The Story of Lazy J
The story of Lazy J stretches back over ten years to the early 1990s with two young lads’ new discovery of blues rock. Dave Cotterill and Marc Plant grew up together in Dudley in the West Midlands, England, an area steeped in musical history.
In the early 1990s everyone was listening to New Wave Punk after the Grunge scene but these two boys wanted something different. Dave was influenced by Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana and Soundgarden and Plant was into Utah Saints and Pop Will Eat Itself, but they shared common ground in not wanting to join the bandwagon.
In order to find something new they had to go way back. So they started listening to old blues LPs from the likes of Free, Hendrix and a band called Rare Amber (if you see their album covers you'll piss yourself!)
Dave and Plant soon started writing really heavy riffs but with a blues influence which made them different to other bands and alliances. Dave recalls the arrival of Reef's Naked on the minidisc advert was like a hammer to the face. They both thought it was the best thing they had heard in modern times and just the kind of modern rip-your-face-off blues riffs Dave had already been coming up with. It was a great catalyst and Reef’s debut album Replenish began the start of the musical fire in these two 15 year old lads. Dave picks up the story:
"Playing blues rock with a groove under the name Goose didn't get us well liked amongst the new wave punkers of the area and soon we became a little isolated ...which was silly as we were all as one in the grunge era, but that's youth and music for you. It just gave us more and more time to write, drink and smoke. However, I had somehow made contact with a very accomplished bass player who was in his twenties, named Daz. It was the first time I'd seen full-on slap bass playing. He agreed to jam with us for a laugh and was actually surprised by the quality of the riffs. We put an ad out for a drummer and a shit hot drummer called Scott auditioned. I say auditioned, he and Daz were leagues ahead of us and although they weren't about to commit and seriously join two 15 year olds, there was something in what we were doing they liked. They decided to jam with us for fun and do a one off gig at school with the metal head and punk bands ...class!"
- Rachel New, Kerrang! FM / Heart FM