The Newtown Neurotics - Steve Drewett

Steve Drewett in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.newtownneurotics.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvooaI5ePso

Formed in 1979 by Steve Drewett, they began like so many others to attempt to get their clumsy fingers around three chords and ape the Ramones who were their heroes. Sporting Joey Ramone length hair Steve would sneer at cries of "Bloody Hippie" from the audience but after a couple of numbers nobody cared they just went into pogo frenzy.

The early stuff from the band like "Hypocrite" and "When The Oil Runs out" singles were both great melodic punk songs on the type found in the early eighties but both were written prior to the election of the Thatcher monster.

The horror of this event changed what was the non-political writing style of Steve's lyrics into the other extreme, and so in June 1982 "Kick Out The Tories" was released on CNT records. This was a double "A" side shared with Mindless Violence as it was quite obvious that the political nature of "Tories" would prevent it some what from being Radio One's Tony Blackburn's single of the week!