From touring with Van Halen to working with Freddie Mercury, the Isle of Wight’s Peter Banks certainly has a tale or two from the world of rock and roll.
Peter, founder of the new-wave band, After the Fire, spoke to the County Press about his career, including being an influence on U2.
Peter said Bono himself told fellow After the Fire member Andy Piercy, “‘we found you such an inspiring band and you’ve really helped us."
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Peter grew up on Newport’s Staplers Road and cited his mum and aunts as musical influences.
“[Aunt Violet] got me listening to the songs on the radio by The Beach Boys and The Kinks,” he said.
“I remember You Really Got Me and thinking ‘incredible'.”
In 1972, after studying physics at UAE, Peter formed After The Fire, who ‘built up quite a following’ before releasing their debut album in 1978.
Signs of Change was funded with a loan and released independently.
“We were able to record the album, and from the revenue of advance sales, pay [the loan] back.
“When we did more pressings, some stores contacted us to ask for our trade price. We hadn’t even figured that out!”
“It wasn’t contrived or planned, it just happened,” Peter said about the genre change.
“[The album] enabled us to close a door on the music that we’d been playing.”
The following year, After The Fire made it into the UK charts with One Rule For You.
They even filmed a performance on Top of the Pops, though were cut after being deemed ‘too similar’ to Gary Numan, who was also on the show.
“There was something special about One Rule For You,” Peter said, adding that it had a ‘pertinent message.’
The band’s biggest song to date, 1980-f, was an instrumental that was used as the theme tune to German talk show, Na Sowas!
Peter said ‘people didn’t necessarily know’ After the Fire made the song until they played it at concerts.
“Places would just go wild,” he added.
The band then went on to support not one, not two, but three of the biggest rock groups at the time.
Mr Blue Sky hitmakers, ELO, enlisted After the Fire’s drummer after their own got ill on tour, which Peter said bonded the two groups.
A ‘really special’ European tour with Queen followed, though the band barely spoke to the legendary frontman, Freddie Mercury - or ‘Fred,’ as close friends called him.
“The only one of us who spoke to [Freddie] was John [Russell, ATF’s guitarist], who inadvertently burst into his dressing room to ask to borrow a belt.”
Of all the artists he toured with, Peter said Van Halen were the ‘friendliest.’
“We all knew Eddie personally and his death was tough,” Peter said in reference to the passing of Van Halen’s guitarist in 2020.
In 1982, a cover of Falco’s Der Kommissar became another hit for After the Fire, reaching number five in the US Billboard Hot 100.
“We hadn’t had a monster hit and the record company was always saying we needed a hit single.”
By 1983, the band had ‘fallen apart’ and were ‘burnt out,’ not gigging again for over 15 years.
They reunited for a birthday party, followed by a concert organised by the band’s fan club.
Since then, After the Fire have toured multiple times, though Peter said they will ‘never play as a full band again.’
That doesn’t mean you can’t catch Peter performing live though.
He engrosses himself in the local music scene, taking part in Ventnor Fringe the last few years.
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