Johnny 7 Combo

The Johnny 7 Combo were a 'proto-punk' teenage rock and roll band that emerged out of the crumbling Essex seaside town of Clacton-on-sea, in the spring of 1977.

With the group’s ages ranging from 16 to 17 (with only drummer Adrian breaking rank at 25) the band fully embraced the emerging Punk/New Wave movement of the time, while retaining elements of a 60’s Brit Invasion and Blues Rock sound and... aesthetic.

Heavily into stage dynamics with strong visual and theatrical flair, The Johnny 7 Combo carved an influential but short lived career, based around the competing song writing nucleus of bass player Barry Payne and guitarist Tony Lewis, writing more than 20 songs in a relatively short career lasting just over 8 months.

Burning brightly but briefly and culminating after a riotous home town gig at Clacton’s ‘101 Disco’ (when singer Paul was hit square in the face with a shattering pint glass). The pressure of the negative public reaction to punk, Tony’s subsequent mugging in london and Dean’s family’s pending emigration to New Zealand, finally caused the band to fracture and split on the verge of a series of important London showcase gigs in October of 1977.

Ambitious and competent musicians but perhaps too young to handle the power they had unleashed into their control, the bands short career and lack of any ‘officially’ released material has affectively allowed them to slip through the net of music archivists and the chroniclers of Punk and 70’s music. Individually however, various members of the band have gone on to achieve more notable success, and it is perhaps this (as with ‘The Yardbirds’ a decade before) that gives an indication of the bands true ‘lost’ potential and influence.

Interest in the band has been steadily growing both across Europe and in the U.S (where the band have been featured on several American radio stations) and plans are finally in motion to gather together the various recording by the band in 1977. A new video has been produced by acclaimed animation director, Andy Martin and a retrospective CD and Vinyl LP are being planned for release in the spring of next year.

Will they ever reform? Individually the various members are all still very much 'alive and kicking' although now scattered across the whole wide world... but who knows after all, the future is unwritten!

In the summer of 1977 they went into Hillside Studios in Ipswich and recorded a number of original tracks which were intended to be used as a demo. These tracks were recorded as a live band, often in one take and with no overdubs, yet the passion, energy, professionalism and playing ability displayed by the the band (who at the time were mostly just 16 years old) is astounding!