Cult psychedelic punk band Your Heterosexual Violence formed in 1982, built a following based on their ferocious live shows and played with the likes of Television Personalities, The Nightingales and Alternative TV before splitting in 1988, leaving little by way of recorded evidence.
Now, more than four decades since their formation, they’re back with a renewed line-up including founder members Brian O’Brien (vocals) and David Dodd (guitar), Andi Panayi (drums), Simon Birch (keys) and Jem Freeman of Joyzine faves Jemma Freeman & The Cosmic Something (bass/vocals). And they’re not just back, YHV are finally ready to release their debut LP Some People Have Too Much to Say on the rarely less than excellent Trapped Animal Records, as well as heading out for the occasional live show. And, having listened to the record, we’re pleased to say it’s been worth the wait.
We caught up with Brian to find out how the reunion came about and what’s changed in the last forty years of making music.
Your Heterosexual Violence formed in 1982, but you’re just releasing your first album now – how did the new record come about and what’s taken so long?
What’s taken so long is to change our headspace regarding what is and isn’t possible for working class lads like us, me and Dave in particular. All we saw from our elders whilst growing up, was a struggle to just get by. Like, my Mum and my Dad were both unbelievably brilliant singers, way way better than me, but the limit of their expectations was a huge roar of applause when they did their turns in the pub, or in the Catholic club. They were both easily good enough, but it wouldn’t have ever entered their heads to actually go making records, no more than it would have been a realistic proposition for me to become a professional footballer despite being a pretty solid player in all positions, left or right, except for goalkeeper. Things like this happened to other people, not us. Me and Dave, why we even formed the band I don’t know really – just a compulsion driven by our joint obsession with all music in general I suppose. We started gigging, the band expanded, and by the time Andi had joined us on drums we knew we were getting pretty good, but we never sent anything to any record label or even to John Peel even though we knew he listened to everything he ever received. We would sometimes fantasise about how “if we could ever make an album…” but we just didn’t see that this could be an achievable thing for working class oik nobodies like us. And then we split up!
When we got back together so many years later, initially for a Greenwich Performance Collective reunion gig (the GPC was a quite mad but fairly successful anarchist experiment, but that’s a whole other story), we were older and wiser and had witnessed all sorts of useless chancers making their way in music simply by getting on with it, believing in themselves and using social media for self promotion – of course that hadn’t been an option before. After a few gigs around Deptford and New Cross, we decided to focus what time we had available (we were hampered by full time jobs, less than enthusiastic partners, Simon living in Salisbury, etc), on recording all these great songs we had from the old days and the sometimes even better ones we were coming up with now, properly, finally with the aim of getting some albums out there. By around 2017 or 2018, our faith in this band and the songs we had, plus the full realisation that the years are rolling by and we’ve not got much time left, drove me in particular, on, to the point of obsession.
Even then there were problems aside from our neurodivergent tendencies to procrastinate. We recorded and recorded, mixed and mixed at virtually every opportunity, ending up with over two albums worth of great songs, but there were many interruptions such as the Covid lockdowns the reformation of Stereolab (we recorded everything at Stereolab drummer Andy Ramsay’s PressPlay Studios, and he kept going off on tours), and the departure of our original bassist, the lovely Paul Hood. We were very lucky to stumble across our secret weapon, our ‘glam punk powerhouse’, Jem Freeman, they of the wonderful Jemma Freeman & The Cosmic Something, who stepped in on bass and bv’s and sometimes lead vocals. Jem is younger and is driven and they just knew what we needed to do. Jem guided us through it all, kind of took us by our collective hand, and hey presto! after 43 years, here we are, with this amazingly gorgeous and incredible 1st album…of course it is – as if we’d wait all this time and then go and produce a piece of substandard crap! We are so proud of this record and we’re totally blown away by the great reviews that have been racking up. People seem to get us. We didn’t know if that would be the case, but it seems as if literally everyone who’s heard our album genuinely loves it. It’s amazing!
What are your recollections of the early days of the band? What do you think when you look back at old images or hear live or demo recordings from that time, if there are any?
Well, in the very early days it was just me on vocals and Dave on guitar. We only had about 3 or 4 of our own songs and so we were throwing in covers of tracks by the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Last Poets and Ricky Nelson. We were pretty bloody good from the start, but I remember being so fucking nervous…the cool lead singer with his knees knocking together uncontrollably!
