Anti Nowhere League

Anti Nowhere league live at the grove!

The band officially started in 1980 as a four piece band, with original members, Animal, Magoo ,Bones and Baggy.
They played a few shows together at local venues and soon got a reputation for being an obnoxious band with a bad
attitude. By 1981 the band had written and recorded their first album ‘We are the League’ which was at no 1 for many
weeks in the independent charts along with 3 singles ‘Streets of London’, ’I Hate People’ and ‘Woman’, although the
album was very successful for the band it did not include the song ‘So What’ because of legal restraints of obscenity
laws so the band took the album on the road for the now infamous ‘So What Tour’ .
By 1983 the band were riding high and brought in a second Guitarist ‘Gilly’ to add a more musical sound and recorded
the aggressive live album ‘Live in Yugoslavia’ which was received very well, especially with the former Yugoslavians
who for many of them meant that Punk Rock had arrived in their neck of the woods. Later on in 1983 PJ was sacked
and JB took over drumming and the band had finished writing their second studio album ‘Branded’ but due to
management bad finances the album never got recorded and the band were sent on tour to keep them ‘quiet’.
After the release of their last single ‘Out in the Wasteland’ in 1985 the band became disillusioned with the whole
music scene and had lost their way in what direction the band should be going so decided on one last major tour to
get inspiration, Australia was calling.
But by the time the ‘Crime’ album got recorded the band were not happy with the end result, although the album was
written with electric guitars it ended up using synthesizers and fell into oblivion, so finally in 1989 the band recorded
‘The Final Farewell’ show in the Victoria Hall, Southborough and soon after decided to call it a day and split.
It was in 1991 that the band made the decision to get back together thanks to METALLICA covering their song ‘So
What’ and asking Animal to join them up on stage to sing the song ‘live’ with them at Wembley.
So with the new line up of Animal, Magoo, Winston, Revvin and new second guitarist Beef they set about booking
some European tours and recorded a few tracks to warm up. Although Metallica inspired the bands reforming the
metal edge was not working for them, songs, ‘Talk Dirty to Me’, ‘Judges and Whores’ and ‘London Boys’ from their
recently released EP ‘Pig Iron’ did not cut the mustard so Animal and Magoo started working on the ‘Scum’ album
which was going to bring the band back to their Punk roots.
They had a great time writing the ‘Scum’ album at ease with the fact they were writing it for themselves and not a
record company but it did suffer however with lack of studio time and both agreed with each other not to let it
happen again. In the late nineties and after a couple of USA tours of hard work and little money Winston decided
enough was enough and left the band, he was replaced by Jon Jon who filled Winston’s shoes nicely and the band
were back in business.

After numerous appearances at festivals and many short tours Magoo could not balance the touring with his daytime
job and had to quit the band he was also having trouble with stage nerves, this meant Animal was the only original
member. So after many band member changes with in the next couple of years Animal started writing the ‘Kings and
Queens’ album with ‘Jez’ the new guitarist.
With the line up now Animal, Jez, Shady and Nato they were back on the road pushing a new album and were again a
force to be reckoned with. For the next few years the band went from strength to strength going back to Australia
and the USA along with other major Countries to tour extensively and show they were capable of playing the biggest
festivals as well as the small more difficult venues in the Punk and Metal scene.
2006 Animal wrote the ‘Road to Rampton’ an album he said he had to do, it was his life story that picked up a new
audience within the rock world and was hailed as a Punk musical it showed the band was now capable of playing
loud and confidently crossing Punk with metal.
Now the band are firing on all cylinders, touring with bands such as Motorhead and Rancid and playing the big
festivals like Download,Sonisphere and Rebellion. Also Animal re joined Metallica back up on stage to play their
30th birthday bash in San Francisco which proved with out a doubt that Metal and Punk can stand side by side.
But in 2012 and after a very difficult Australian tour Jez parted company from the band and Tommy ‘H’ took up the top
position on guitar then sadly within a year Nato had to leave the band due to army commitments and was replaced
on the drums by ‘crazy’ Sam Carnage which is now the current line-up
In 2016 the band released their definitive album ‘the Cage’ which is an insight of how “we all live in cages we have
built for ourselves” and has been hailed as their finest to date. 2017 has seen the release of their ‘covers’ album
‘League Style’….’ Loosen up volume 1’ a collection of Reggae songs that Animal and Winston grew up with, but giving
the songs a ‘guitar feel’ incorporating Tom’s magnificent guitar work.
So to sum up, the band are now playing live and recording doing what they do best’……. swimming against the flow of
the controlled music business’, again proving Punk is the last music rebellion and is still a major music force to be
reckoned with !
www.antinowhereleague.com