Article by Mike Clifford MT 27/28  June 1999

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Could I take such a motley crew and make it work as a band? Good question, but I found the idea highly appealing for some reason. It was a…….. challenge!

Anyway this was how the Extremes were formed, (Note: this was many years before the band Extreme came on the scene). We were so called because we all came from different walks of life.

After several nine hour sessions in the hot house June heat of Mick Sullivan's garage. Mick, John, myself and a drum machine had about 20 numbers sorted out.

The first to go was Ken. After a few Stella's Ken couldn't tell which end of his guitar was which. His preferential interest at the practises in Sullivan's tomatoes as opposed to Route 66 did not inspire confidence, so we became a three piece with a drum machine.

Our first gig was at the Blacksmiths in Barwell. We played six numbers between the sets of a duo consisting of Alan Baggott and Pip Clark. We went down well. 

 The idea was to do  covers of the Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Elvis. I didn't see how we could go far wrong with any audience.

Our best gig was on Boxing Day 87, where we played at the Weavers and immediatley after at Down's Football Club. This was ironic because we almost cancelled: John had lost his voice and I felt chronic.

But after five months there were problems. Our bass player occasionally turned up a little over refreshed at the gigs, and the possibility of doing funk numbers was not an option. Also John hated Elvis and most of the rest of the repertoire. He was into all this macho rock stuff - and I'd had enough of all that fuzz box stuff in the 70s.