From the first chord it clicked, man did it click! Four teenagers full of expectation giving it some in the front room of Stef and Carlo’s place. We put together a set with Clive Osbourne(Rocking Mont Oz) on Sax, to play at our first gig together in Holland, The Eindhoven festival and it ROCKED!

The first gig, Eindhoven festival, Holland 1980

From the start we set about crafting our own identity, The Blue Cats would not be a sound a like band. We would take all the musical influences we had together and create something new. This was far from plain sailing, we had to deal with a lot of opposition in the beginning, but it was our way or nothing. That first gig in Holland was a great kick off.

We wanted to take Rockabilly on to another plain, to pay homage to everything about it we loved but also add the energy and vitality of our own contemporary musical surroundings. The early eighties was an exciting time to be forming a band regardless of what music you were into. The whole post punk thing was happening and new clubs were springing up all over the place.

Within months we had started to build our own following, it was amazing how loyal they became. Remember at that time there was no neo- Rockabilly/Psychobilly scene, what we were trying to do was uncharted territory. Rocking Mont Oz departed just before the release of Wild Night and we became the Quartet that most of you remember.

The release of ‘Wild Night’ and ‘Fight Back in 1981’ finally established us as an independent force, and we started to get support gigs with bands like The Clash which in turn brought us to the attention of the main stream music press. By the end of 1981 we were headlining our own sell out gigs all over Europe. Then that we started to get interest from major record companies. We could not consider any of the label offers because we were contracted to Rockhouse/Charly, but with the benefit of hindsight maybe that was a good thing. At least it stayed pure