We’ve got a few old gig photos and they’re funny to look at now…we look so young…and skinny…and Andi with his long dark hair in a ponytail – it’s almost hard to believe we were ever that young!
There’s a few old recordings. One is a live version of ‘Song from the Bottom of the Heart‘ from about 1987, which somebody calling themselves Monokong, who appears to be based in Vietnam, posted up on YouTube. We haven’t got a clue how that happened. It’s interesting to listen to nowadays and compare it with the newer version that’s on the album. The basic song structure is pretty much the same, but with a very jazzy sax riff from former member Tom Scott running all the way through. Then there’s Paul on bass. Paul loved to improvise, Andi and Tom too. This line up was very jazz punk and it really shows on this recording. This same line up only recorded in a studio on one occasion. We did it on the cheap. An all night session in some obscure studios on an industrial estate with an engineer who didn’t give a fuck about us – we were just another job, and the results were disappointingly sterile. I’ve still got the reel to reel but it’s definitely not for public consumption. Prior to Paul and Tom joining we had another Tom, except he was Thom, Thom Curry, on sax, and no bassist. This line up recorded a couple of songs over at our mate Vag’s place in New Cross. One track from that session, a song called ‘Incredible Story‘ was included on a GPC compilation tape and somebody has put that up on YouTube too. Dave says it’s shoddy and shows how much better we are now, and whilst he is undoubtedly correct, I still quite like it. I remember how me, Dave and Andi recorded the basic track during the daytime while a 17 year old Thom sat an A Level. He came over, still in his school uniform, and listened to what we’d got. Vags then positioned him out in the hall at the top of the stairs and Thom played a sax solo over a long 16 bar ending that blew the bloody doors off. It was like our ‘Baker Street’ or Hazel O’ Connor’s ‘Will You’. He blew my mind with what he played that day. Listening to it now, well, it’s from a well worn out cassette tape and the sound quality is bloody awful. In truth, there’s even a couple of flat notes, but there’s something about its greatness that you can still hear today.
Looking back on your early years as a band, where do you think you fitted into the music scene of the time?
We never really felt like we fitted in with any particular scene. There’s a definite pop element to most of our songs. Catchy tunes, great hooks. We were obviously not an actual pop group, but we certainly weren’t out and out punk, we weren’t soul, funk or reggae…we just were what we were. We only knew how to sound like we sounded – sort of poppy post punk with a jazzy tinge. There wasn’t any such category for us to slip into and to be honest, even though we now have Simon on Keys and no full time sax, making us a bit more psychedelic and less jazzy, nothing has changed in that sense. We still don’t fit into any particular category. Like, radio play so far has been pitched mainly at various punk shows, and you can sort of see why punk radio shows might play us, but while it’s been hugely thrilling to hear our records being played on the radio, pretty much every time, by the end of the show, to me, it’s pretty obvious that we were the least punk track played. Having said all that, if there’s one band we’ve been compared to both then and now that we’d put our hands up to, it would have to be The Fall. We’ll take that, because most of us fucking love The Fall, though in truth, we sound absolutely nothing like The Fall.
Were there any bands back then that were on a similar wavelength to you or that you felt a sort of kinship with?
We got to a point back in the ‘80’s where we could pull lots of decent support slots and I think we got along well with the people from the various bands whether it be The Three Johns who we played with a few times, Alternative TV, June Brides, The Poison Girls, TV Personalities and whoever else, but the only real feelings of kinship were with those who like us, didn’t seem to fit into anybody’s box, namely Bogshed from Hebden Bridge, and Five Go Down To The Sea? who came over to London from Co. Cork. We never got to know Bogshed all that well, but we loved it when we did get to gig together. There was a woman from a record label at the gig specifically to watch them with a view to signing them, but Bogshed seemed more focused on getting her to sign us! Five Go Down To The Sea? were like no other band I have heard before or since. We played several gigs with them and drank many many many pints with them. We fucking loved that band and the people in it. And they were good friends with both Bogshed and The Mekons who featured Jon Langford, also of The Three Johns, so there were little bits of reconnections with those guys sometimes, but the true and lasting kinship for us was with Five Go Down to the Sea? We tragically lost their incredible, larger than life itself singer, Finbarr Donnelly way back in 1989, and I believe only 1 of the 4 from Bogshed remains with us today. We know that we’re lucky to be still here and to maintain the physicality to be able to do the high energy shows that we do. Knowing this created a sense of urgency within us to get done what needed to be done. Getting this first album out is a relief. A relief that yes, we’ve actually achieved step 1 while we’re all still standing. However, there’s loads left to do and new ideas are falling out of the sky, so we’re kind of banking on surviving for a bit longer yet!
