Band Bio
The Curse – Band Bio
Long ago in the pre-socialmedia, pre-smartphone and pre-internet era of 1986, a group of young musicians assembled to form a band called “The Curse“. The name was a nod to both “The Cure” and “The Cult”. The band members were “Dave Kent”, “Will Kent” and James Bobbett (formally of the “Horizon” and “Zenith” bands). They were joined by pop vocalist Joe Gomez. Later on joined by Joe’s younger brother Dave Gomez. Dave Gomez who took over from James Bobbett on the drums a couple of years later.
Influences
Here was a blending of musical styles Joe Gomez was in to 80s pop and Dave, Will and James were fans of rock. The great 1960’s 1st wave bluesy hard rock acts like: “Cream“, “Jimi Hendrix“, “The Who” and “The Rolling Stones“. Also “The Yardbirds“, “The Animals“, “The Velvet Underground” and “The Doors“. They were massive fans of 2nd wave hard rock band “Led Zeppelin“, “Deep Purple“, “Black Sabbath“. The 3rd Wave hard rock acts like “AC/DC“, “Queen“, “Aerosmith“, “Rainbow“, “Whitesnake“. The 4th wave Heavy metal bands “Iron Maiden“, “Judas Priest“, “Saxon“, “Def Leppard” and “Motörhead” and later on Guns N’ Roses and Metallica.
Dave, Will and James were fans of a smattering of the Progressive rock bands. Bands such as: Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Rush (and later on Marillion and Dream Theater).
They also had a liking for best punk bands like “The Clash“, “The Stranglers”, and The Damned. Joe was in to 80s Pop music like the The Smiths, The House-martins, The Alarm, “Spandau Ballet” and Duran Duran.
The whole band shared common ground a lot of the Punk sub-genre Goth bands of the time such as “The Cult”, “The Cure”, “Sisters of Mercy”, “The Mission”, “Bauhaus” and Siouxsie and the banshees. They also liked the “New wave” bands such as “The Police“, “XTC”, “Blondie” and “Elvis Costello”. Unusual New wave bands like “Ian Dury and the Blockheads”,”The Talking Heads”. Also other new wave acts like “Adam and the Ants”, “Bow-wow-wow”, “New Order” and the amazing overlooked band “The Psychedelic Furs”. Of course the whole band loved the the epic giant pop rock bands of the time “U2”, “Simple minds” and “Big Country”.
Music Style
Despite the heavy and punk rock influences “The Curse” songs were not as heavy or as punk rock band as Dave would have liked, their original material was a mix of new wave, Goth and ordinary rock. They did do some heavy rock and punk rock cover songs.
The Songs
Dave was a prolific song writer and had already written quite a few songs before the band formed. He brought with him “The Sparkle” (which had touches of “Queen” and “New order”). This was first song he’d ever written on the guitar, but which he donned the keyboards instead.
Many songs were brought to the table. There was the Bowie-esqe “Bleached blonde hair”. The big African drum beat laden song about the viking slavers “Coming across the sea”. The eerie gothic/new wave “And I see her eyes”. The pained pre-Emo “The Silent Scream”. He also brought the ephemeral “Head in the clouds”. “Take the chance”, “Take your life in your hands”, “Victims of love“, “Prisoners of Love”. The bouncy pop song “Cherry Red”. The bluesy “I don’t need your love”. The hypno-rock song “You don’t care“. 12-string folk songs “Loxy” and “Heartbreak no stranger to me”, “Where?” and “I know the name”, “You can cry”, “Prime Obsession” and “Beneath the setting sun”, and “So you think you won the war?” Dave took a sprinkling of his original songs through to his now current band “Velvet Razor“
Joe Gomez was a prolific lyric writer and had school books filled with lyrics already written. A few of those song lyrics found their way in to “The Curse” songs list. Songs like “Children of Islam”, “Every woman” and “Swing it”.
Collaborations
After quite a number of rehearsals, the whole band collaborated writing a number of great new original songs. Songs such as “Calling you“, “I don’t need your love” (Part 2). They collaborated to develop existing songs like “The Sparkle” where Joe and Dave came up with a chorus which wasn’t in the original song, “I don’t need your love” (Part 1) though originally a blues song became an Instrumental collaboration between Dave on guitar, Will on keyboards and James on Drums.
Joe and Dave collaborated writing a number of great new songs such as “Every woman”, “Come back to me”, “Swing it”, “I don’t need your love” (Part 2)” and “Children of Islam”.
Will and Dave collaborated writing a number of new songs such as, “Saturday morning“, “The Castle“, “Power driver”, “Jag-u-wah”, “Oranges and Boxes” and “Rosie’s day out”.
Dave, Will and James collaborated on the song “I don’t need your love” (Part 1)“