Eyes of The Crowd
Eyes of The Crowd (1982-1987) ARC351
Eyes of the Crowd were formed in 1982/1983 by 3 college friends. Chris Ray bass, Keith Wintle drums and Paul Johnson (songwriter) on guitar and vocals.
A three, sometimes four piece band, joined by Kevin Aspinall periodically depending on his availability, their early influences ranged from the Beatles, R.E.M, the Police, U2, Rush, The Undertones and Black Sabbath along with other bands of the 60s and 70s. They gigged locally and eventually gained a good following. Rob Allen joined a year later and stayed with the band until they split in 86. He brought with him Pete Townsend and Mark Knopfler style guitar playing and elevated their live performance to a stadium rock based sound.
There were several changes in line up and they were joined by other Bristol musicians along the way. Paul Johnson remained as the founder member writing most of the tracks the band performed. They recorded at several studios, Woodside (Rockfields sister studio) in Monmouth, they were engineered by Steve Street on their first studio sessions in Bristol and later recorded at the Padded Cell in London and were produced by Ray Hedges. They regularly had major record labels at gigs but didn’t ever sign with anyone. Paul was offered recording and publishing deals by both CBS and Sony as a solo artist but wanted to remain within a band line up.
After the bands break up, Paul joined forces with another Bristol group - Scream Secret to form Southern Cross who eventually went on to support INXS.
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