Thanks so much to Barry for the interview! I love the Three Little Piggies and so some time ago I wrote on the blog about them. I was lucky that Barry got in touch with me and gave me the opportunity to listen to most of the songs recorded by the band and also answer all my questions and tell the story of the band! I hope you all enjoy it!

++ Hi Barry! Thanks a lot for getting in touch! I really love the few songs I’ve heard by Three Little Piggies so I’m really thrilled! I have many questions to ask you, but let’s start with today, like what are you up to? Are you still making music? Are you still in touch with the rest of the band members?

Yeah I still play, but mainly covers for fun now. After the Three Little Piggies I switched to Guitar, our Sax player Steve switched to Bass and his brother our Trumpet Player Mark took on vocals for a band that was completely different. We used backing tracks and played an early nineties kind of Manchester scene music. I also joined another band called Stinkfish at the same time playing bass, but that band imploded when we were getting record company interest. After a while in the Carpet Dancers we gave up as it was a slog and we petered out as bands do that don’t split up, and then I played with one of the guys from Stinkfish on and off to support his solo stuff. I still play with that guy, Cole is his name, now with occasional acoustic slots at pubs. For a number of years Mark, Steve and me
along with a different drummer played the function circuit as a band called the Senators, all covers, but that was a real slog and I gave up a couple of years back/ I still speak to most of the old guys from time to time, but lost contact with the Three Little Piggies drummer Paul a few years ago.

++ What are your first music memories? Do you remember what was your first instrument? How did you learn to play it? 

First music memories were rock and roll as my mum and dad used to dance to it all the time. They weren’t into music as much as they were into dance so weren’t a musical influence. First records were 70’s songs by bands like Slade and Mud and then I didn’t really like the mainstream stuff at the time, just didn’t do much for me. Although at school we all listened to Genesis and Pink Floyd plus Led Zeppelin and Status Quo when I heard God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols I was hooked; as much by their attitude as by their music. I had played around with acoustic guitars since I was 11, teaching myself, but I was inspired by the punk and new wave bands to play bass (Jean Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers, Paul Simonon of the Clash and Bruce Foxton of the Jam). I was playing gigs with knock about bands with no practice and barely in tune from about age 16 I know very little about the band, so wanted to know the basics.

Before Punk it was whatever was in the charts really or popular with other kids at school. I could take it or leave it. Punk gave me a focus for a specific genre that I identified with and ignited a proper passion for music in me. My first instrument was an acoustic guitar, but it was a cheap thing that had a really high action that I could barely play. I stuck with it but then bought a bass when punk came along as I hero worshipped Sid Vicious. I loved the bass lines from the Stranglers and the Jam as well.

++ You were from Portsmouth or Fareham, right? What year was it when you formed? And who were the band members and what instruments did each of you play?

We were Portsmouth (my parents lived in Fareham and we used their postal address). The band Was Roy Mills on guitar and vocals,
Me, Barry Edgar on Bass and originally a drum machine (the “three” in Three Little Piggies). When we wrote “What happened to Eric?” which was inspired by on old First World War photo of a soldier we called Eric, I could hear a brass line and I knew a guy at work called Steve that played Sax so I asked him if he could lay a track for us; as it turned out his brother Mark played trumpet (they were in a marching band) so we got them in as a duo and called them Huff and Puff. Originally we synced a tape track to the drum machine but then started getting the two guys to play live. To make it worth their while we added them to other songs and started writing with them in mind

++ Had you been involved in any other bands before? How did you all meet?

My dad was a submariner in the RN and got posted to Canada when I was 11. As my parents wanted me and my brother to go to an English school for our education and the Navy paid for fees and boarding then I got packed off Harry Potter style to a school in Petersfield. Being a boarder there and that separation did a lot to bring out the rebel in me and question authority, hence the connection with punk in my mind. The school also had local boys (it was all boys school, the cane and dodgy teachers, dark corridors etc, but no real bullying) and Roy from the band was there. All throughout school I knew him but not well and we didn’t mix in the same groups, but just after school in 1981 I went along to a Damned gig and Roy was there too. Because we’d both gone on our own we hooked up. We became really good friends as we realised we had the same musical interests and as I had a bass and Roy had a guitar so we started messing about playing songs. Roy was at the Art College in Portsmouth and I was at the Polytechnic. We formed a punk band called the Wounded and played a few college gigs, but when college finished Roy and I went out on our own as a duo called the Bomb Circle with a drum machine.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?

One of the songs we played in the college punk band was called the Three Little Piggies, which was a straightforward rock and roll chord progression with lyrics that went something like the kid’s nursery rhyme about “This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home” only we changed the words around to “This little piggy had an arms race, this little piggy had a bomb, this little piggy had a country and this little piggy had none. Fallout. Radiation, now all the piggies have gone”. All the verses were something similar. We carried on playing it with the drum machine as we did lots of gigs in pubs around Portsmouth and a natural humour we had in us started coming out as we grew more accustomed to playing live. Also with a drum machine it was easier to sound better so our confidence led to smiling and laughter as opposed to shoe gazing. Because the song was a recognisable chord structure and the lyrics were easy we got referenced as the little piggies so we went with that name.

