Egor | Interview | Lost tapes by one of the heaviest bands from “70s underground”

Ancient Grease Records recently issued a killer underground monster. Egor’s mysterious track called ‘Street’ first circulated two decades ago. The label uncovered two more lost tracks from the same performance.

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The release includes a fully restored and remastered version of ‘Street’ and two recently unearthed Egor tracks from the same 1970 live session as ‘Street,’ showcasing that Egor was one of the heaviest bands around.

“They broke my neck. But I didn’t die.”

Who were members of Egor and when exactly did you get together? How old were you?

Nick Diss: John Flyte (Fat John) was on vocals/harmonica, Eric Taylor was on lead guitar, Mike Foster was on bass guitar and myself, Nick Diss was behind the drums. We got together in late 1969 or early 1970. Eric Taylor was only 16 years old, I was 17, Mike Foster was 20 and John Flyte was around 30 or possibly older. We could never pin him down on his exact age [laughs].

Tell us about the early bands you were part of before forming Egor and how that evolved into Egor.

Mike Foster and myself had been in various school bands or local covers bands before this. I had played most notably with The Substitutes who were a busy local R&B covers band. Egor started as a blues band but when we found Eric Taylor we became a lot heavier and started covering bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Taste and Free, as well as writing our own material. We played all over east London and some of the bigger venues in the centre of London until we got the regular four nights a week at The Plough and Harrow pub in Leytonstone, east London. From there we got a large following and the place was packed most nights. This pub is where the recordings were made live for all the tracks that are now being released by Ancient Grease Records.

I had been playing in a blues band with John Flyte and at one point we organized a blues night club above a pub in east London. My memory of it is a little hazy around this time (1969/’70/’71), but I think we were looking for a new guitar player. So at one of the weekly blues nights a guitarist called Phil turned up. He played with us on a couple of these blues club evenings, but to be honest, although he was a great character, he wasn’t a great guitar player. I think it might have been on one of these evenings I met Mike Foster who I think was a friend of Phil’s. In fact I think Mike Foster might have jammed with us on a few numbers over a couple of weeks. As the blues band had run its course and realizing that Mike Foster and myself were on the same wavelength we decided to form a heavy blues outfit which was far more appealing to us than the old 12 bar type bands.

So Mike Foster, myself and John Flyte put an advert in the Melody Maker and NME (the weekly music papers). I don’t remember any other auditions for the guitarist spot but I suppose there must have been some, although when a 6ft tall 16 year old with wild frizzy blonde hair that stuck out sideways and a battered old Strat under his arm turned up for an audition (Eric Taylor), we gave him the job on the spot, he was an unreal talent for such a young guy!

The raw energy of your youth and the will to improvise can be clearly heard on the recent Ancient Grease Records release of your recordings. How did you store the tapes for so long?

Mike Foster had a 1/4 tape of those tracks and they had been copied to an audio cassette. I found that cassette in an old briefcase that had been stored in my loft since probably 1972. I had managed to keep it with me through various house moves until I noticed it while clearing out some things while getting ready for another move. I sent it to Mike Foster who was now living in Thailand and it then found its way through various studios being cleaned up and remastered in Thailand and the US to Adam Bennati at Ancient Grease Records.

“An old lady in her eighties probably driven to desperation by the noise, launched an old paraffin heater out of her upstairs window”

Would you like to take us back to a typical day in the early 70s? What pubs did you visit? What were the hot bands you waited to see?

We used to rehearse in Mike Foster’s basement flat in Wanstead in east London or above a pub called The Red Lion in Leytonstone (east London). The bands we used to go and see were Uriah Heep, Free, Taste. Eric Taylor was a huge fan of Rory Gallager and also Deep Purple and a slightly more obscure band called Stray who were on the same circuit as Egor.

We used to rehearse quite a lot in Mike’s basement flat and it was loud! I remember one day Mike’s top floor neighbor, an old lady in her eighties probably driven to desperation by the noise, launched an old paraffin heater out of her upstairs window to try and attract our attention in the basement, as it crashed down outside our window I’m not sure we even noticed.

We put together a set of some rock standards of the time like ‘What’s Going On’ by Taste, the Cream version of ‘Crossroads’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and our own songs that we had written in Mike’s basement. We started gigging all over London and the home counties … and eventually we secured a residency in an East London pub called The Plough and Harrow. We played there every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night for probably 6 months and playing that much plus the other gigs made us really a tight band!

Was there a certain record, track or even a gig that inspired you to play the way you did when you were playing those Egor jams?

Well really it was the bands mentioned above that made us play like we did, Eric Taylor as I said was a huge fan of Rory Gallagher plus Jimi Hendrix, so it was a combination of all those things… I was influenced by Jimi Hendrix’s Mitch Mitchell and Mike Foster was a big fan of Free’s Andy Fraser. I suppose those influences and John Flyte’s older delta blues influences that made the Egor sound.

Did you ever experiment with psychedelics?

For myself, no, not really. But Eric Taylor was a big fan of LSD and that’s probably why he met an early death as nobody has been able to find a trace of him from around 1975 onwards.

Egor played a lot of pubs and clubs, would you like to tell us about that gig at The Plough & Harrow Pub? Who recorded the tracks that were later released on ‘Oddsocks’?

