Headroom (British band)

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Hedroom were a British ska punk band with funk, rock, hip-hop and metal influences. They are most famous for their single Morning Wood, a song about masturbation. Hailing from Thame and Chinnor in Oxfordshire, the band originally formed in 1999, then consisting of guitarist Alex Camp and drummer Chris Pethers who had been playing music together since the age of eight, and Alex's school friend Ben Beames, who, despite the fact that he initially played guitar, made the switch to bass in order to join the band as bassists were few and far between.

After some local advertising, the band recruited singer Liz Springs and played their first gig on the eve of the new millennium in a Chinese restaurant in the tiny village of Postcombe at the age of 14. After playing some local gigs and amassing a somewhat poor reputation, the band becamed tired with Liz After meeting Christian Barnes at a school music event in March 2001 (he wasn't participating - he just happened to walk past and insist on playing the drums) they auditioned him in secret and had him play one song at the end of a gig at the White Horse in High Wycombe. After this successful debut, they quickly turfed Liz out of the band and their style rapidly developed. As they began to incorporate ska and funk styles, they recruited another student at Lord Williams' School, Phil Keavy, on saxophone. Phil is most often known as simply Keavy, but also by a host of other nicknames, including Jeeves, Smeavers, McGreaverson, Scarface, the Smeave-Out and Kung Fu Keavy.

At first, Headroom (with the A) played a competent - for their age - but wholly unexciting blend of punk and classic rock. However, Christian joined the band from a hip-hop background, knowing barely anything about rock music, but his experience in acting since he was young meant that he was an energetic performer (often making himself physically sick after gigs) with a flair for both rapping and singing. This raw talent combined with the almost prodigious talent evident in Alex and Chris (who started playing their instruments at eight and six years old respectively) and Ben's growing talent on the bass made them a far better band. Their style was always hard to categorize, but in the early days sets were liable to dart from ska to metal to hip-hop to funk to jazz, often in one song.

This apparent randomness didn't stop them from becoming popular, and they quickly started to divide opinions across the local area through intense gigging. They created a good reputation as a live band, but in their nearest city, Oxford, they were often rubbished because of their ties with ska-punk and nu metal as the city in question is noted for it's musical snobbery. The band were more than once embroiled in online slanging matches on message boards and forums, mainly fueled by the immaturity of the band and their fans, and this did nothing to alleviate the slings and arrows of their detractors.

In 2003, the band released their first single Morning Wood on Crash Records. The song had been a firm favourite in the set for a long time, not so much in the eyes of the band but of the crowds. It was written not long after Christian joined the band as a joke, and although it fit in with the slapdash ska-tinged sound of the band in the early days, it started to sound more and more out of place as the band focussed their style into a more heavy, funk-based ethos. However, the sheer popularity of the song forced the band to record and release the single despite their lack of fondness for it. They recorded a video which was shown on MTV2, Scuzz and reputedly other satellite music channels, and was chosen as one of Scuzz's top videos of the year. However, sales of the single were poor as it was released well before the video was aired, and many fans couldn't find the CD anywhere.

The band followed it up in 2004 with a self-titled album and another video for Cap'n Pimp. Although the song in question was much more to the band's liking and portrayed their style much more accurately, the video was dismissed by television stations who felt the lean towards acting and lack of live syncs with the band playing was a bad idea. In the end it was never released as a single but was just as popular and catchy as Morning Wood. The album ended up being badly received and sold poorly also. Hedroom continued to carry on, developing their style even more to focus on hard-rock riffs mixed with a jazzier approach to funk, and made an EP in 2005 that, despite never being released, was their crowning musical achievement and actually went some way to recreating the band's energetic live show. However, as mounting personal and musical pressures increased, in the build-up to getting the EP released the band imploded. Differences in opinion on the band's progress were cited by the various members in the summer of 2005, and following a final gig at Chinnor Village Hall in September, Christian and Alex both moved to Brighton to start their new project Mean Poppa Lean. Chris still lives in Chinnor and plays in the band Dr. Slaggleberry amongst numerous other projects, and Ben and Keavy also still live in Chinnor and have a jazz project called Groovology. The band recently reformed for a one-off gig in September 2006, but have stated categorically that they will not be performing again, despite the strong fanbase that remains in their home town.
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Members:
Christian "MC NYC" Barnes - vocals
Ben "Custard Creams" Beames - bass
Keavy aka Smeavers aka Jeeves aka McGreaverson - saxophone
Chris "Feathers" Pethers - drums
Alex St. Funk - guitars

Official website
Myspace Profile