Treason (band)
Treason are a heavy rock/metal trio based in London, England.
History
Beginnings
Treason’s origins date back to 1988 when vocalist John Seaton, formerly of underground metal act ‘Apocalypse’ answered an advert from the first fledgling line-up. The music being written at that time was in the thrash metal mode, a style that was very much in vogue at the time. This first line-up went through the inevitable personnel changes before stabilizing somewhat with the addition of ex Apocalypse drummer Gary Brown and Italian bassist Fabrice Francese. The band then embarked on a heavy touring schedule, playing nationwide and securing a sizeable following on the then burgeoning metal club circuit around the UK. They supported and toured with the likes of home-grown acts Venom, Paul Di Anno, Xentrix, Slammer and Onslaught, as well as visiting American names such as Bad Brains, Gwar and Warrior Soul, and for a while were among the leading lights of the underground thrash metal scene.
Early recordings
The group recorded a track ‘Path Of No Return’ for a compilation album entitled ‘A Taste Of Armageddon’ – an LP featuring unsigned, underground UK metal acts and released by Master Records, a company run by Doug Trendle, AKA Buster Bloodvessel of hugely popular British Ska/Two-Tone act, Bad Manners. This album has since become a collector’s item. More personnel changes then occurred resulting in the addition of another ex-Apocalypse member, James Bravo, being drafted in on Guitar. Treason were then offered a deal with Master Records and the band began recording their debut album in January 1990. Well regarded ex Thin Lizzy producer Nick Tauber was brought in, but the recording itself was plagued with difficulties and the end result was not to anybody’s liking. Said John Seaton ‘ Nick Tauber was a great guy and I loved his work with Lizzy; but in all honesty I don’t think he really knew what to do with us. I think he wanted to turn us into a Def Leppard type straight rock act which is wasn’t what we were at all. Consequently the album ended up sounding a desperately weak and confused mess, with weedy guitars and horrible 80’s drum sounds. Add that to the fact is that I still didn’t have much of a clue about singing and all in all it soon became unlistenable to me’ Opinions on the albums merits were superfluous anyway in the end as shortly after recording was completed Master records went bust, ensuring that the album never made it to the pressing stage. The band then went into meltdown with three of the five members quitting, Leaving only Seaton and original guitarist Jon Hutter onboard The two then went about searching for a new line-up and in early 1991 found Martin Bourne (guitar), Rob Lewis (drums) and Julian McBride (bass) – happy at securing what they considered their best line-up yet Treason began anew and again started touring the country. After a while of doing so the band figured that a new name might be an idea to go along with the new line-up and so ‘Treason’ was dropped in favour of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ - The group recorded a couple of demos and touted them around the industry to no avail. Morale began to dip within the ranks after a year or so of getting nowhere and this culminated in a support slot the band played on a rainy Tuesday night in Norwich with a new American band called Neurosis – an act who were at the forefront of the new industrial metal scene coming through at that time. Seaton said later that Neurosis ‘wiped the floor with us’ and the group were left feeling sufficiently beaten and downhearted by the whole business that it prompted the three new members to quit. Again this left Seaton and Hutter as the only surviving members and at that time they too decided to throw the towel in. Bourne, Lewis and McBride then formed ‘Pulkas’ and secured a deal with Earache records. Pulkas became quite highly regarded for a while before they too disbanded some time afterwards.
After the split
After the band finally split up Seaton kept out of the metal scene for a time spending the next 10 years or so instead focusing his attention on writing and recording his own solo music which was more in an acoustic/folk vein. However, the metal bug kept biting and in 2001 he recorded a self-financed album entitled Ego Prime, featuring material he had written during the ten-year hiatus from Treason. Sufficiently inspired by the material (which was even reviewed favourably in Classic Rock magazine) John decided to put a band together to front the songs. He managed to secure the services of Harvey Bainbridge (ex-Hawkwind) on keyboards and John Bootle (ex-Stray) on bass guitar. John immediately took the band into the studio and self-financed another album re-recording all the songs that appeared on the Ego Prime demo. The resulting album, entitled Ego Prime was self-released in 2005 but Seaton was very unhappy with the results. ‘I basically ran out of money and just couldn’t get it sounding how I wanted it to in time’ he said. This group only performed live twice, once at the ‘Sonic Rock’ festival in Skegness, where they played alongside Space Ritual and Arthur Brown, before Seaton folded the project in 2006
Treason 2009–2011
Still believing in the songs he had despite his unhappiness with both demo albums, John then decided to re-form Treason. He managed to track down Jon Hutter, who wasn’t interested in taking part, and none of the past members could be located; so he decided to make it a totally fresh line-up, this time working along the power trio lines rather than the traditional metal 5-piece. After a while of struggling to find suitable musicians he secured a 2009 line-up which featured present Treason bassist Steve Reddihough, formerly of cult punk tock ‘n’ roll band The Machines, grunge metal band Lost Gravity, and Ian Hunter’s daughters band, The Tracie Hunter Band. The band immediately went into the studio and recorded an album of more or less the same material from the Ego Prime demos, this time however with a somewhat improved sound (though still not wholly to Seaton’s liking!) – They then proceeded to get busy on the gig circuit throughout the UK whilst trying to catch attention from the industry. After a year or so of touring the band were signed to Casket Records and went into the studio again in late 2010 to start recording what would be in effect their first official album release. This album, entitled Lambs To The Slaughter was released in 2011. Musically, the album was a vast step up in class and power from all previous efforts as the band finally nailed the playing and production in the studio. Yet again containing material from the Ego Prime demos but also with some brand new material, Lambs To The Slaughter was a heady brew of very heavy rock with elements of many different styles in the metal genre included in the mix, far removed from earlier Treason material in terms of song structure and melody and culminating in a highly original and recognizable sound. Unfortunately for the band however, two things contributed to the albums obscurity – firstly the record company involved did nothing at all to promote the album, meaning that the press and public in general alike had no idea of its existence, and secondly the band were unable to gig throughout the entire year due to yet more personnel problems.
2012 and beyond
A light through the gloom came with the arrival of drummer Toby Wyss. Toby, a student of the British drum teacher/virtuoso Pete Riley, brought fresh impetus to the band and, sufficiently re-juvenated, they decided to re-record the drums and guitars on the 2009 demo and release it as their follow up album to Lambs To The Slaughter. This album, entitled Hell Is A Place On Earth is expected to be released around May 2012.
Discography
Studio albums
- Lambs To The Slaughter (2011)
- Hell Is A Place On Earth (2012)
Compilation albums
- A Taste Of Armageddon (1989)
Line up
- John Seaton - Vocals/Guitar
- Steve Reddihough - Bass
- Toby Wyss - Drums