THE BAND'S VERY LONG AND BORING HISTORY

1993 - (Howard - Piano / Michael - Piano / Tom - Vocals)

Howard forms band after writing a few funny song for a school play on the piano. The band remains a casual pass time for all envolved

1997 - (Howard - Keyboards & Vocals / Max - Keyboards & Vocals / Pete - Drums / Charlotte - Bass)

With changes of schools the members change, but the songs stay the same and a feeling of purpose comes about with new members. More songs start getting written and the band begins to become a proper outfit

1999 - (Howard - Keyboards & Vocals / Ashley - Guitar / Pete - Drums / Charlotte - Bass)

First proper album "Wrong End Of The Gun" is recorded. This was the first sign of proper songwriting, despite basically being just punk rock with piano and hammond organs thrown over the top.

2000 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Ashley - Guitar / Pete - Drums / Charlotte - Bass)

The next album "The Truth Is Out There" is recorded. This album was the first to sound weird and give the band a new sound of it's own, although the hammonds and pianos remaind! This album is still fondly remembered by many and it went down very well!

2001 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Charlotte - Bass / Pete - Drums* / Mike - Guitar* / Shane - Vocals* / Malcolm - Vocals* / Kelly - Vocals* / Rob - Backing Vocals / Alan - DJ*) * = not for entire period

Band members change hugely because of people moving and the new members turned out to mainly not fit together well. The band ends up despanding, but during this period records (from dribs and drabs of recordings) a final album "Never To Return"

2002 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Simon - Bass & Vocals / Kat - Drums / Chris - Guitar (apparently))

Howard gets together with recent school friend Simon and they play music for a laugh. Encouraged to try re-starting the band now that he was out of school, Howard auditioned drummer Kat who joined the band. Upon re-recording an old song with Kat at Simon's house, Simon showed interest in joining as a vocalist. The band then took on old school friend Chris by his word that he was a good guitarist and was willing to play bass. When it turned out he was no good Simon offered to learn bass just to show him up. Simon was quite successful but Chris joined as a comical adition as the "jazz fusion" lead guitarist. Or in other words our personnal pun. Chris was later fired for many more reasons than just his playing and eventually violent mood-swings.

2003 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Simon - Bass & Vocals / Kat - Drums)

Come back album "Broken Down" is recorded. Although having a less strange feel then the previous albums and Simon's increasingly professional studio engineering touch, the song writing remains odd and very much in the spirit of earlier work

2005- (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Simon - Bass & Vocals / Kat - Drums* / Jim - Guitar* / El Jimbob - Bass*) * = not for entire period

The band begins to practise for gigging and starts playing live shows again with new and competant lead guitarist Jim. Simon had by now become a core member of the band, but was unable to attend the regular practises and gigs due to college and medical restraints. With El Jimbob temporarily stepping in to cover some of the little bass jobs and Jim doing some of the live bass playing in place of Simon, the band started to feel a real strain between what it was doing on stage and what it was doing in the studio. Eventually Kat left and Jim requested to work with Howard on some of his other musical projects instead. It now became clear that the band was never really going to be a live entity again, which was actually ver sad.

However, the bright side came with the increased emphasis now placed on the new album "Wishful Thinking" which was already being recorded. With Simon's now considerably improved studio skills, the album was an extremely professional sounding product. The songs were perhaps not as wacky as on the previous album as stress had been increasingly affecting Howard's writing, but none-the-less, it was still very much a product of the band and what is lacked in uniqueness is gained in professionalism.

2006 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Simon - Bass & Vocals)

With Howard now well on the way with a number of other projects and the increasing possibility of a successful solo career and with Simon honing his skills for working on hi-fi equipment it seemed that the band had died a second death, although songs were occasionally still being recorded.

In November of 2006 the song "Microwave Fiend" was recorded sparking a renewed interest in maybe doing more music under the old band name.

2008 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Simon - Bass & Vocals)

A few projects (including a theme song for the hi-fi website ZeroGain) had come about giving Howard and Simon a chance to do more music, but the main opportunity appeared in the summer of 2008. With Howard looking for a place to polish of the vocals for his first main-stream selling solo album and with Simon having recently lost a long-time beloved family cat and needing a break AND THEN with Howard's old school friend and would-be-rapper wanting to record songs with Howard and having his huge house free for 6 weeks.......... Well, guess what? With Howard and Simon around music equipment and working day and night on many different projects, slowly, more Smoke It 'n' Die songs started to appear in strange unexpected forms. The band then vowed to finish the album before neither had any time left to do so anymore.

2010 - (Howard - Keyboards, Guitar & Vocals / Louis - Bass / Alexis - Drums / Grace - Guitars, Vocals & Keyboards / Barrie - Drums*) * = not for entire period

Third World Democracy finally crawls into existance with the finalisation of "That's So!"

Due to Howard and Simon's increasingly busy schedule it is decided to put an end to the band. This, however, doesn't go down well with certain friends who push to have everything restarted.

Howard asks Louis and Barrie to join and later Grace finishes off the four. Disagreements with Barrie lead to him being replaced by Alexis half-way through the new album's creation.

Work on the new album is in progress throughout 2010 and progress towards this and the album are very very positive!

. . . . . . . . . .

 

3893 - (Zombies)

The band are brought back from the dead and take over the world.