Biography

1991 saw the birth of Bridgend’s finest guitar based combo Bold As Love. Twenty years later, the original line-up is back with a new album Fast Forward Rewind available NOW on iTunes & Spotify.

Rewind – the story so far

Essentially, the band was born out of two sets of best friends; Jason Donagh (vocals) & Greg Jones (bass) joining forces with the younger Lloyd Jenkins (guitars) & Robbie Brewster (drums). Like most bands the initial few years were all about finding ‘that’ sound and finding an identity. Bold As Love did this by playing all over South Wales together with the occasional trip to London namely The Red Eye in Islington.

It was certainly an interesting time to be starting a band as the honeymoon period of The Stone Roses was coming to an end and grunge was beginning to gain ascendancy. There was also the whole Brit Pop explosion in the early 90’s so music was a good place to be.

Welsh bands also started to be taken seriously in particular The Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia, Super Furry Animals and The Stereophonics.

Locally, Bold As Love stood out from the crowd due to their up-tempo pop rock which boasted catchy choruses, big melodies and lots of self-belief. Lloyd was the driving force of the band and believed, without hesitation, that one day it would all happen for Bold As Love.

Bold As Love embarked upon their first ever trip to the studio in September 1992 to record their 1st demo EP Are You As Bold As Love? The demo EP consisted of live favourites namely Blunder, Girl, And Love and New Day and was recorded and produced by Tim Hamill at Sonic Executive in Kidwelly, West Wales and a close bond has been maintained between Tim and the band ever since. It was released locally in March 1993 to positive press and certainly started the ball rolling.

August 1993 saw Bold As Love secure management with Jam UK and this led to a profile support slot at the 1993 Heineken Beer Festival. Also on the bill were Pele and headliners the Manic Street Preachers.

The band returned to the studio in 1993 and eventually released in May 1994 their own debut album Jamboree which was reviewed in the Western Mail as, “a confident and solid pop album”.

The Guild of International Songwriters & Composers described the album as, “excellent in all respects”.

Jamboree also attracted the attention of Steve Wright on BBC Radio 1 and in August 1994 as part of the Steve Wright Show lead single ‘Girl’ got a full airing on the popular breakfast show. Bold As Love were described as, “not sounding like anybody else”.

Songwriter & guitarist, Lloyd Jenkins, recalls the album being “a real learning curve, we were just kids with a bunch of songs, some good ideas and limited studio time”.

It’s freely accepted by the band that Jamboree probably ended up in a few bargain bins along the way but their self-financed debut album gave the band an edge, open many doors and demonstrated that the band were serious and meant business. The songs got better, the band got tighter, the band’s following got stronger and all this culminated in the success of The Electric Chair courtesy of HTV Wales in 1995, which was a huge hit at the time – before the likes of the X Factor & Britain’s Got Talent graced the nation’s screens. The show essentially profiled Welsh bands and artists, providing a platform to reach a wider audience through the medium of ‘music video’.

November 1995 saw Bold as Love appear on the show with their original track ‘Moodswings’, which represented a frantic dose of melodic power pop with a massive chorus and a hint that things were starting to move in the right direction. Bold As Love won their heat and went on to comfortably win the
Show polling an unprecedented number of votes. The prize was a week with HTV recording a band documentary, a new band video and a trip to Rockfield studios, Monmouthshire to record a new track.

The end product was a 30 minute documentary shown on prime time TV comprising band interviews, band music videos and studio footage; all this courtesy of The Electric Chair, HTV Wales.

In February1996 Bold As Love then proudly appeared on the Valleys Splash Tour which promoted the rise of Welsh bands, joining the bill supporting 60 Foot Dolls.

The Splash Tour provided a stepping stone for numerous bands including Catatonia, Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and The Tragic Love Company, who soon became the Stereophonics.

In October 1996 Bold As Love were then profiled on The Electric Chair, HTV Wales due to winning the show’s battle of the bands and used the show to promote their new name Revolva and sound. Revolva quickly became serious contenders and went from strength to strength and eventually supported on two separate occasions the mighty Stereophonics.

Vocalist, Jason Donagh, reminisces “the support slot with the Phonics at the Cardiff ‘Big Weekend’ festival in August 1997 was a real high-light, I remember Kelly Jones saying to Lloyd & I that we were going to be next”.

Success followed and revolva quickly started to attract interest from the likes of Polydor, Warner and SGO Management.

Like most things in life, it’s all about getting that all important opportunity and after six hard years of trying to get that illusive record deal the opportunity just didn’t seem to arrive quick enough and the original line up sadly came to an end in September 1997.

Revolva continued with their mission to secure a record deal with a new singer on board and started playing gigs in London on a more regular basis.

Revolva came very close to a record deal with BMG but eventually ran out of time and beaten by unforeseen circumstances called it a day in September 2000, it was an end of an era.


Fast forward – Bold As Love today

2010 saw original band members (Robbie Brewster – drums, Jason Donagh – vocals, Lloyd Jenkins – guitars/songwriter & Greg Jones – bass) re-group after 14 long years with a view to writing and recording an album together.

Lloyd had an abundance of material and the lads were all keen to boldly go where they’d been before, so to speak.

Greg Jones commented, “We’re all older and wiser now, recording an album together after 14 years sounds crazy but why not, life’s too short”.

After much deliberation, original band members decided to go back to the original band name and are now once again Bridgend’s very own Bold As Love.

The album has been recorded and produced by Tim Hamill at sonic-one studios near Llanelli. Robbie Brewster said, “Tim is a safe pair of hands, he knows the band well, puts up with us and has recorded us right from the start, it’d be daft to record with anyone else”.

Robbie is also videoing the whole studio experience with a view to producing a band documentary (a rockumentary if you will).

Lloyd said “we’re absolutely buzzing about the quality of the new songs, the riffs are massive, the choruses huge and it’s all come together so easily”.

“We set up a myspace just to give people a taste of what’s to come, so please check out: www.myspace.com/boldaslove2011”

Bold As Love can also be followed on soundcloud at:
http://soundcloud.com/bold-as-love

Greg admits, “What’s so exciting is just how natural this all feels and it’s all great fun again”.