Treason (band)

Treason are a heavy rock/metal trio based in London, England.

Treason’s origins date back to 1988 when vocalist John Seaton, formerly of underground metal act ‘Apocalypse’ answered an advert from the first fledgling line-up. The music being written at that time was in the thrash metal mode, a style that was very much in vogue at the time. This first line-up went through the inevitable personnel changes before stabilizing somewhat with the addition of ex Apocalypse drummer Gary Brown and Italian bassist Fabrice Francese. The band then embarked on a heavy touring schedule, playing nationwide and securing a sizeable following on the then burgeoning metal club circuit around the UK. They supported and toured with the likes of home-grown acts Venom, Paul Di Anno, Xentrix, Slammer and Onslaught, as well as visiting American names such as Bad Brains, Gwar and Warrior Soul, and for a while were among the leading lights of the underground thrash metal scene.

The group recorded a track ‘Path Of No Return’ for a compilation album entitled ‘A Taste Of Armageddon’ – an LP featuring unsigned, underground UK metal acts and released by Master Records, a company run by Doug Trendle, AKA Buster Bloodvessel of hugely popular British Ska/Two-Tone act, Bad Manners. This album has since become a collector’s item. More personnel changes then occurred resulting in the addition of another ex-Apocalypse member, James Bravo, being drafted in on Guitar. Treason were then offered a deal with Master Records and the band began recording their debut album in January 1990. Well regarded ex Thin Lizzy producer Nick Tauber was brought in, but the recording itself was plagued with difficulties and the end result was not to anybody’s liking. Said John Seaton ‘ Nick Tauber was a great guy and I loved his work with Lizzy; but in all honesty I don’t think he really knew what to do with us. I think he wanted to turn us into a Def Leppard type straight rock act which is wasn’t what we were at all. Consequently the album ended up sounding a desperately weak and confused mess, with weedy guitars and horrible 80’s drum sounds. Add that to the fact is that I still didn’t have much of a clue about singing and all in all it soon became unlistenable to me’ Opinions on the albums merits were superfluous anyway in the end as shortly after recording was completed Master records went bust, ensuring that the album never made it to the pressing stage. The band then went into meltdown with three of the five members quitting, Leaving only Seaton and original guitarist Jon Hutter onboard The two then went about searching for a new line-up and in early 1991 found Martin Bourne (guitar), Rob Lewis (drums) and Julian McBride (bass) – happy at securing what they considered their best line-up yet Treason began anew and again started touring the country. After a while of doing so the band figured that a new name might be an idea to go along with the new line-up and so ‘Treason’ was dropped in favour of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ - The group recorded a couple of demos and touted them around the industry to no avail. Morale began to dip within the ranks after a year or so of getting nowhere and this culminated in a support slot the band played on a rainy Tuesday night in Norwich with a new American band called Neurosis – an act who were at the forefront of the new industrial metal scene coming through at that time. Seaton said later that Neurosis ‘wiped the floor with us’ and the group were left feeling sufficiently beaten and downhearted by the whole business that it prompted the three new members to quit. Again this left Seaton and Hutter as the only surviving members and at that time they too decided to throw the towel in. Bourne, Lewis and McBride then formed ‘Pulkas’ and secured a deal with Earache records. Pulkas became quite highly regarded for a while before they too disbanded some time afterwards.

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