Buster all set to roll out Bad Manners for his Southend gig (From Thurrock Gazette)

Buster all set to roll out Bad Manners for his Southend gig

11:00pm Wednesday 14th December 2011 in Sound Check

HE’S been here many times since, but Douglas Trendle’s most memorable visit to Southend was as a runaway.

The Bad Manners frontman – aka Buster Bloodvessel – reveals that as a youngster he packed his bags, ran away and planned to live on a boat in Leigh as a bona fide pirate.

The larger-than-life singer, whose lifestyle is still as full of booze and antics as any pirate could wish for, chuckles: “I remember being told off by my mum.

“I got all my money together, got on a train with my friends – who I’d persuaded to run away with me – and went down to Southend.

“Then it got a bit late. We’d spent all my money, so we decided it was a bit dark and cold and we went back. We didn’t tell anyone we’d even run away.”

He says: “We were going to live on a boat just outside Leigh. We were going to break into one and just live there as pirates.”

Buster and his motley gang of musicians will be at Chinnerys for a Christmas gig on Friday and will, hopefully, not be attempting to break into any boats this time.

The band, which formed in 1975 before officially launching in 1976, started out as a way for schoolfriends to stay in touch. The band is still going strong today, albeit with a line-up of rolling musicians who cover the numerous tour dates.

Buster says: “We were just friends at school and decided it would be the best way for us to stay friends. It it was a great plan and worked for a good ten to 12 years. Then I wanted to continue and the rest didn’t.

“People had moved on, got married, had kids and wanted to settle down. Some wanted to get a serious career, because it was never serious in Bad Manners.”

Buster, famous for his lengthy tongue and his impressive girth as well as his energetic frontmanship, was going nowhere. He says that life on the road is still as rock’n’roll as it ever was.

He says: “We have a wild time on stage. The crowd enjoy that. It encourages them to have a good time and everyone walks away feeling like they’ve had a good time – then they wake up the next day with bruises and muscles they didn’t know they had.

“I encourage the band to go as crazy as possible and use their body in the dancing way as well as a musical way and it works.”

He continues: “When you come off stage you start to feel it, but I’ve never been one for early nights. I party hard all through it, although that really takes it’s toll on me nowadays.

“Before, I’d drink all night and get up and go to the next gig. If I do that now I’m dead. I don’t do it as much, but I still drink and I still party.” The band were supposed to be on tour in America this Christmas season, but changes to taxation laws meant they’d be haemorrhaging money rather than earning any, or even covering the tour.

So they planned the UK tour instead and Buster says their Christmas gigs are always the best parties.

He says: “We’ll be doing a Bad Manners party set that’s virtually impossible to beat. It has all the hits. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years at Christmas.”

Bad Manners, Chinnerys, Marine Parade, Southend. Friday.

£15 in advance 01702 467305