were on the London to Welwyn Garden City train, desperately trying to think of a name, when Ozzy looked out the window and saw a haulage firm called 'The Acme Trucking Company'. At the time the 'Stranglers' had released their first album and one of Ozzy's fave tracks was 'Down in the sewer' so Ozzy suggested how about ' The Acme Sewerage Company'? Somehow, when the posters were produced it had become 'The Acme Sewage Company' and the name stuck.

This band consisted of Ozzy - guitar/vcls, Pete Barber - bass and Simon Coxhill - drums. They played regularly at 'The Roxy' club - Ozzy remembers the club as being either a great place or the pits to play depending on what day they were booked. ''Unfortunately as the club was open 7 days a week you would be playing to a full house or to half a dozen people - so we always tried to get weekend gigs so that we'd have an audience''.

One memorable gig around this time was at 'The Vortex' club - supporting 'Johhny Thunders and the Heartbreakers' and 'Mean Street'. Ozzy recalls ''We played a song to sound check and when we finished the place erupted into applause from the other bands and sound crew, in the end we had to go through our complete set just for them whilst the audience was left queuing outside - the club opened late that night because of it. The gig itself was an absolute stormer''.

This line-up recorded the sessions that went onto the 'Raw Deal' album and the 'Farewell to the Roxy' album.

However, all was not well and Pete left the band due to other commitments , leaving Simon and Ozzy without a bass player. The band did do some gigs as a two piece, notably one in Brighton supporting 'Throbbing Gristle', it was really funny, people kept questioning the fact that there was just drums and one guitar set up on the stage - so I started saying that they were all thinking in Rock 'n' Roll and Heavy Metal terms - WE were eliminating the bass and getting back to the rawest Punk sound possible - whether it was the sound we made or our explanation but we went down a storm that night''.

The band also toured in Scotland with a stand in bass player - 'John Strudwick (who stepped in the night before we went on tour and did a fantastic job) and played a few venues - such as 'The Elephant' in Tooting using the bass player from 'Bullfrog' - Pete Watson.

Eventually, Simon moved onto bass and a friend from Welwyn Garden City - Paul Walker - joined on drums. This line up continued for a couple more years, gigging often, (joined for a while by Simon Turner on keyboards) until Ozzy left the band due to the pressure of his workload within the band. ''I was writing the songs, arranging the gigs, trying to get a deal and also doing all the guitar and vocals and yet the others considered we were all equal - especially when it came to getting paid and I just got fed up with it, so I walked''.

Since leaving 'Acme Sewage Co.' - Ozzy has been involved with a few bands – he now plays and records as a solo artist using various session musicians under the name - 'Turning Blue'. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.