ASHBURY FAITH

Powerful and angry Antwerp-based crossover group.

The band was formed in 1990. A participation in the Rock Rally comes too early for the band. The year after they finish second in the Yamaha Band Explosion-competition and release their debut single "She's an alien". The song becomes a radio hit (7 weeks in de Afrekening) and also gets picked up by MTV.

The years after, they tour (e.g. a five week tour in Canada) and record their debut album "Feverjam" in 1993. The album was received favorably, but definitely is lacking something. As Oor's music encyclopedia said it "Because of  the discrepancy between the experience of the producer (Jean-Marie Aerts) and the studio-inexperience of the band, the result was no more than promising".

In 1994, they tour extensively in Belgium, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Britain. The group gets also noted for the ludicrous stage act of singer Axl Peleman, who generally performs in the nude, with his bass guitar.

In 1995 they record the album "Adrenalin". For this, they move to Philadelphia and seek the guidance of producer Stiff Johnson (Urban Dance Squad, G.Love & Special Sauce, The Outriders, The Goats, Kris Kross, Schooly D...). They record it in an old and battered studio, with almost worn-out echo tapes, reverb plates and a mixing table that was once used in Jimi Hendrix' Electric Ladyland studio's and was used by the Stones and Janis Joplin.

The musical spectrum is much broader on this album. As Axl said in an interview (together with Soapstone)with Het Nieuwsblad in 1995 : "Ashbury Faith got the Chili Peppers-label stuck on it. Not that we were thinking : we must make a CD that very far from the Peppers ... no, we're just not listening to them anymore. I get so fed up with the press comparing us to them. It was going too far. If we performed somewhere abroad, in the flyers you'd see five times "Red Hot Chili Peppers" and once "Ashbury Faith"."
Just to make sure Mr. Peleman doesn't get angry with me : "Ashbury Faith, Ashbury Faith, Ashbury Faith, Ashbury Faith, Ashbury Faith, Red Hot Chili Peppers".
But the "crossover"-label also doesn't appeal to them "What's that, crossover ? The Rolling Stones were crossover : they reinterpreted the blues. Now crossover is metalfunk, but I feel it's just an interpretation of music. We listened to a lot of CD the last years, from Elvis Costello to Rage Against the Machine. Logical you get influenced by the sound. The age of the Jimi Hendrixes who did something really new is over. This is not a period of inventing, but of recycling."

The third album "Zed" was produced by (and named after) Zed Simon (Slovenian who has worked with Cure, Exploited, Joyrider en Kula Shaker). "Axl sounds just as angry as before, but the songs and the vocals are more melodic than on their previous recordings. Strings and keyboards make their appearance for the first time, but they still serve the tons of energy the band pours over their unsuspecting audiences" said an announcement for their gig at Marktrock in 1997.
The single from the album that gets released sums this band's attitude up quite well : it's entitled "Go Fuck Yourself". The song is released as a maxi with a remix by Daniel Bressanuti of Front 242.

I'm not sure this has spelled E.N.D. for Ashbury Faith, but from 1998 no news was heard of the band and Axl Pelemans started playing the bass for the reassembled Paranoiacs. In 2000 he left this band for what it was, and started a completely new outfit named AngeliCo with ex-Sin Alley members Martine Van Hoof & Ruben Block. In 2001 he had other things again in store, as he was playing with Automatic Buffalo (the English-speaking version of Gorki's Luc de Vos) and released a solo-CD as Camden (live with drummer Michael Schack -see Blue Blot- and guitar-player Mario Pesic -of D-Tale) called "Miscelaneous". This album showed the more relaxed side of Axl Peleman, with the single "Black Paper, Black Ink" as one of the hardest songs on it.

Drummer Reinert d'Haene (who can claim his place in history also by being the discoverer of the magnificent Arid, btw) did a musical production with "De Beenhouwerij", something that started off as a parody on Dutch percussion-band Slagerij Van Kampen and developed into a interactive and humouristic music theater with a lot of drums (together with Gerrit de Cock, also known as the drummer of the disco-ambiance-band Les Truttes, JIM Tv I-Jay and Big Brother² presenter). In 1998, Reinert started a new band with lots of electronics (smuggled in through his brother Geert d'Haene) and with singer Lennerd Busé : Yum. Matthias van der Hallen also re-appeared in this band, as guitar-player.

Members :
- Axl Peleman (zang, bas)
- Mathias Van der Hallen (gitaar)
- Reinert d'Haene (drums)

Buy CD's of this band at

Platen :
- Axl Peleman (vocals, bass)
- Mathias Van der Hallen (guitar)
- Reinert d'Haene (drums)

Websites :
- Axl Peleman's solo website, devoted to The Bass.
- Ashbury Faith at Leidsekade.
- Interview with Ashbury Faith and Soapstone in Het Nieuwsblad

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