++ How was the Portsmouth area back then? Were there any like-minded bands that you liked? Where would you usually hang out?

What were the venues to go check out good music? There was a lot playing around those times, and a lot of the punk scene was centred around the polytechnic students union and the bands (mainstream bands as well) that were put on there. The Mild Mannered Janitors, 70 Policemen In My Kitchen , Ad Nauseum and Empti Fish are the main ones I can remember and Basins Night Club, run by Chris Abbot (Uncle Chris in our song) was also a great place. Not only did Chris book famous bands he always made sure to include local bands for support slots etc. The scene if you could call it that though was fragmented and informal and there was no professional management or promotion just enthusiastic amateurs. The city itself was dominated by the dockyard and the Navy and most of its cultural identity for its young population centred on that heritage and the outlet of Football. As a tough working class city it had a hooligan group known as the 6:57 crew who were the focus for football violence at matches, and this often spilled over into violence at gigs. One of the bands that really could have broken out were called Empti Fish, but their popularity brought in the fights and the fights brought in the police who banned them from playing. Playing gigs was pretty scary sometimes. We also hung out with the art school bands that Roy knew, but they didn’t really like the stuff we played.

++ What bands would you say influenced the sound of Three Little Piggies?

There was a really strong punk influence to Roy and me, but also bands like the Higsons used brass and most definitely the Larks who were a punk band with a 4 piece brass section that I happened across by accident at the Students Union one night. They blew me away and that memory of their brass section lingered. Other than those specific bands it was all the punk and new wave bands that we listened to that influenced us.

++ I remember that the first time I heard your music was on Myspace. There was a video there credited to a Vivian Gregson, you were playing “Clark’s Commandoes” and it looked like it was on TV or something. Do you remember anything about that video?

Yeah that was battle of the bands gig. Viv Gregson was the resident video guy and filmed all the bands and then sold them copies of the videos to earn his money for his time. It wasn’t on TV or anything though.

++ Both of your releases came out on Mrs Slocombe Discs which I assume was your own label? Is that right? Who as Mrs Slocombe by the way?

That was our own label yes and Mrs Slocombe was a character in a British comedy series called “Are you being Served” made by the BBC. Making your own records was the only way to release music back then and the minimum order quantity was 1,000 singles. We had to learn about the whole printing process for the covers and the record making process too, but had some fun. Both singles had their acetate masters cut at Abbey Road studios and we went along to witness both times. Immediately before one of them the engineer was cutting Natalie Cole’s Pink Cadillac so we listened to that before it came out.

++ Your first release was the “Frivolous Frolics” 12″ in 1988. The songs were recorded live at Portsmouth Art College according to Discogs. So was this a live record or that’s a mistake on the website?

The A-side had two songs “What Happened to Eric” and “Press Eject” which were studio recordings made at Dax studios and the B side was 3 songs recorded live at the Art College. The recording and mixing was done by Jim Crane who later went on to quite a bit of success with the Cranes who supported the Cure on a stadium tour of the USA

++ I assume then you played many times at Portsmouth Art College. How was it? What other venues in the area did you play in?

Actually that gig was the one and only time we played the Art College – they didn’t put many bands on but it was a special Christmas party or something. Mostly we played pubs and clubs, particularly Basins, but the highlight was a free festival held at Racton Ruins by the Hells Angels where there were thousands there. These were the days before corporate music turned festivals into what they are today. They were always unofficial, illegal and free back then.

++ This first record had 5 songs, “Press Eject” and “What Happened to Eric” on the A side and “Borgia Gintz”, “The Strangest of Men” and “Ain’t He Happy”on the B side. Which one of these was your favourite and how did the creative process work in the band?

My favourite was Borgia Gintz as I liked the structure to it, but we never really got a good recording of it. Creatively either one of myself or Roy would come up with a riff or part of a tune and we’d work on it together by just jamming it, but The Strangest of Men was written entirely by Roy and What happened to Eric by me. The two guys on brass would listen to the ideas and jam with us too and come up with the brass lines.

++ Your second release was the “Clarks Commandoes” 7″. And what a song that is, it is superb! If you don’t mind, in a few sentences, care telling me the story behind this song? Did you own some Clarks commandoes?

