Ex-lead singer, songwriter and rythmn guitarist with seminal jazz/punk weirdcore band BROKEN BROW, (who split following their tour of England and the subsequent recording of their first & last album "HYSTERIAMECAHNICAL" at the end of '97.)
PREACHER JOHN has gone on to perform his own brand of alternative rock, stripped right down to raw vocals and acoustic guitar. Gigging constantly since February '98 - PREACHER JOHN has built up a powerful set of entirely original material, which moves away from BROKEN BROW's off kilter blitz to a darker, more intimately edgy sound which has attracted a loyal and growing fan-base. Influences include Tom Waits, the Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy and Stiltskin.
Live recording sessions in '98/'99 put 8 of these songs on the CD "YOUR PATRON SINNER" which received regular airplay on the ANDY ROUTLEDGE show on 107.2FM (Reading FM) in December '98 - culminating in a feature and interview just before Xmas. "YOUR PATRON SINNER" had further airplay on the Monday Rock Show with PETE BUTTERFIELD on 107.2FM in April '99.
"VOICES YOU CAN'T HEAR" is a 13 track album recorded at Alchemea in Islington in '99 and "A DOG CALLED Z" (2001) is Preacher John's 3rd music CD to date. Both sold very limited numbers internationally through mp3.com before it was bought out by Garageband. "Yesterday" (from "VOICES YOU CAN'T HEAR") was included on the READIPOP '99 compilation CD whose 20,000 copies were pressed into Reading festival goers sweaty palms. "Yesterday" also made it onto an mp3.com compilation CD "103 OF THE BEST SONGS.." while the track "Ganja" (from "A DOG CALLED 'Z'" went out on a German "LEGALISE IT" CD which was part of a successful campaign in Switzerland . "Don't Got No" (from "VOICES YOU CAN'T HEAR") was picked up by BBC Radio 1's alternative web pages and was streamed / downloaded from there for a few months in '99.
Tracks from both CDs saw air time on "THE BREAKOUT" show on Blast 1386AM Reading College Radio in '01/'02.
After a year of travelling the world with his guitar, which saw live performance action both in the bars of Barcelona (Spain), Vancouver (Cananda) and La Paz (Mexico) and also on the balcony of a hostel in downtown Seattle and a party in Los Angeles (USA) Preacher John returned to the UK to put the band ARMY OF PYGMIES back together and continue playing solo. Preacher John was interviewed and played a live solo acoustic set on LINDA SERCK's show on Blast 1386AM in June 2005.
ARMY OF PYGMIES rocked out a bunch of gigs in and around Reading until November 2006 when they split up. Preacher John went on to record a new 25 track album "Word (1998 - 2007)" which contains new, live-in-one-take recordings of some tracks released earlier and a whole load of tracks new and older which had never previously been recorded! Preacher John continues to gig regularly - upcoming gig dates can be found here
Some of Preacher John's press:
MELODY MAKER Nov. 28th 1998 ...sombre guitars and heavy atmosphere... [everything] pales into insignificance compared to this voice.
The BADDAZINE Dec. '98 ...vicious and delicate as the human psyche...
intoxicating tone, heavy vocals and somnific [sic] music conspire to cradle you, kiss you gently, then throw you down, impaling you on the barbed lyrics that lie underneath.
MAKING MUSIC Feb. '98 ...deep lyrics... ...breadth of sound, skewed arrangements and overwhelming mood.
NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS, Sept. 4th 1999 "Preacher John is a man on a mission."
MELODY MAKER - Mar 8 to Mar 14 2000 "[Yesterday] is characterised ... by exceedingly sparse acoustic guitar and a deep vocal so slow and deliberate you wonder if the guy's still awake. His shrillness on [Come A Long Way Baby] shows that he is. Good."
BIZ magazine June '02 "...With the crowd still shouting shouting for more [JAANGA MANTRA] might have been a hard act to follow but this didn't stop PREACHER JOHN from performing with his usual fiery dynamism, with a malevolent glint in his eye and his tongue firmly in his cheek he gave the audience everything he had and they clearly loved it. With his booming vocals and lyrics reflective of the fragmentation of modern society he is quite unmissable, though slightly mad too. After his tireless set it was the turn of KAT & MICHAELA..."
BBC Berkshire - Entertainment - Review The GIMP May '05
"..happy to belt out his gruff soulful voice like there wasn't in fact a microphone right in front of him.. big vocals and even bigger personality.. self-styled acoustic punk.. puts on a brave show full of melodic vigour, cheeky lyrics (the last laidback song being full of double entendres about fellatio like some kind of Carry On Blues) and, above all, has a notable stage presence that is hard, nay impossible, to ignore.."
PREACHER JOHN: guaranteed religion free.