Stray (band)

Stray is an English

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

band formed in 1966. Vocalist Steve Gadd (born Stephen Gadd, 27 April 1952,

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character, i ...

West London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North London ...

), guitarist Del Bromham (born Derek Roy Bromham, 25 November 1951,

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, West London), bass player Gary Giles (born Gary Stephen Giles, 23 February 1952,

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, West London) and drummer Steve Crutchley (born 1952) formed the band whilst all were attending the Christopher Wren School in London. Richard "Ritchie" Cole (born 10 November 1951,

, West London) replaced Crutchley in 1968. They signed to

Transatlantic Records Transatlantic Records was a British independent record label. The company was established in 1961, primarily as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records by many of the artists who influenced the burgeoning British folk and blues boom ...

in January 1970. The group's brand of melodic,

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-laden

proved to be a popular draw on the local club scene during the early 1970s. However the band did not have commercial success with its record releases. At one stage Charlie Kray (brother of the

Kray twins Ronald Kray (24 October 193317 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, gangsters and convicted criminals. They were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, Engl ...

Ronnie and Reggie), was their manager. Gadd left the band in 1975 due to artistic differences and was replaced on vocals by Pete Dyer. The group's early musical style consisted of blues rock, acid rock and psychedelic rock. They then went on to join the hard rock and progressive rock movement. The band served as the rhythm section alongside a string orchestra for the 1975

Jimmy Helms James D. Helms (born September 27, 1941) is an American soul singer, known as a member of Londonbeat but who also had solo hits such as " Gonna Make You an Offer You Can't Refuse". Early years James D. Helms was born in Florida, United States. ...

Pye LP, ''Songs I Sing''. The original Stray finally dissolved in 1977, although Bromham later continued to play in various resurrected versions of the project well into the 2000s. By the 2010s the band had a settled lineup again, as well as Del Bromham, Pete Dyer returned and Stuart Uren (bass) and Karl Randall (drums) were regularly gigging as Stray. In November 2016, the band hosted a 50th Anniversary celebration concert (featuring all original members) at a sold-out London Borderline. In 2019, Colin Kempster replaced Stuart Uren as permanent bassist and, for live gigs, the band was also joined by Simon Rinaldo on keyboards. After successful concerts in late 2019 and an acclaimed set at the annual Giants of Rock Festival in Minehead, Stray set out on a full joint headlining tour with Ken Pustelnik’s Groundhogs in February and March in 2020. In 2003, Stray were the support band to

Iron Maiden Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. While fluid in the early years of the band, the lineup for most of the band's history has consisted of Harri ...

on several of their European dates on the Dance of Death World Tour 2003-2004. These included dates in Spain, Portugal, Poland and France.
There are two other Iron Maiden connections to Stray. "All in Your Mind" from Stray's 1970 debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

was covered by Iron Maiden and was included on the 1995 reissue of ''

No Prayer for the Dying ''No Prayer for the Dying'' is the eighth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It is their first album to feature Janick Gers on guitar, who replaced Adrian Smith. Smith left the band during the pre-production phase, unhappy ...

'', and Maiden bassist Steve Harris's daughter

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has covered "Come On Over". From late 2006 until early 2007, the band's back catalogue of eight studio albums issued originally during the 1970s, were re-released by the UK based

Sanctuary Records Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and is as of 2013 a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management solely for reissues. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest m ...

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

format. The new releases were

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and had bonus tracks culled from

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, studio outtakes and

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...

Discography

Albums

References

External links