The story of AntiPlacid began when
once upon a time two good friends Johnny Dabbs and Danny Milner began jaming together with their new found basses and guitars
in late 2002. They had a bash at writting riffs and songs, and one of the things they came up with was the 'Lose Control'
riff which we stil use today. Just when they started to think, 'Hmm, if we're gonna make a band we'll need a drummer,' their
other good friend Josh Barker phoned them up and said 'I well got some drums today.' PING! LIGHTBULB!
So the threesome started jamming
late Jan 2003 doing mainly covers, before starting to create 'Lose Control', or 'Made in China' as it was then known. During
this time, we got another guitarist Danny G. At this point we thought we'd better get a name, and as we were eating digestive
biscuits at the time, we decided to call ourselves Digestive Biscuit. After about a month, there was a bit of confusion as
Danny left the band. It turned out that someone had quit for him, but by the time we learnt this it was too far in the past.
So we began our search for another
singer, and luckily, at some party we met the man himself Joe Cunliffe, who agreed to bring his talented singing/guitar ability
to the band, and also the name AntiPlacid. After many praticses we had a decnt set of songs and decided to book our first
gig at Chorley Community Centre, which went down rather well. After this, we decided we wanted to have a ska song so for our
next gig at ACC we enlisted the trumpting talent of Danny Wheble. As we worked well together, we decided to have Danny
as a permenent guitarist/trumpet guy which ment Joe had a lot more freedom as a vocalist onstage and also we could venture
in a ska direction. We also obtained Mr Ben Hartlebury as out managerial asset, to get us gigs and suchlike.
So, firmly established as a 5 piece, we went on to write more
songs, do more gigs including the Chorley Mid-Summer Festival and shape a style of music consisting a hybrid of rock,
ska punk and emo.
During late November, after being a 5 piece for around 6 months, we decided
to make our first EP. It was done by recording each instrument part seperatley with a general purpose mike and some computer
software. This was the best way of doing it with the materials we had, and the sound quality was pretty good. With the help
of Mr Ben we got three songs down, our most well known songs which were 'I Know,' 'Currupt Buddah' and Lose Control.'
We also included a comedy dance mix named 'Banging Tunez,' just for the comedy value. We sent this EP of to a panel of
judges as part of a competition, who put us in the finals to be held late February, which was a good result.
In what was possibly the highlight of the bands history, we
won the competition. A truly amazing night. We performed what were our three best songs - Let Go, Corrupt Buddah and DDDDD
for the encore. This resulted in some profesional recording time, which was rad.
Being in the studio was an ace experience for the band, where
the band had the aid of producing master Seamus Heany, at Shamrock Studios in Blackburn. Josh went in alone on the first day
to mic the kit and such. He also layed down the drum tracks without the aid of his band members which was, apparently,
the first time it had been done at that studio. The next day saw the rest of the band come in, and recorded and mastered 3
of the 4 songs. When not recording, the band watched Pulp Fiction, stenciled the local architechture and messed about
with a frisbe. The 4th track was done on day three, and took all day, for some reason. The result was the self titled EP,
'Antiplacid.'
Well, that is pretty much the story of AntiPlacid's largely
sucessfull first year-and-a-bit . "So where did it go wrong?" I hear you cry.
The trouble started one particular gig where Johnny was unable to play, so
we got the help of trusty Ben H. Even though it was one of the best shows we ever played, it sparked tension within the group,
as the question 'Who should be our bassist' arose. No disrespect to either party there, but thats just the way it was. This
was an issue that never really got resolved, partially because the band had more important things to worry about at the time,
namely GCSE revison and the X Factor the auditions!
The X Factor was, really, an all round comedy experience for the band.
It was a time where we got to party in Leeds a few time, got told we 'were pretty good and had bags of potential,' by Louis
Walsh, we 'were good but it wasn't the right competion,' by Sharron Osbourne, and 'you fcuking suck,' by Simon Cowell.
When the band finally decided to sit down and sort their shit out, it
became pretty obvious it was pointless to do so. Josh annouced he was movin to Australia in a month, thus, obviously, eliminating
him from the line up. Joe, Wheble and Milner had joined other bands playing there preffered styles of rock, ska and emo respectively.
This was the moment when we looked at eachother and said, 'dude, we dont have a band anymore.'
