Johann Shepherd has many fond memories of Liverpool during the decade
For decades, Liverpool has been synonymous with music and entertainment, nurturing and supporting talent from across our region and beyond. In venues past and present, we’ve welcomed hundreds of incredible artists and musicians to our city for numerous concerts and gigs.
In the years before the rise of social media, those involved in the Liverpool music scene, like other areas, had to be on the ground, performing in venues big and small and promoting themselves through word of mouth, physical advertisements and selling their own CD’s at events. Back in the late 90s and early 00s, indie-punk band The Undecided, from West Yorkshire, would often come to Liverpool to perform.
Bringing “coachloads” of fans with them, they also built up a strong following in Liverpool. The band was made up of Johann Shepherd on bass guitar, Tim Baldwin as lead vocals, Steve Houldsworth as rhythm guitarist and backing vocals and the late Sam Carlisle on lead guitar.
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As part of the Liverpool ECHO’s How It Used To Be series, musician and author Johann Shepherd, from Haworth, shares his memories of 90s Liverpool and its thriving music scene. Johann, 48, told the ECHO: “The band started in 1995 with a couple of my friends, Sam Carlisle and Steve Houldsworth.
“They were 17 and started up just as kind of a duo jamming and they used to jam on the sort of main street of Haworth, busking for a few pounds. Then they started the band by gathering more people.
“Tim Baldwin, he joined as a singer and then I joined a little bit later as a bass player. We never had a kind of a permanent drummer, that was always our kind of Achilles heel.
“We kind of begged, borrowed and stole drummers from here, there and everywhere who would come and join us and spend time either jamming with us, performing with us at gigs, recording with us in the studio.” As the band progressed, they started playing in local pubs and clubs and then larger towns and cities.
Starting in Bradford, The Undecided were soon performing in Leeds and then, they came to Liverpool. The Undecided were also managed by friend Steve “Tempo” Tempest.
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Johann said: “Tempo, he lived in Liverpool. He worked with bands like Teardrop Explodes and Echo & the Bunnymen. He brought a lot of knowledge with him, a lot of contacts and he managed to get us to play at venues across Liverpool.
“We played at The Cavern quite a lot, I think six times within a year and we packed it out every time and we would bring other support bands with us. There’d be some Liverpool bands that would support us there as well.
“We played at lots of other pubs and places like The Picket too.” Johann said the band would also play gigs in Birkenhead, where their lead guitarist, the late Sam Carlisle, previously lived.
During their time in the city, The Undecided sold many CD’s for their first songs, Felling Better and Burning, which were recorded in Hard City Records in Liverpool and also supported Birkenhead band Half Man Half Biscuit, as well as appearing on what was then known as Crash FM radio.
Johann said The Undecided also brought their own fans from home to the city in “coachloads”. He said: “As a band, we always said we’re kind of from the Bradford area, but our home for music really was coming across to Liverpool and obviously bringing coachloads of people.
“Every time we did that. One time we had like two full coaches, but most of the time we’d have a coach at least full with us and then there’d be people in Liverpool that would come and watch us play. Liverpool was almost like a second home to us.”
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At a time when northern bands like Oasis were topping the charts, Johann remembers the band starting out jamming and performing Beatles covers. When it comes to Liverpool, Johann said bands also playing around the city at that time were Cast, The Coral and The Zutons.
Johann said: “I think back in those days, for us it was the excitement of being in a different city. I’m a Liverpool FC fan – I’ve been a fan of Liverpool since the early 80s.
“I used to go and watch the games at Anfield but I’ve always had an affinity with Liverpool as a city. I think we were accepted as a band from outside of town by people that liked our music, by some of the support bands and the Liverpool bands that helped us out.”
Now 25 years on from when the band first came to perform in Liverpool, their story and our city’s 90s music scene has inspired a new project. Sixteen Drummers – The Story of The Undecided, is a biography of the band and, as its name suggests, catalogues their story and the numerous drummers who performed with them.
They include Gary Dwyer, who was the drummer in Teardrop Explodes. Johann said: “Two years ago,I lost my father and as we were clearing out his house and all of his belongings, I found a big scrapbook that he’d kept.
“In that scrapbook was all the photographs, mainly of us in The Cavern, but there’s a lot of like memorabilia, like tickets to gigs, posters, flyers, all kinds of things. It also had newspaper clippings and it got me thinking, maybe I could write a story of the band on the back of this.”
In the future, Johann hopes the band can bring the book to the city for signings and they are also keen to hear memories from those who saw them perform in the city in the 90s and 00s. Johann said there are no plans on the cards for reunion performances, but didn’t rule it out in the future.
The book, Sixteen Drummers – The Story of The Undecided, is now available on Amazon. To find out more, click here. To share your memories of the band in Liverpool, you can visit their official Facebook page here and also the Facebook page for Sixteen Drummers here.
