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A Brief History of After Dark.

After Dark was formed way back in the early 80's, a culmination of three friends, one landlord (not the pub variety) oh and a young drummer (he was young then but has subsequently caught us all up). The founder members: - Stuart Senior-Bass, Dave Blackburn-Rhythm Guitar, Neil McDonald-Lead Guitar, Steve Wormald-Vocals and Steve Holmes-Drums formed essentially as a Heavy Rock band playing a mix of covers from bands like UFO, Guns n Roses, Ozzy etc and original songs penned by legendary songwriters Zucker, Zucker and Zucker (in joke).

After weeks or perhaps months (more likely years ......... you're never quite..... ready) of rehearsals wherever we could set up, the band was unleashed (more likely tentatively dipped our toes into the hot bath of rock n roll) on the general public as support to the infamous Bruised 'n' Used at the now legendary (in our minds anyway) Haddon Hall in Leeds and subsequently went on to support them on their first world tour (well Scarborough anyway).

In a short space of time we had a flurry of gigs at venues like The Haddon Hall, The Stage Door Scarborough, The Bishopgate venue (now Dino's) in Leeds to name but a few but unfortunately just as we were starting to build a following and establish ourselves we were cut down in our prime.

Just as Richard Branson was about to open his chequebook (it was the song writing you see, Rock all the Day, Caught in the Crossfire, Nuclear reign) Steve Wormald had to leave the band due to family commitments (two young kids). Bugger!

At the time this left us with a problem; there was a void we desperately needed to fill, we needed to search for a replacement for our Dio/Mercury (very small with a big moustache) front man, but try as we might (and looking back I don't remember us trying too hard), in the 80s (especially as none of us frequented gay clubs...or do now for that matter) there was only one singer available with a Zapata moustache (see picks 15 years ago) and he had just starred at Live aid with Queen. .........If only we'd known Ped from Frankie Goes to Hollywood!

We did audition a number of singers (including a cracking young Irish lad, I wonder where he is now?) but could not get the chemistry right. We found it difficult to continue after the loss of 118 118 and we subsequently found ourselves on gardening leave.

All of us remained friends and in the 90's After Dark (although we weren't necessarily After Dark at this time) reformed and started rehearsing in an old warehouse on Sweet Street, interestingly, doing mainly 70s type covers with Stuart singing for rehearsal purposes, but this seemed to fade.

In 2004 Dave Blackburn approached the rest of the lads to see if we wanted to come out of retirement and play at a at a 40th birthday bash at what we subsequently found to be one of the strangest venues ever (A communal cark park in a clearing, down a windy track, surrounded by woodland, somewhere near Otley). After a quick discussion in the pub we agreed a fee, free beer! (Tim Taylor's landlord at that!) and decided to reform and headline this prestigious event.

I think the reason we 'headlined' this particular event was not necessarily on merit, but due to the cunningness of the other bands on the bill who realising they were been paid in beer took the what is now obvious option of getting on early and then partying on after on free beer, this didn't bother Neil who has 18 pints per gig anyway, but the rest of us don't have Neil's constitution, or ability to play having imbibed liquid stimulants .

This lead to some more rehearsals at venues like Colton institute (until we were kicked out for being too noisy) the house of Mook, and upstairs at a pub in Otley (522 and counting!!)

The gig was a success and invitations to play came flooding in.

At a 40th birthday party in June the following year our original line up was augmented by Debbie Kelleher and Graham James guesting on saxophone/keyboards and saxophone respectively.

This gave us plenty of options musically (if not logistically!) and the party was a big success.

After our first proper gig back which was at the Primrose on Meanwood Road in Leeds (during which I always remember the guy who ran the gigs saying with some surprise 'f...... hell these guys are older than me' I thought that's unusual.... you don't normally get a 10 year old booking bands) Debbie decided the commitment of the band was too much and left with our best wishes.

We played on as a six piece (we even all got on stage at the Crimea in Castleford .. another good night), for around six months until Dave decided that the commitment of the band was becoming too much and decided to leave. Dave was a founder member and backbone of the band and so it was with great sadness that he left.

Crunch time for the band but after some clever tactical manoeuvring by Stuart (great guitarist in the style of Ralph McTell) a replacement BASS player was found propping up the bar at The Old Red Lion and Stuart was allowed to play guitar (one of the 411 different guitars in his possession) and keyboards.

At around the same time Graham left and with Gavin Handley now on Bass the current line up was born.

Gavin has 'been around' musically and fits in well with us both on and off stage and we feel at last we have a settled line up (although who knows?)

We are currently playing gigs round Yorkshire (see gig guide) and building up a following , we have all been in different bands ovrer the years and all have slightly different musical Tastes but we try not to be too precious about this and make our main objective that the audience have a good night We enjoy ourselves , and normally end up with some guest singers on stage and have a great night .

In March 2008 Steve Holmes decided that juggling his shifts, band and home life was getting to difficult and something 'had to give', as much as we tried to get him to leave his wife and family it soon became obvious this was going to be the band. Steve was a founder member of Afterdark and it was sad to see him leave although hopefully he may join us again on stage soon. After a short period of jungle telegraphing Gav managed to get in touch with Phil Lister with whom he used to play many years ago in Neutral Blue (......i know!) and despite having played in a band that sounds like the Dooleys Phil fitted in really well and has given us a different dimension. Due to the after effects of a motorcycle accident he has 2 bionic hands, unfortunately as a result of this he plays twice as fast when the weather is good and gets a bit arthritic in winter, oh and his darts is fantastic, despite his myopic appearance. So on to another chapter.

(also see Band Members|Family Tree)