External Menace
External Menace formed in the Coatbridge suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. in 1979 when John Sneddon, then 15, and 13 year old Wullie Hamill's band 'The L-Plates' were joined by 12 year old bassist Sandy Halkett and Rab Bell (14) on drums, the line up which recorded the 1979 demo which later got them signed to Beat the System records.
After a brief split, during which Sneddy recorded a double A-side with The Snap Ons, Sneddy rejoined Wullie and Sanz with Derek Paterson taking over on drums, the bands name became External Menace, they signed to Beat the System in 1982 and released the 'Youth of Today' EP.
This was followed in 1983 by the 4 track EP 'No Views'. It was at about this time after a hectic schedule of gigs in increasingly large venues that the bands relationship with Wullie started to go awry. Tommy Wallace took over on vocals for a brief period but left for London, and External Menace were reduced to three members. Sneddy took over on vocals.
The band went through a few alter ego moments over the following years - playing External Menace songs at gigs but under different names. Beat the System had folded and the band released a few compilation tracks on Rot Records.
In 1987 Wullie was taking a short cut across the M8 when he was hit by a car and killed.
A decade on, External Menace were revived when Captain Oi records began to show an interest in releasing a compilation album of all the bands previous releases. A few extra tracks were needed to fully document the bands early successes. By this time Sneddy was living in Livingston and had hooked up with Swine Flu vocalist Ian Welsh, a diehard fan. The line up that eventually recorded the extra tracks for the 1995 Pure Punk Rock album was: Col on drums, Westy on bass, Kev Taylor on guitar, Jim Sneddon on guitar and Welshy and Sneddy shared vocal duties.
The band continued to chop and change over the following two years. In 1997 the 'Seize the Day' EP was released with former Swine Flu members Stu Davis on drums and Billy Dunn on bass. Bobe Copeland and Sneddy did the guitar work. Welshy's vocals had, by this point, become a strong feature of the band's sound.
This was the line up that toured Europe three times, toured the UK, played countless festivals and recorded 'Process of Elimination' all in the space of a year. 1997 also saw the release of a split EP with Rectify on Suspect Device Records.
The following year a German release of 'Process...' was accompanied by a split EP with Recharge. Both releases were on Epistrophy records.
'Process of Elimination' was re-released in the US on Doctor Strange Records in 2004. Sneddy remains in the current performing line-up.
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