There's a lot of history behind Hamster Fight - it started circa 1996 when myself (Doug) and Andy met and decided to piss about playing guitars after school. This happened for ages, years, we'd just get together and play Beatles songs, and occasionally Andy would turn up and state that he'd written something, and we'd stumble our way through playing unfamiliar chords. We were kids playing music in bedrooms, hi-fi for amplifiers, shoe-laces for guitar strings; you get the picture.

Some time later, I figured out that I could record sounds onto my computer. Back then, with a really shitty (by today's standards) computer and soundcard, and shareware software this was easier said than done. In fact, it still is easier said than done to produce good results.

However, that's how the Hamster Fight concept basically started. It seemed that we were never much interested in forming a band for live performance at that stage, but decided to at least try and record Andy's now reasonably large collection of songs. Occasionally we'd call in friends to play through a song with us, but for some reason we never expanded into a band at that point.

The first few recordings were kinda ropey, after all we were still figuring everything out. How to write a good song, how to play in time, how to record without too much background hiss, how to recover part of a song when the computer crashed... but we slowly improved and sometime around 2001/2002 we were reasonably happy with our first set of recordings, which we proudly burned to CD and named "Hamster Fight, 10 O'Clock, Ask 4 Joe".

We also knew that we could do better, so work started almost immediately on songs for a second album: "Hamster Fight, Seconds Away, Round Two!". This one started off as an exercise to get down the remaining few good songs that Andy had written back in the playing-after-school days. Now, you see, things had changed a little. This was no longer an after-school ad-hoc activity. We were both at university and getting together for music required planning. There was less time available, however, we remained quite productive. Andy was very busy coming up with new songst this time, some of which were written as we recorded.

Featuring more complex songs, better recording techniques, more experimentation into different sounds (as opposed to the almost exclusive use of very raw guitar, piano, bass, drums and vox for the first album), this album proved to be a big step forward from the first.

Even before the second album was finished, we were again making progress towards improving our sound - ready for the third album. By this time we'd both graduated, and I had started actually working in a recording studio as an engineer. I learned so many fantastic ways to improve our recording techniques, both technically and musicall. This album was going to be the big one. It still could be... as to this day it remains unfinished (we have about 8 or 9 reasonably finished songs).

This is where the smooth operation that was Hamster Fight starts to unwind. In 2004 we finally decided to get a few mates together and attempt to get our songs knocked into shape for live performance. We worked hard getting everyone to learn the songs (including ourselves, there was so much we'd forgotten), and made changes to the line up once or twice until we were a pretty good 5 piece.

It must be said though, that by this time everyone has jobs and lives. No longer can we simply wander over to our mates' houses for a jam session, everything is a major logistical nightmare - trying to get 5 people into the same room on a regular basis is harder that you might imagine.

Finally as a full band, after many months of hard practicing, the time to get out and gig was upon us. We arranged to play our first gig in a pub in Crystal Palace, near to where I was working at the time. At this point I'd like to quote Andy from our old website:

Monday 6th June 2005, Andy

Ha ha!

Well there was a SHOCKING balls-up of near biblical proportions on the part of the pub landlord. Of course, we can't reveal WHICH pub was so appaling in their timetabling as to book TWO ACTS for the same night, and we may even have to consider taking the details of the pub off the gigs list so that people don't just flip to that section and discover for themselves which pub it is that can't tell their artists from their elbow!

Yes, we turned up at 9 o'clock, laden with all our equipment, ready to soundcheck, and we were told that it was off.

Why weren't we told earlier? He'd lost our number.

Spiffing.

But wait, we ask, why don't we just play our set before the other group? Well, because they're a guitar duo (always exciting!). You could do a guitar duo set if you like, but we can't pay you.

Just like that!!

As if they were doing us a FAVOUR!

So anyway, we remained very amiable, and said we'd organise another night, and moved all of our dedicated compadrés who'd come to see the gig (not included two friends of mine who'd driven down from Leam for THREE HOURS to see the gig who subsequently had to turn back!) to the studio down the road, dimmed the lights, got in some bevvys, and did the full set for their enjoyment.

And it was great fun. Honestly, I don't think the pub gig could have been more enjoyable. It was intimate, it was atmospheric, and we were all friends together. I liked that feeling.

Maybe we should give up pub gigs. Just do invited sets. Ticket prices would rocket as it would become incredibly exclusive. Saatchi offering £500 to get in, The Gallagher brothers having to be turned away at the door (again).

Let's finish on a joke, shall we?

A band walked into a pub.
"Sorry mate, we've doubled booked."

Yeah, we weren't laughing either.

Shortly afterwards Hamster Fight once again became just myself and Andy - the others decided that they weren't entirely committed to the cause, or couldn't afford the time to rehearse or something - the reasons still remain a little unclear to me, and frankly it doesn't matter, I'd become fed up with the management of it all.

A couple of years after that event and here I am realising that we're just sitting on a fantastic collection of recordings. So, what happens now? In due course I will publish here all the early stuff for anyone to download and listen to. I'm not particularly interested in keeping it all hidden away on DVD backups, we worked too hard to forget about it.

As for the unfinished stuff... we have plans. Stay tuned.