What has changed since then, for you as a band and in the musical landscape more broadly?
For us as a band, there’s been changes we’ve already touched on, namely, the decision upon reforming to ditch the sax as a regular feature of our soundscape (we do have the amazing Steve Hamilton, who has played sax with almost everyone who’s worth playing with, on 3 tracks on the album), and to bring in Keys, mostly Hammond and Fender Rhodes, and with no disrespect to Thom and Tom, we think this was a really smart decision. Simon is a brilliant all round musician and a beautiful guy who brings his peaceful Zen like vibes and his psychedelic leanings into our ‘thing’ to fantastic effect. I think Simon’s contributions provide us with a more overall contemporary sound which I don’t think we would have otherwise achieved.
Then there’s the Jem factor, which simply cannot be overstated. Again, with no disrespect to Paul, (and it’s worth noting that Paul is on bass on 4 tracks on this album), when Jem took over bass duties, things really started to move forward. Jem is absolutely a professional musician to an incredibly high standard AND has a great working knowledge of how the ‘music biz’ works in the 2020’s – we didn’t have a clue. Paul is a great player but with jazzy type tendencies to go off on an improvisational experimentation without warning, and Andi on drums has similar inclinations. When it worked, great, but when it didn’t, not so! Jem has come up with loads of their own amazing bass lines and has steadied the rhythm section ship. We are more reliably dynamic and powerful sounding. Jem is also a totally brilliant singer (up there with my old Mum and Dad!), and although it’s hard for me to explain how exactly, I think having Jem around has helped raise my game as a singer. It’s also worth mentioning that Jem is an amazing guitarist and compliments Dave to strikingly good effect on 3 or 4 of these album tracks. I’m loving hearing us, (live too on those songs), as a 2 guitar assault combo!
Then there’s our Latvian multi tasker, Maris Perterlevics. We got Maris in during the recording sessions for the express purpose of adding some violin to ‘Just one of Those Things’. That worked out so well that he ended up playing on another 4 tracks (only 1 other on this album though). We knew we didn’t want violin on every song. However, we also knew that we wanted to keep hold of Maris. So, see us live now, and there’s Maris on violin, now he’s on bass, then percussion, oh wow, now he’s playing some pretty psychedelic guitar…Maris is amazing.
As for the changes in the musical landscape more generally, I don’t know really. It’s sort of great that everybody seems to have time for all musical genres (the internet making everything more accessible), and that young people can get into bands like us before going off to a Dubstep night or whatever, but I always kind of liked different factions of “the yoof” finding their own exclusive tribes and that sense of belonging, and being ‘outside of society’. I could be just an old out of touch guy who’s getting it wrong, but that sort of thing doesn’t seem prevalent today. Actually, although I say this, through Jem, I’ve become aware of a really vibrant and welcoming queer, trans, non binary ‘scene’, involving some great bands such as Breakup Haircut, Magpie Conspiracy, The Oozes, Devices, Slapper, Charley Stone’s Actual Band, Gabi Garbutt & The Illuminations and of course Jemma Freeman & The Cosmic Something and several others too…DIrty VIv, Lola Pony, Gender Crisis, the Get in Her Ears project, the radical feminism of The Baby Seals…all that has been great to see happening.
As for changes to the music business side of things, so much has changed due to music being available online, often only online, and the tools for self promotion like Facebook and Instagram become necessary evils which is fucking sad. Like any band who wants to get their music ‘out there’ we’ve had to shake hands with the Devil. We are all compromised and that’s the sad truth I’m afraid. Thank the lucky stars that there are still people out there like Joel and Kate running record labels like Trapped Animal who are prepared to take a chance on bands like us and help us to get actual vinyl out there to the actual shops and thank you to everyone who still runs a vinyl based record shop and to the increasing amount of people who are purchasing the vinyl versions of the records they love.
Who are the current bands that you admire? Are there any in whom you can hear or feel a similar spirit to what you were trying to achieve when you started out?
