Sweet Jesus was an

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary *Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran *Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...

formed in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, UK, in the 1990s. Formed following the breakup of rock band ''The Mossbacks'', the band was championed by such magazines as

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

and Volume, and amassed a modest catalogue of releases before suffering at the hands of the

Rough Trade Records Rough Trade Records is an independent record label based in London, England. It was formed in 1976 by Geoff Travis who had opened a record store off Ladbroke Grove. Having successfully promoted and sold records by punk rock and early post-pun ...

demise of the early 1990s. The band were favourites of UK DJ duo

Mark and Lard Mark and Lard was the stage name of Mark Radcliffe (Mark) and Marc Riley (Lard), who presented various weekday shows on BBC Radio 1 from 1991 to March 2004. Career Radcliffe, then a Radio 1 producer, began presenting specialist shows on the ne ...

, with them heading the influential "Hit The North Show" on BBC Radio Five. The band's 1992 single '' Albino Ballerina'' was chosen as Mark Radcliffe's single of 1992 in his

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

end-of-year roundup.

History

Sweet Jesus was signed to

in the early 1990s, being tipped as "one-to-watch" by the music press – along with

Suede Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was fir ...

and

PJ Harvey Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments. Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined loca ...

. On 18 August 1991, the band performed at

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

's ''

Boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of bridge ...

'' venue, supported by the first live appearance

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

. Although not yet in the band,

Noel Gallagher Noel Thomas David Gallagher (born 29 May 1967) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the chief songwriter, lead guitarist, and co-lead vocalist of the rock band Oasis until their split in 2009. After leaving Oasis, he formed ...

– along with

Inspiral Carpets Inspiral Carpets are an English rock band, part of the late-1980s/early-1990s Madchester movement. Formed in Oldham in 1980, the band's most successful lineup featured frontman Tom Hingley, drummer Craig Gill, guitarist Graham Lambert, bassist ...

– watched the show. The band released an exclusive single through the ''Rough Trade Singles Club'' in November 1991, followed by three individual singles in 1992. In August of the same year, the band performed in the Session Tent at

Reading Festival The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend. The Reading Festiv ...

alongside Suede and

Sunscreem Sunscreem are a techno/house music band from Essex, England that scored a number of hits on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. Sunscreem also has the rare reputation as a techno-based band t ...

. Despite the band's work with

producers Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

Ray Shulman Raymond Shulman (born 8 December 1949) is a Scottish musician, and the youngest of three brothers in progressive rock band Gentle Giant. Shulman was born in Portsmouth. His father was a trumpet player in a jazz band, and that was the first inst ...

and

Ian Broudie Ian Zachary Broudie (born 4 August 1958) is an English musician and singer-songwriter from Liverpool. After emerging from the post-punk scene in Liverpool in the late 1970s as a member of Big in Japan, Broudie went on to produce albums (somet ...

, the collapse of Rough Trade resulted in the group's premature disbanding.

Dissolution

Venus

Despite this setback, Bentley – along with Roy and Gavin Priest – formed

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

, releasing a number of

records A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

through PVC Records in 1994. Paul Collins did not contribute to the project, and was replaced by Vicky Gwinnut.

Groupie

Following Venus, Bentley and Gavin Priest proceeded to form

Groupie The term groupie is a slang word that refers to a fan of a particular musical group who follows the band around while they are on tour or who attends as many of their public appearances as possible, with the hope of meeting them. The term is usu ...

(with Priest on electric guitar) – ultimately releasing two singles through Sacred Heart Records in 1997.

Butterfly Fan the Inferno

Paul Collins currently plays drums for Birmingham-based band Butterfly Fan the Inferno.

Current status

Until mid-2008, Ben Bentley had a profile on

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

networking website ''

PeopleSound PeopleSound was a British audio streaming platform founded on 22 June 1999 by Ernesto Schmitt. Going live in October 1999, it was the first European music streaming platform and the most visited. At peak, it was amongst the top ten most visite ...

'', streaming two solo songs. Roy Priest is currently assistant centre manager in

Interactive Media Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user's actions by presenting content such as text, moving image, animation, video and audio. Since its early conception, various fo ...

Birmingham City University Birmingham City University (abbrev. BCU) is a university in Birmingham, England. Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic in 1971 and gai ...

's Technology Innovation Centre.

Discography

Singles

*Honey Loving Honey (1991) ::'' Rough Trade (UK)'' * Phonefreak Honey (1992) ::''Rough Trade (UK)'' *Real Babe (1992) ::''Rough Trade (UK)'' * Albino Ballerina (1992) ::''Chapter 22''

Band members

*Ben Bentley -

lead vocal The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

*Roy Priest -

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

*Dave Priest -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

''(prior to "Albino Ballerina")'' *Gavin Priest - bass guitar *Paul Collins -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

References

External links

Bird Poo page on Sweet Jesus
{{Authority control English indie rock groups