The Lunatic Fringe

It is with considerable regret that we have to announce the sudden departure of our guitarist Mike Ford. We wish Mike all the best in all his future endeavours. We also have to apologise to The Railway canteen in Treherbert and The Mountain Ash Inn for having to cancel our weekend gigs at short notice.

We are however very pleased to welcome on board our superb new guitarist Mr David Bennett. Dave has been a friend and supporter of the band for sometime and looks like he's going to fit right in.

Welcome to the new website for The Lunatic Fringe.

For those of you new to us, we are a four piece rock band from South Wales.  Playing mainly cover versions the band specialise in what could be described as classic stoner, psychedelic, progressive rock from the last 40 years, taking our inspiration from bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Doors.

A Potted History

Keyboard player Steve and bass player Mike first started jamming together in the early 1980s in a series of bands and soon discovered a mutual love of progressive rock and herbal intoxication.  Their collaboration eventually came to an end when Steve decided to seek fame and fortune with soft rockers Teacher's Pet and came within a hare's breath of hitting the big time.

The years rolled by , Mike went to university and eventually into a career, Steve pursued a number of different musical projects after Teacher's Pet, one of which was a band called RAIN which featured a guitarist by the name of Mike Ford who'd recently moved down to Wales from London.

Mike in the meantime had refused to take up the pipe and slippers lifestyle and joined local legends Panama Red and for 5 years gigged regularly with the band until work committments forced his departure. While playing in Panama Red an experienced drummer called Byron David had been recruited and a firm friendship struck up.

More years passed until  ex- Teacher's Pet vocalist, Wayne Harding, decided to put a rock covers band together. Steve was one of the first recruits to the new band called HOOKAH and after the depature of the original rhythym section Mike and Byron were asked in as replacements. The band clicked quite quickly and soon became one of the busiest and most popular covers bands around, headlining prestigeous venues like The Point in Cardiff and featuring regularly on the local festival circuit.

Hookah made an amicable decision to call it a day in 2007 but Mike , Steve and Byron decided to continue making music together. Each had the ability to sing lead vocals, all that was missing was a guitarist. Steve had stayed in touch with Rain guitarist Mike Ford in the intervening years and felt that he would be an ideal candidate for the new band. After a phone call Mike was soon on board.

 ......... and that's more or less where we find ourselves today.