Please see all of the bands mentioned above when talking about our local queer/trans scene. All of those bands are current and they genuinely are really great bands. They’re all quite different, diverse styles, but the unifying traits would be, I would say, a punky or post punky edge and plenty of rebel songs all dressed up with a glamour that we can only admire but sadly, never emulate! There’s also The Plan, a really cool band from Southend who we’ve played with a couple of times. They’re very much their own band, great sound, very good songs, but I hear a distinct vibe of one of my favourite ever bands, The Raincoats. There’s something about a Your Heterosexual Violence / The Plan gig that just feels right and makes sense. Manchester’s Loose Articles are a great live band too (I’ve not got round to their records yet).
Tell us about the new record – are these songs that have travelled with you from your early days, or were they written more recently? What are some of the key themes and influences?
Some of the songs on this album go way back and some are more recent. ‘House Outside the World’ and ‘Just One of Those Things’ are two that go back right to the start, but y’know, a great song from 1982 is still a great song in 2025 and we could see no reason to ditch a song simply on the basis of having written it a long time ago. Having said that, we are not just some undiscovered relic from the 1980’s. We very much live in the present, not the past, and if we didn’t have faith in our ability to come up with high standard new songs, we would never have got back together in the first place. If we were just doing old songs from the ‘80’s we would just be some sort of tribute band to ourselves and that is just too weird and sad to contemplate. A couple of the other older songs like ‘Man in Flames (at C&A)’ have been quite radically re-worked. There’s often a lyrical clue to reveal a more recent song, like references to the internet on ‘I Could be with You’ and ‘No Search Results (for Weatherman on Drugs)’, or NIrvana & Artic Monkey references on ‘Love Will’ reveal it wasn’t written in the ’80’s.
Themes on this album? Well, we’ve got people setting themselves on fire, death, disenchantment, alienation and despair, toxic personal relationships, unrequited love, our Manifesto, plus, believe it or not, a couple of happy happy ending songs. All human life is here, but largely from the point of few of people who just don’t quite fit in…people like us in fact.
The musical influences are diverse. As we like to say, we’re “influenced by everyone and copying no one”.
What do you have coming up next?
Well, having just had our album launch at The Lexington on 5th October, we’ve been asked back by the venue to support the whacky and psychedelic punk Monks tribute band, Ye Nuns, on 30th October which is going to be quite a night, with a bit of Halloween shenanagins thrown in for good measure I suspect.
Our next single, ‘I Could be With You’ is due on 28th October which we have high hopes for (come on BBC 6 Music…you’re our natural home, but you’ve been ignoring us so far, you bastards!).
1st November we’re at The Winchester Gate in Salisbury (a free gig but we still get paid!), and we have Valve supporting who I’m told are amazing.
10th November: We’re guests throughout the full 3 hours of the Watt from Pedro radio show. This is renowned bass player Mike Watt’s show and it’s a top listen for people who miss the legendary John Peel show, or who were too young but wonder what it was like. Mike has been bassist in The Minutemen, J Mascis & The Fog plus the reformed Iggy & the Stooges and is an old friend, or maybe acquaintance is fairer, hence several plays on his show plus this invite. It’s not a live session. We just get to go on, talk shit and get the whole album played throughout the 3 hours alongside various other records you’ve probably not heard before, interspersed with ‘sound meditations’ and all advert free. Search around and you’ll find the show…Apple Podcasts plus other options.
By the way, check Watt’s latest band MSSV. A guitar bass and drums line up delivering the most extraordinary jazz rock with the emphasis very much on the jazz. Saw them at The Lexington back in June and I’m still buzzing from it several months later…gig of the year, for me.
22nd November: Live radio session on Dexter Bentley’s Resonance Radio 104.4 FM show. Kick off is 10am so it’s bed before 2 am for me on the Friday I guess.
December is vacant right now, but if anyone wants to talk to us about something, we’re cheap, trashy and available.
January 23rd: The Waiting Room on Stoke Newington HIgh Street with Devices supporting.
That’s pretty much it for the time being, but we’re sure to be hanging around on street corners waiting to be picked up by anyone who shows even the faintest interest.
We asked Brian to share five tracks from 1982 and five from the past 12 months for his Now & Then Playlist – listen below and scroll down for his thoughts on each of the songs.
