It all began in 1989. Kevin Taylor and Mark Sellar were thrashing through a couple of old Beatles tunes in an old nursery building in Lordswood. A guy heard the racket and realised that there was no bass. His name was Neil Blinkho. He walked over to his house, came back with his instrument and Ouch! was born.
A few months later, the trio was gigging, mixing Taylor-penned originals with a variety of classic tunes.
The next step was a five-track demo of original songs, recorded at Roseyard Studios in Maidstone. The owner of the studio was sufficiently impressed to offer to manage the band and release More Than A Friend as their first single. But then came a phonecall from London. It was a Mr Tony Berry from Cavell Records. Mark had seen an ad in a magazine, placed by the new record company, who wanted to hear demos. He’d sent the tape to them. Tony said they loved the songs and wanted to hear the band live. When they did, Ouch! were signed on the spot. The trio each received a cheque for £200, which seemed like an absolute fortune.
The decision was made to add a keyboard player and the job went to Darren Green, a local busker, who the band spotted playing on Chatham High Street. Ouch! were now a four piece and at the beginning of 1991 were recording debut single I Need You More at Abbey Road Studios.
The record and accompanying video went down a storm. Capital Radio’s switchboard was overloaded by people asking where they could buy the single. Ouch! appeared on Pebble Mill, Get Sharp, Motormouth, The Kelly Show, The Chart Show and Gimme 5 but incredibly, with Cavell already running out of money, the record did not make it into shops in time to meet the demand.
Luckily, the owners of Eden Studios in West London were so enamoured by Ouch!’s demos that they offered to record their debut album free of charge. Though the band were delighted with the result, during recording it became clear that Neil Blinkho’s bass playing was a liability and Kev reluctantly had to say goodbye to his sidekick and funny man. With the album completed and a tour supporting “Stars From The Commitments” on the horizon, it was time to find a new bass player.
In fact, the band recruited both Jon Mellor on bass and Russel Paye on lead guitar. Between March and May 1993, the band played 52 dates, in support of first The Commitments and then 70s lovegod David Essex. By the time Ouch! moved onto the Radio One and Atlantic Radio roadshows in the summer, Russel had been replaced by Jim Knowler. But despite the excellent exposure Ouch! were enjoying, there was no money to release another single. In a desperate bid to steer the ship, Ouch! signed to Luton-based management company Freeway Music. Freeway did manage to engineer the release of Can’t Stop Looking At You as the next single but resources were stretched and marketing was severely limited.
But then the band received good news from afar. Cavell had managed to sign licenses of Life Goes On with RPM in South Africa, Polydor in Germany and Sony in Japan. And it was in Japan that Ouch! achieved their greatest success. During 1994, the Japanese release of Life Goes On spawned two No.1 singles, Can’t Stop Looking At You and You Should Know By Now. The band’s first far eastern tour followed, seducing radio, TV and live audiences with several stunning ‘unplugged’ sessions built around their tight vocal harmony arrangements and the eerily Lennonesque quality of Kev’s voice.