History

This has been taken and put into third-person from the "Live-The Nightmare Continues" CD booklet, as well as my own words after the first live album:

Discharge was formed in Stoke-on-Trent in 1977 by two brothers, Terry (Tez) Roberts (vocals) and Tony (Bones) Roberts (guitar) Roy (Rainy) Wainright and a drummer called Acko (Tony Axon).  The name itself was chosen due to it being obnoxious.  Tanya Rich was their manager at this time, organizing their gigs.

The line-up didn't record anything and only played local gigs in the Stoke-on-Trent area.  In 1979, Hacko left and Tez became the drummer, with Cal (Kelvin Morris) taking over on vocals.  The band was influenced at the start by The Sex Pistols, The Damned and The Clash.

When Cal joined, all previous songs were scrapped and they began to work on new material, the lyrics of which were written by Cal himself.  Nothing really happened until a certain Mike Stone moved to Stoke from London.   He had a record shop and a label and when Tanya pestered Mike into listening to the band and he went to see Discharge play their first gig with the new line-up at Northwood Parish Hall, he told them they had no musical ability but got off on the intensity of the performance.  He offered them a chance to sign up to his label, Clay Records.

The first single, 'Realities of War' was released circa March 1980 and as Mike Stone did not have a distributor, he sold copies to shops of of the boot of his car.  The single got into the top 10 of the Indie Chart in Sounds (a UK weekly music newspaper).   This was followed by 'Fight Back', which again hit the Indie Charts.

Discharge then performed their first gigs out of the home town of Stoke, at Leicester, Preston and Glasgow.  Their next record, 'Decontrol' was again released in 1980, followed by the first 12" EP in 1981, entitled 'Why'.  This record was the first to not have Tez on the Drums, as he had left the band prior to the recording.

A tour followed, called the 'Apocalypse Now' tour, it featured new recruit Bambi, who was in turn replaced later by Garry Maloney (ex-The Varukers). This line-up recorded the next single 'Never Again' which was released at the end of 1981.  The single done well in the Indie Chart, as well a reaching number 64 in the UK national chart.

1982 saw Discharge release their first full album, 'Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing', which charted nationally, reaching number 40 and stayed in the chart for 5 weeks.  They were approached by a major label at this point, but decided to stay with Mike and Clay Records, as he had given them their first break, as well it not looking good for punk bands to sign to big name labels ("Sell Out').

Discharge then started touring outside of the UK - Italy, Yugoslavia, Holland, Finland, Sweden and the first tour of the USA and Canada all happened in 1982.  By the time they had returned home, Bones decided to leave the band.  His last recording with them (until later times) was the 'State Violence, State Control' single, released at the end of 1982.

Bones' replacement was Peter (Pooch) Pyrtle, who was involved in the recording of the next 12" EP 'Warning'.  Discharge started another tour of the USA and Canada in 1983 and it is during this tour that they released another single, 'Price of Silence'.   After this, both Pooch and Garry left the band, leaving Cal and Rainy.  During the recording of the 'Why' EP, they had finished another song, 'The More I See', which was remixed and released, along with a compilation album, 'Never Again' just a few months later in 1984.

The next single, 'Ignorance' was recorded with Cal and Rainy along with help from their friends Mole (guitars) and Haymaker (drums).  This was released in 1985 and was to be the last Discharge single (to date).

Garry rejoined the band and another guitarist, Steve Brooks was recruited.  This line-up recorded the third album, 'Grave New World', released in 1986.  This was followed by another US tour but by this time, the new metal sound and the fact that Cal was not wanting to perform any of the old songs, led to the inevitible demise of the band.   Clay records released another compilation in 1986, called 'Discharge 1980-1986'.

In 1989, Clay released a live album, taken from Discharge's second US tour, entitled 'Live at the City Garden New Jersey'.  Another live album followed in 1990, which was taken from the line-up of Cal, Rainy, Garry and Pooch. The gig was at Tunstall Town Hall, Stoke-on-Trent.

1991 saw Discharge reform, albeit without the original line-up.  Only Garry and Cal were from any of the previous line-ups, supported by Andy Green (guitars) and Anthony Morgan (bass).  They released a new studio album, 'Massacre Divine', which had taken Cal from singing in aggressive shouts through to Led Zeppelin-esque screams in 'Grave New World', to an almost Brian Johnson of ACDC growling.

The band toured extensively in the UK (maybe Europe?) as well as Japan - this was the first and only time for me to witness Discharge in their live environment.  Even though the new songs souded out-of-step with what they had done previously, the way they were performed onstage was almost no different to older and more aggressive songs such as Realities of War.

in 1993, another new studio album was released almost without any publicity, entitled 'Shootin Up The World', which in many ways was much better than the previous release, but still did not capture the hearts of the fans.

A multitude of compilation albums was then released by Clay as well as other record companies - Hardcore Hits, Decontrol the Singles, Punk and Destroy, Visions of War, Free Speech for The Dumb, Protest and Survive, all had the generic mix of singles and the Hear Nothing album.  Most of which you can still pick up today if you look around.

According to some websites, the band never really split up after the 'Shootin' album, but this isn't confirmed as yet.  By all accounts, Tez, Bones and Rainy managed to work again with Cal.  There were again rumours as yet unconfirmed that maybe they done some gigs with this line-up in 1999 - I'd like this confirmed with details if anyone knows for sure.

That brings us to 2002 and the new album.  The original line-up has managed to write a full album of songs, simply entitled 'Discharge', this was originally released in the early part of 2002 as a promo cardboard mini-LP style case, with a standard release in jewel case with lyrics in the summer.  The sound is more punk that previous releases and to me is attempt to update what they had originally set out to do - deliver a message with as few sentences as possible.

Of course, they had influenced at least two generations of hardcore punk, especially in Sweden (Discard), which in turn led to bands emulating the Swedish take of Discharge back in the UK (Doom, Hellkrusher), complete with black gatefold style LPs.

The best description of the sound on the new album, for those that haven't heard it yet, is that they are trying to now emulate those bands that were in turn emulating them!   Hear the songs and see if you agree....

Touring has started again in 2003, with Rat from The Varukers taking over on vocals, as Cal refused to play live again.