Andrew Matheson is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

rock singer, most noted as a founding member of the British

proto-punk Proto-punk (or protopunk) is rock music played mostly by garage bands from the 1960s to mid-1970s that foreshadowed the punk rock movement. The phrase is a retrospective label; the musicians involved were generally not originally associated wit ...

band

Hollywood Brats The Hollywood Brats were a British glam rock and protopunk band in the early 1970s. They found little commercial success at the time, and split up in 1974, but are regarded as influential on the later punk rock scene. History The band was or ...

in the early 1970s.Nick Duerden
"Andrew Matheson interview: the Hollywood Brat who punched Freddie Mercury, stole from Cliff Richard and formed the UK's first punk band"
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 20 June 2015. Retrieved 26 June 2015 He later released two solo albums, and garnered a

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

nomination for Best New Solo Artist at the

Juno Awards of 1995 The Juno Awards of 1995, representing Canadian music industry achievements of the previous year, were awarded on 26 March 1995 in Hamilton, Ontario at a ceremony in the Copps Coliseum. Mary Walsh, Rick Mercer and other regulars of the television ...

."Juno Awards: Hip on top of the nomination heap". ''

Kingston Whig-Standard ''The Kingston Whig-Standard'' is a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It is published five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday. It publishes a mix of community, national and international news and is currently owned by Postmedia. It has ...

'', February 9, 1995. Sources are in conflict about Matheson's childhood."Andrew Matheson Turns Glamorous Failure Into Success"
''FYI Music News'', August 15, 2016. In Canadian media, he was reported as spending his childhood in the

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...

neighbourhood of Sudbury,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

before moving to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

at age 18,"What's so great about Andrew Matheson?" ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

'', June 14, 1994. while British sources state that he grew up in Gillingham,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

as the son of a serviceman in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. He formed Hollywood Brats in 1971. Although championed by

Keith Moon Keith John Moon (23 August 19467 September 1978) was an English drummer for the rock band the Who. He was noted for his unique style of playing and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour and addiction to drugs and alcohol. Moon grew ...

and later recognized as an important early punk band which had a significant influence on many of the bands who would later have success with the genre, the band had little commercial success while active and released just one album before breaking up in 1975. Matheson was then involved in the short-lived band

London SS The London SS is a British rock group founded in March 1975 by drummer Geir Wade, bassist John Brown, guitarist Mick Jones, and guitarist Eunan Brady (formerly of the Hollywood Brats). They later became associated with the then new punk rock s ...

. Matheson released the solo album ''Monterey Shoes'' in 1979. He later moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, where he released the album ''Night of the Bastard Moon'' in 1994"Night of The Bastard Moon / Andrew Matheson". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', June 6, 1994. and was nominated for Best New Solo Artist at the Junos in 1995. He did not release another album in Canada, and moved back to England sometime after 1995. In 2015, he published a memoir of the band, ''Sick On You: The Disastrous Story of Britain's Great Lost Punk Band'', named after one of the Hollywood Brats' songs.

References

British punk rock singers Canadian punk rock singers 21st-century British memoirists 21st-century Canadian memoirists British male writers Canadian male non-fiction writers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century British male singers 20th-century Canadian male singers 21st-century British male singers 21st-century Canadian male singers {{Canada-singer-stub