We played that residence for around a year and it made us very tight as a band. I’m afraid I cannot remember the names of the two guys who came into the pub that night and asked if they could come back the following week and record us for the ‘Oddsocks’ album. They were from a studio in Walthamstow in east London called Alan Gorden’s I think. The memory is a bit hazy after so long but I do remember it wasn’t set up like a recording session would have been in later years, I think it was just one mike over the top of the band. The drums certainly were not miked individually.

A few weeks later he came back again and presented each of us with a disc made up of local bands of which our track ‘Street’ was the opener on side one. The other Egor tracks were also recorded on that night live at the Plough, complete with a packed pub as we had quite a following by then.

How did you decide to use the name ‘Egor’?

We took the name from the assistant in the Frankenstein movies called Igor … none of us knew the correct spelling so we became Egor. In one of the films Igor says “They broke my neck. [Pause for effect] But I didn’t die.” … And we used to try and get John Flyte to introduce the band by saying that … not sure he ever did though! Come to think of it he was probably right, sounds a bit lame these days, but we were young!

Was there a plan to record a whole album?

I don’t remember ever talking about that, we were too focused on playing live and just getting more gigs.

Did you have a demo tape or something that you were able to send to potential record labels or even radio stations?

The only thing we ever had was that ‘Oddsocks’ album and we were never able to get that in front of anybody. There were no radio stations apart from the pirate stations in the north sea and around that time the UK was busy trying to outlaw them and turn them into BBC Radio 1 which we all thought sucked apart from the John Peel Show on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe if we had thought about it more we could have tried to get it on that show.

Was there a plan to go to the studio and record the tracks?

No, we were just happy to keep gigging!

What songs did you usually play live?

‘What’s Going On’ by Taste, ‘Paranoid’ by Black Sabbath, ‘Whole Lotta Love’ by Led Zeppelin. I think we did some Cream songs as well … we did do a version of ‘Toad’ because I tried to duplicate the drum solo (very badly), but it meant the rest of the band could have a break … a few things by Free not sure which ones probably ‘I’ll Be Creepin” and ‘Mr Big’ … interspersed with our own songs which were all quite long.

What are some of the bands that you shared stages with?

Black Widow, a Young Elton John, The Groundhogs, Stray, Slowbone … sorry so long ago it’s hard to remember.

Both of you are still active. Would you like to talk about the latest projects?

Eventually Mike Foster, Eric Taylor and myself decided John Flyte didn’t have the right image for us. Myself and Mike Foster were only just into our twenties, Eric was as i have said was 16/17 but John was at least in his early thirties (ancient to us) and we decided to fire him, and after another NME advert hired a vocalist called Nick (can’t remember his surname), but he had the right image and a pretty good voice! Although after another six months or so we went our different ways because we just couldn’t secure a record deal. Mike Foster eventually joined the brilliant T2 who were a big band on the circuit at the time. In fact T2’s roadies Mark and Olly lived on the next floor up from Mike Foster’s basement flat and they used to come and see us play on a regular basis. I joined a local well known covers band called Tinted Aspex, not really my thing but I did it as their drummer Charlie Brennan was a mate and he wanted to leave to join a band called Co Co, a Eurovision winning band who then went on to become Bucks Fizz! He didn’t want to leave Tinted Aspex with a lot of up and coming gigs and no drummer. Charlie Brennan is still getting royalty checks once a year for the only hit Co Co had! One other thing of (possible) interest for you is that one of the guitarists from Tinted Aspex, Terry Rance went on to form Iron Maiden.

Mike and I had remained firm friends through all this time (and still to this day). In fact Mike’s day job was as an assistant editor in the film industry and he got me a job at his company which enabled me to eventually become an editor also. And I have been able to travel the world in this industry all thanks to Mike! At the time though if we had managed to get a decent record deal I’m sure we both would have given up film and gone with music full time.

In around 2000 the track ‘Street’ was put out on a compilation album (I’m not sure by who), but it started to get lots of hits on YouTube. Then we got picked up by the Cherry Red Records and it was released on the ‘I’m A Freak Baby: A Journey Through The British Heavy Psych & Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-72’ CD disc set of underground heavy rock bands.

John Flyte sadly died of a heart attack in his early fifties. He was known as “Fat John” though so it was probably always going to happen. Not sure what happened to Nick, the singer, and the brilliant Eric disappeared without a trace, all efforts to track him down over the years have failed and we assume he probably also met an early death (again not a complete surprise as he was fond of most of the chemicals readily available in the late sixties/early seventies).

I’m still playing in a couple of R&B bands, just local pubs and clubs, nothing major. Mike Foster was still playing with T2, even doing gigs in Thailand up until the sad death of Pete Dunton a couple of years ago.

Looking back, what was the highlight of your time in the band? Which songs are you most proud of? Where and when was your most memorable gig?

Really the highlight was our residency at The Plough. We played there for so long at four nights a week that it made us very tight. Some memorable gigs for me would have been playing at The Roundhouse Chalk Farm (a prestige gig at the time). We were on the same bill as Black Widow (not Black Sabbath as has been reported elsewhere). I also think Elton John might have been the opening act when it was just him on a piano (before he became a household name). I remember not being very impressed with him, but as I said before it’s all very hazy and this could have been a different gig altogether.

Is there any unreleased material left?

No, I’m afraid not, that’s it!

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

We are both amazed that there has been so much interest in the band now 50 years on and very thankful to Adam Bennati at Ancient Grease Records for all the support and help he has given us.

Klemen Breznikar

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Headline Photo: Nick Diss and Mike Foster

Ancient Grease Records Official Website / Instagram

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