Tim and Simon are cousins so their interests and lives have always overlapped in one way or another. They were in
various bands together from the age of about thirteen. In 1993 Michael Orr (Orz) joined an early prototype of Mad
Lucas. He played guitar, Tim played bass, David sang and Simon drummed. They played a school rock concert and
almost immediately afterwards David left.
After some time wasting Willie was recruited to replace David on vocals. This line up remained in place for about a
year until Michael Bell joined on bass and Tim moved to guitar. A piss-poor demo was recorded; two points became
obvious after this. The first was that Willie wasn't the best singer in the world and secondly we had tried to squeeze
too many songs into too little time. As a consequence the demo sounded crap and is confined to the dustbin of history,
never to be heard by anyone other than the band members. Soon after Willie was invited to leave the band and Orz
added the vocals to his list of duties.
This all happened during the summer of 1995 while all the band members were still at school. By Easter of 1996 some
more songs had been written and "The all puffing..." was recorded on a couple of 4 tracks. At this stage a name was
needed for the band and wisely, or not, Mad Lucas was chosen after much hair-tearing and thinking. As most sharp and
intelligent people will know it is also the title of a Breeders song, which is exactly where it was lifted from. During the
summer of 1996 some more practising and writing went on which culminated in a few gigs around Belfast including
spots at The Front Page and The Duke of York. By September Tim and Simon were drawn to Manchester and Edinburgh
respectively to persue their education. Ding and Orz remained in Belfast to do the same.
The band reconvened during every holiday and by Easter 1997 "Dual Sparrow" had been recorded, again using
4-tracks. Since then the merry-go-round of University, song writing, practising and the odd gig has continued. The line
up has seemingly cemented and all seems well for the foreseeable future.