Ok, so, 1982: it’ll be a different 5 tomorrow, but today it’s these:
‘Shipbuilding’ by Robert Wyatt
Elvis has written so many great songs but this one is possibly the best. The horrors of war bring prosperity to a struggling shipbuilding town, a dichotomy that wasn’t lost on the great Robert Wyatt, who sings the song with heartaching beauty
‘The Boiler’ by The Special AKA feat Rhoda Darka
This came along after the classic Specials line up had split, but Jerry Dammers and the other remaining guys keep that classic sound afloat whilst Rhoda relays a truly terrifying tale of being raped by the guy who’s just spent a load of money on her and now demands his reward. With the most harrowing screams ever set to vinyl, this is a very disturbing record but art is there to make us think, to make us feel, and this record is a great piece of art. When I was checking to see that it is indeed a 1982 record I noted it came out in January ’82 and it occurred to me that when me and Dave were trying to come up with a name for the band and he suddenly said “How about Your Heterosexual Violence”, it could have been that thoughts of this record were lurking around in his head.
‘Hip Priest’ by The Fall
There really isn’t anything that we can say about The Fall that’s going to be enlightening. From the Hex Enduction Hour album, this is The Fall at their most abrasive and with lyrics that hint at Mark E Smith knowing about stuff that the rest of us just don’t know about.
‘Fantastic Day’ by Haircut 100
Some may raise an eyebrow at this choice seeing as it’s not punk, it’s not psychedelic, it’s just a pop record, but, it’s not ‘just’ pop record it’s a bloody great pop record and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
‘Lucy in the Rain’ by The Three Johns
The Three Johns were a fantastic band. This one is full of dreamy pop rock psychedelia that hypnotises, and just takes you away somewhere.
Can we just give an honourable mention to Rock Section by Colours out of Time which is from 1981, so a bit of a cheat?
This band were friends of ours (me and Dave), especially their amazing guitarist Dave Robbins, from our time at college in Crewe. I want this one played at my funeral.
The past 12 months:
‘Highway Man’ by The New Eves
This is amazing! Baroque pop, dramatic, powerful vocals, folky but with a Beefheartian instrumental break. Stunning and absolutely out there on its own.
‘North Gate Bridge’ by Big Boy Foolish
Big Boy Foolish are a 2 piece from Co. Cork featuring Liam Hefferman and my dear old friend Ricky Dineen, formerly of Five Go Down To The Sea? who we were talking about earlier. Like ourselves, Ricky had many years of doing not a lot musically, following Finbarr’s passing, but also like us, he never got it out of his system and was surely going to come back and do something, and here it is! This is one of my favourites from their album, Stall the Ball which came out at the tail end of 2024 and so just about qualifies for this section. Big Boy Foolish are less lunatic and very different to Five Go Down To The Sea? but certain elements remain, not least Ricky’s guitar – he has a unique style which I’d recognise anywhere, and similar comments apply to Liam’s vocals. After 2 or 3 plays, this song, like most of the others from the album gets stuck in your head.
‘I’m Fine and I’m Doing Great’ by Problem Patterns.
An amazingly extraordinary vocal from this Northern Ireland punk band with lyrics that are so absolutely relatable to our situation right now: “I’ve been on burnout since I don’t know when/I’m struggling just to see the end/But the band’s doing great yeah/it’s finally great yeah/But what does that mean for my mental state yeah” and “I’m so grateful for everything/But it’s killing me, to be living my dream/I need to do it cuz it’s who I am/But I’d like to relax man, I need to stay calm”. I wish I’d written it!
‘The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right’ by Lisa O’Neill
Lisa O’ Neill’s beautiful and distinctive voice takes on the rise of the so called Far Right (they should just be called what they are, which is fascists). I’ve been working on a song tentatively titled Everything is Bad which is attempting to take on this very same issue but having heard Lisa’s take on the subject just a couple of nights ago, I’m thinking I may as well give up because I can’t see how we’d better this.
‘Bite My Tongue’ by The Plan
We were talking earlier about The Plan and what a good fit they and us make. Well, The Plan have just released their 2nd album, Mountain View, and it’s a cracker, every track from start to finish. I could have picked out any track from the album but Bite My Toungue, with it’s angular guitars and a gorgeous vocal from Rebecca is probably my favourite right now. It sounds like it could have been made in 1982 or 2025. Timeless.
Your Heterosexual Violence: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Interview by Paul Maps
Photography by Suzi Corker
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