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WHAT
HAPPENED NEXT... 1987-Present
by Gerard
(I've decided to put this page up now and add to it over the next few weeks, so please consider it 'under construction' and do check back for updates)
To cut a long story short (and I'll probably lengthen it again over the next few weeks), the line-up at the time of the split was Gerard / vocals, Chas/Bass, Bill/Drums, Jon Howells/ Keyboards and a New Zealander called Alastair on guitar. Alastair had really drawn the short straw as, despite being the best guitarist we'd ever had by some distance, he joined at a time when everything was already halfway towards falling apart. The abyss was reached playing at the University at Guildford with the Primitives, when Bill and Chas had a dreadful fight. Some time later we all met in a park in Dulwich, South London, and went our seperate ways.
After Flowers split, we all had to face up to some big realisations. I don't think I was alone in that I'd never considered giving up the band, so when it became untenable to carry on, sometime in 1987, the 'no future' dictum leapt up at us with a vengeance.
I received an unexpected invitation to go and live in a shared house in Brighton in January '88, which I took up despite never having considered leaving London until then. Whilst there, I became a music journalist, writing for the now-defunct Sounds, and spending a couple of yrears mildly surprised tat I had a 'proper' job. I was to spend the next ten years embroiled in a love/hate relationship with Brighton, living there when I loved it and in London when I didn't. I put a band together down there called The First Of May who made some fabulous demos but little else. Then I gave it all up to play traditional Celtic Folk music in pubs along the south coast and discovered the twin delights of playing for free (no entrance fee) and getting better paid than ever before. That kept going until just after the election of '97, when I went to live on a horse-drawn wagon in Ireland.
Chas meanwhile, had put together a band called the Cuckoo Club with his girlfriend Frances on vocals. They gigged quite a bit and got a couple of decent reviews, but then split. Maybe Chas will have his own story to tell about this.
Bill spent time driving lorries around London before going off to live in Mallorca with his girlfriend Cati.
Jon and Alastair both dissappeared off the face of the earth - please contact us if you have any details of their whereabouts.
Si, by now long departed from the band, spent time living in Moscow and Hollywood before returning to London to train as a barrister.
Then came along the internet, and shortly afterwards, a chap called Lance Hahn got in touch from Austin, Texas, announcing that he wanted to put out a retrospective Flowers cd on his label Honey Bear Records. This resulted in myself, Chas and Si getting together to decide which tracks to put on it - which is where the next chapter of this story will take up. So tune back soon!