Chain Lightning- ‘a brief biography’

After ‘Desperate Oates’ disbanded about 1987 guitarist John Williams, (ex-stage technician for nwobhm band ‘Vardis’) full name John Lin Tremayne Williams (alias John singing Rock in ‘Desperate Oates’) also known as Jake, left the east coast area of England and moved to Cornwall in the south west. After about a year or so ‘Chain Lightning’ were formed featuring:

Lin Tremayne – guitar

Terry Morgan – drums

Terry Newman – vocals

Keith Seymour – bass

This line up lasted only a few months when Terry Morgan pulled out 2-days before a studio session, followed by the departure of vocalist Terry Newman.  A last minute replacement drummer was found for the session named Alan Williams and a female vocalist stood in for the session.

Again this line up was cut short by the loss of bass player Keith Seymour who sadly took his own life. At this stage the drummer Alan Williams also left to pursue other interests. As there was no full line up at this stage Lin Tremayne (Jake) carried on writing tracks and joined another metal band that needed a guitarist for their last few gigs. The band was called ‘Grinder’ and they were fronted by vocalist Steve Glasson (ex roadie for ‘Chain Reaction’ an earlier nwobhm featuring Derek Hodd on vocals) and who was previously with a band called the ‘Breed’. As Lin Tremayne was helping Steve Glasson out with his band ‘Grinder’, Steve helped write the lyrics for a couple of Chain Lightning songs.

After Grinder retired in about 1990, bass player Steff Pitcher joined Chain Lightning along with ex ‘Panick Attack’ drummer Jim Loveless and Manchester based singer Trevor Senior. Chain Lightning had a good year headlining the Royal Standard in London and recording a number of tracks for a record company called Livehouse Productions.  Two tracks were released on a compilation album. Eventually, the distance between singer Trevor Senior in Manchester and the band based in Cornwall started to cause problems. Trevor decided to leave the band, along with Jim Loveless the drummer who wanted to move onto a different genre of music. Jim was replaced by a friend of his called Simon James. It was at this stage that ex ‘Chain Reaction’, ‘Cloven Hoof’, and ‘Panick Attack’ vocalist Derek Hodd joined Chain Lightning. Simon James only stayed a short while performing on the bands live mini release entitled ‘Up & Rising’ recorded live whilst headlining Plymouth Academy, which had a good review in UK rock magazine ‘Metal Forces’. Simon was replaced by another ex ‘Panick Attack’ drummer Tim Evans and bass player Steff Pitcher also left and was eventually replaced by Sean Love after a brief spell with bass man Sam Harris. In July 1992 the band went into the studio and recorded the mini album Unchained. Shortly after this Lin Tremayne left to undertake  live sound work and was replaced by axe-man Adrian Knight. Approximately 6 months after this the band began to slow down performing live less and less.

Derek Hodd and Lin Tremayne have recently got back in touch and are hoping to re-record a couple of the older tracks along with a new track or two. They have began rehearsing with drummer Tim and bass man Ivan. Watch this space: 21 December 2006.