Yes we owned Clarke’s Commandoes when we were kids and the song is about the subliminal messaging of being a soldier inherent in their design and marketing. The shoes really did come with a compass in the heel and they had booklets with them that taught you military formations and hand signals. The treads were the same as British Army treads. I wrote the bass line first, the riff just happened as I was messing about and I liked it, and then Roy and I worked on the lyrics together one night. The reference to Jack falling down on Tumbledown, was tracking our generation from wearing Clarke’s Commandoes at school to fighting and dying in the Falklands in the battle on Tumbledown Mountain. Although it wasn’t a huge conflict in world terms in retrospect it was massively shocking to us, because we thought war was something that happened in history and to be “at war” sent the whole country into a strange mentality. Particularly in Portsmouth where the task force sailed from and the sailors who were dying were known locally. We were particularly pleased with the line “and all that we could find of him we buried in one shoe” because it closed the story of the shoes neatly, was sad but also humorous so fitted our intent and was also meaningful. The German count in for the chorus is also a war reference; our whole country as we grew up was still in some kind of post war trauma. Arguably we still are.

++ The 7″ was recorded at Recluse Studios by Rob Aubrey. How was that experience? Any anecdotes that you still remember?

Yeah, Rob was a great guy and acted as engineer and also producer to a certain extent. We would record 3 songs in one day if we could as it was expensive to use the studio so we’d pretty much work at it all day without much of a break! Rob would always allow extra time and would charge for a day but work right through to finish. That was so important to bands and I am glad that Rob has managed to make a living out of it even to this day.

++ Why were there no more Three Little Piggies releases? Was there any interest by any other labels?

They were expensive to make! We didn’t know how to get a distribution deal and the only way to sell them was to physically go around and talk to record store managers to get them to stock them and display them. We’d also sell them at gigs, but as we were too focused on just Portsmouth and small scale gigs then the fans weren’t going to keep buying the same record! Both records got played on radio, the first being played on national radio on the John Peel show but we didn’t really get any label interested. We should have played London to really get attention but with all of us working that would have been difficult. Looking back now I wish we’d just tried to take a year off work and have given a real proper go.

+= Were there no compilation appearances by Three Little Piggies?

No not that I know of. We did get a letter from some French fans once who saw us supporting the Toy Dolls. They were bootlegging the Toy Dolls and just wanted to tell us that they liked us and were putting us on their record too, LoL

++ And are there any unreleased songs by the band? Any other
recordings?

I sent you all those studio songs that we had digitised, but any other recordings I do have are still on 1⁄4” tape (the rest of the live art college gig) or audio cassette from bedroom demos or live recordings. I don’t have any equipment to play them, but might look to see if I can get some stuff transferred.

++ And just one last question about the records, who are the people on photographs of the front cover of the sleeves?

That is me on the front of both of them and Roy on the back of the 12”. On the back of the 7” it is brothers Steve (back) and Mark (front)

++ I found that in 1989 you participated in the Battle of the Bands in Portsmouth. Sadly you didn’t win the whole competition. What was your final standing? And what do you remember from it? Was it good promotion for the band?

We entered in 1987 and got a stand-in slot in the last heat of the competition as another band dropped out. Up until a few weeks before we had only used the drum machine, but a chance conversation about music with a guy we’d known for a while at our local pub, led him to reveal he could play the drums. We decided there and then to switch to a live drummer and incorporate Steve and Mark as Huff and Puff for everything. What we didn’t know was that Paul the drummer was not only classically trained, he was a damn good drummer – he could do triplets on his bass drum pedal that modern drummers use two pedals for – we just liked him and thought he was a good guy so no matter how he played it would be good for us. As it was he made the band by being a final piece in the jigsaw. We didn’t have an opportunity to really practice as a 5 piece because Paul was already booked on a holiday when we told him the chance had come up to play in the competition. The 64 bands they had were preselected from demos and we were just glad to get a chance to play for the exposure in the local press.

We gave Paul a tape of the songs and he said he’d learn them in his head when on holiday and then the day before we played the battle of the bands we had a practice. It was really good to suddenly have a live drummer instead of a drum machine and we just sparked off each other and went up a gear. We had friends and family and some fans that were used to me and Roy and a drum machine with some brass come along to support us and when they heard our new sound they went mad. We kicked off with Press Eject because of the cowbell intro. It was great night and we enjoyed it and all of a sudden we realised that other people that we didn’t know were cheering us on and liking us too. We won that heat which we weren’t expecting and the next week was the semi-final where our sheer excitement at “not being quite so shit anymore”, as my brother put it, gave us momentum. When it was announced we’d made the final it was really exciting for us; the final was usually a sell-out of over 1200 people and we’d been playing to 20 people in pubs. We came third which we really happy about. The following two years we also entered but didn’t make the grand final but in 1990 we made the final again coming 5th

++ What about other gigs? Where was the farthest you played from the Portsmouth area? Were there any bad gigs? And which were your favourite gigs?

