• NEW! Piranhas split with Virgin - article from fanzine Situation Butane (No. 1)

• Watch Piranhas on Top Of The Pops via this YouTube link.

This band really got the ball rolling in Brighton. Their live act was one of the best around and they soon had a large following and were beginning to get some choice gigs out of town. Their songs were laced with a dry, sardonic wit, backed up with some catchy hooklines.

From Suzy Horne in the The Piranhas first fan club fanzine:
"Their first gig as the Piranhas was at the Vault supporting another local punk band Wrist Action. It was an anti-Jubilee gig, held on Jubilee Day 1977. Even the hand stamp said "Fuck the Jubilee".

Their set consisted of about eight punk songs with titles such as Maniac, Tell the Truth, Hilary Bites, I Want Your Body and Johnny Mono, plus a couple of covers including a punk version of Let's Spend the Night Together.

The only slower song was called Shut Up which became a strong favourite and highlight of the set. It even had it's own dance at one time. "

Piranhas 1977-81

John Helmer, Brighton, June 1997.

I first met Bob Grover in 1976. Intense, hunched, with the pallor of milk-fed veal and eyes like pissholes in the snow; the next four years of my life would be dedicated to his vision. We were the first Brighton band of the punk era to nose our way out of a small but highly active scene and gain wider acceptance.

What marked us out (apart from that all-playing-the-same-chord-at-the-same-time thing) was a distinctive take on life emanating largely from between Bob's ears. Reg was a qualified sparks who could rustle PA equipment and plugboards out of nowhere. Dické had street credibility (coming from Lewes). Zoot Alors was the art school influence. I could count up to four without checking on my fingers. But Bob - Bob gave us weltanschauung.

Eventually the welt and its wife - including John Peel, Robert Smith and Jerry Dammers - beat a path to our Sunday night gigs at the Alhambra on Brighton seafront. For a while we enjoyed cult status and a reputation as a live act. There is no significant bodily function that I have not performed in the back of a Transit van.

It was at the Alhambra too that the infamous Pete Waterman saw us, the man who was eventually to give us our first, and as it turned out, fatal taste of chart success. Ironically enough, having survived years of slogging up and down the M1; after a traguc car crash which killed our Road Manager, Dave Bullock, and hospitalized other members; after poverty, hardship, the Anti-Piranha League (APL), contractual wranglings, bad drugs, bad sex, bad food and the day-to-day rigours of living that vision, it was getting into the Top Ten that finally polished us off.

Most of the Piranhas' tracks on the Vaultage Punk Collection CD (issued in 1997 to commemorate 20 years of punk music), came from an album that was never released. It was junked in favour of a marginally more commercial re-recording that came out to accompany the single Tom Hark. Shortly after its release we split up. Although Bob went on to a new line-up and another hit single (Zambesi), I don't think it would upset anyone unduly to claim that the original line-up represented on the CD, was the definitivce article.

Some ideas, some of the best ideas, aren't built to last. Having sung the joys of loserdom so long, perhaps we just weren't equipped for the triumphalist Eighties. Whatever. Since then, of course, bands like Pulp and Blur have visited similar territory. The Piranhas might not have lasted but the strand in popular music they represent - eccentric, eclectic and defiantly English - did.

The Piranhas went on to record the Top 5 hit Tom Hark under the Stock-Aitkin-Waterman partnership for which they earned a silver disk. But it just wasn't punk anymore and was to ultimately destroy the band. Soon afterwards they split up.