Loaded Dice - How it all began
“Loaded Dice”, are a band that arose like a phoenix from the ashes of our original band, “The Occasionals”, and has since grown from strength to strength, now being able to hold its own against any of the local essex bands currently playing the pub circuits.
It all started back in 1992, when a local bluesman, “Charlie Armstrong”, left a blues guitar workshop and a fellow member and friend of mine , “Dave Edson”, invited me to take Charlie’s place. Dave was, at this time, just commencing to establish the “Juke Joint”, which was soon to become a very successful blues venue at the Towngate Theatre Basildon, hosting such Texas blues luminaries as Jimmy Vaughn, Smokey Joe Kubek & Sherman Robertson.
We quickly formed “The Occasionals“,– a five piece blues band and were subsequently honoured in supporting , “Booze ‘n Bluze” in 1994 & “Simon Honey Boy Hickling & The DTs" in 1995 at the Juke Joint . The UK blues boom however, cooled off somewhat around 1997 with the Juke Joint closing and “The Occasionals”, disbanding.
Three of the original remaining members, i.e. Alan Myers, (Keyboards), Rob Pearson, (Bass) & myself – Paul Hartles, (Guitar), decided to form another band. We took on 2 brothers as vocalists, (Andy & Rob), and used various drummers to complete the line up. (Our old mate Roy from The Occasionals also depped with us sometimes, although he ended up in The Cadillac Kings).
This, “2 singer”, line up, was short lived and not until 1999 did the band really come into its own. Russ Cook became our permanent drummer and on saxophone Tony Law who had both just left the disbanded, “Chain Gang”. We gained a superb lead guitarist, “Dave Budgen” who was at the time, still playing in, “The Breakers”. The coup d’état, was then getting The Breakers vocalist , “Justin Green” on board!
So now we were a 7 piece band which I named , “Loaded Dice” which seemed fitting as a die has 6, we were 7 and our sound was certainly, “Loaded” !
The initial line up:
Justin – vocals
Dave- Lead guitar/back up vocals
Rob – bass
Alan – Keyboards
Tony – Sax
Russ – drums
Paul – rhythm guitar
Over the last couple of years we replaced Rob by Martin on bass, who has since left and now we have our finest bass player ever, Nick Tate (ex “Usual Suspects” & “Shadowking” ), who officially joined us at the start of 2009.
When Russ had left “The Dice”, a couple of years ago, we had various drummers over this period including one of our great mates from, “Gasoline Alley” – Clayton Doige.
Clayton was instrumental in organising our most prestigious gig ever at ,The Roadhouse in Covent Garden where we played June 2008 in support of Gasoline Alley, to an audience of about 450 fiery Canadians (Hozer Polusa) – what a gig !
We finally have a permanent drummer again, who joined us back in 2008 i.e. “Paul (the younger!!!)”, and he has blended in fantastically with the band and helped to cement the rhythm section once again !
Viva La Loaded Dice !