As I mentioned above, we focussed too much on Portsmouth, where familiarity waned the fans enthusiasm. We were an impact band when playing live and always did really well at new places. We did support the Toy Dolls and none other than the Bay City Rollers (on a comeback tour) at Basins and we also played on a Captain Sensible gig in Bristol, but we were not good at self-management or promotion. Probably our favourite gig was Racton Ruin, those first heats in the Battle of Bands when we were a surprise to everyone and at a placed in Basingstoke that we’d heard had a really good loyal set of regulars but they were quite critical. As it was they went mad for it. We were in top form that night and we’d integrated a version of the Hawai 5-0 theme tune into the set; there would be a long drum part where Roy would introduce the band and the sudden stop followed by the opening brass refrain and then the whole band in on the second half of that bar. I thought someone might get injured, the crowd just went bananas and I can still recall the sight of the sweaty bodies going manic.

++ Did you get much attention from the music press or the radio? What about fanzines?

We got some, with play on local radio and write ups in the local press and record reviews in the nationals, but this is where the battle of the bands became a two edged sword. Basically it came to dominate the local scene and you had to enter it to be noticed and we didn’t really want to play it after the first year. It was the only way to get publicity but it tied our image into the competition.

++ Back in the late 80s there were so many great guitar pop bands in the UK. Nowadays they call that scene C86. But I’ve heard many say that there was no sort of scene at all. What’s your take on that?

Think I mentioned earlier that it was fragmented, certainly around Portsmouth with everyone doing things themselves for themselves. Everyone was in a band for that band and we lacked the support environment that you need to make a scene. We needed another 10 or 15 Chris Abbotts. People with some knowledge and able to offer guidance to young bands who knew nothing and deal with the record companies and promotors in London. I think the earlier NME forerunner to C86 which was C81 had more influence on us as a band. Roy was more into the C86 stuff than me and it wasn’t until the Manchester thing happened that it resolved itself into Britpop. Manchester was place where that supportive environment for the bands existed and they helped each other and inspired each otherrather than compete with each  other. We were too far, but not far enough from London.

++ When and why did you split? Did you continue making music?

Paul the drummer and Roy moved to London and Brighton to work and although we tried to keep going the distance was impractical and we faded out rather than split up. As we were still wanting to get out there and play, the three of us left in Portsmouth formed another band called the Carpet Dancers and we went back to drum machines and sequencers, but this time I played guitar, Mark moved from trumpet to front man on vocals and Steve the sax player switched to bass. We could all do this anyway, we didn’t have to learn or anything. Most of the writing for that band was all three of us and it was a musical switch in terms of style. I’ve got a track somewhere. It didn’t take too long for that band to take over though as we added real drums and keyboards.

We did get some record company interest, but nothing came of it and after a few years we drifted out of gigging as we all got married and settled down. I stayed playing in bands as a I had a lot of contacts in the local area who would ask me to step in for things, but then Steve, Mark and I formed a covers band – weddings, functions etc – which was good money but hard work and I jacked it in about 3 years ago.

++ Would there ever be a Three Little Piggies reunion?

Steve and I used to talk about it for years, but I don’t think it can happen. Mark lost all interest in playing the trumpet and a few years ago wouldn’t pick it up for the covers band, and we’ve lost contact with Paul the drummer. Steve now lives in New Zealand as well! Roy I still talk to infrequently via Facebook etc.

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you enjoy these days?

I still jam with friends and have a dedicated music room and I always have a guitar on a stand in the living room. I bought a big run down house with my wife before the kids were born and that has taken a huge amount of work to refurbish

++ Are you still in the Portsmouth area? Has it changed much? What would you recommend seeing if one was to visit as a tourist? What to eat? What to drink?

I still live there and although I am biased it is a brilliant place. Obviously if you’re into your music then the annual Victorious Festival is a highlight and it is great fun. There is a strong naval heritage presence in the city with Tudor Forts, the Mary Rose, the Warrior and the Victory to visit. Recent developments like the Gunwharf and Spinnaker Tower are good to visit too. There is so much to eat and drink here, you get the best in the world. As there was no English cuisine as such and our traditional foods were so crap, there has been a revolution of sorts on dining out in the UK over the last 40 years. You can get food from anywhere here from Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, French, Turkish plus loads of local variations. And to drink? More pubs than you can possibly visit, but if you like your ships too, then grab some fish and chips in the Still and West. It is built right on the harbour wall and all the boats go right by.

++ What would you say was the biggest highlight about being in Three Little Piggies?

It was good fun. We laughed a lot, we enjoyed ourselves and it all came naturally. When were played on Radio 1, I remember thinking we were going to be famous, LoL.but it wasn’t to be.

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

I think I said it all!! Apart from thanks for taking an interest in what we did. I appreciate the appreciation if that makes sense and it has made me collate some memories and photos that I have been meaning to do for ages. so I hope you enjoy the other tracks.

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Listen
Three Little Piggies – Clark’s Commandos