The Horrors are just the latest in a long line of south Essex hitmakers

From a population a fraction the size of London or Manchester, the area has produced more than its fair share of successful artistes down the decades.

The latest big name to emerge from the talent-packed “south Essex delta” is Southend band, the Horrors.

Formed over a drink in the Royal Hotel, in Southend High Street, they have won huge critical acclaim with their second album, Primary Colours.

Their success to date has culminated in a nomination for this year’s Mercury Music Prize, the most prestigious award the British music industry has to offer. Other local acts now making waves nationally and internationally include hip-hop poet Scroobius Pip, from Stanford-le-Hope, his musical partner Dan Le Sac, from Corringham, and electronic acoustic act Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, from Southend.

Horrors’ drummer Joseph Spurgeon, guitarist Joshua Hayward, and bass player Rhys “Spider” Webb, are all 26, and all from Southend or Canvey.

They are the first to proudly acknowledge they are simply the latest in a long line of south Essex acts to hit the big time.

Rhys said: “As a band, we grew up in Southend and we were very much immersed in its musical heritage.

“Southend especially, and Canvey, has a strong passion for music. It’s not just the bands – it’s also the people, who just want to listen to the music.

“Our musical education came from going out and about to Southend clubs like Saks and the Sun Rooms, when we weren’t really old enough to get into them.”

As teenagers, Rhys and his friends were avid record collectors and scoured local record shops for rare tracks by underground Sixties bands such as the Creation, the Action and the Attack.

The friends went on to set up the Junk Club, at the Royal Hotel, to play their records and put on bands. The club night ran for four years, from 2001, and ended up with a reputation as one of the coolest clubs in the country.

Rhys said: “We set up this scene where people were travelling from London and all over.

“We actually decided to form a band during one of the Junk events, which we ran over the Southend Airshow weekend. We were sitting in the bar at the Royal Hotel and decided to do it.”

Rhys’s father had been friends with the late, great Lee Brilleaux, lead singer and harmonica player with legendary Canvey rhythm and blues band, Dr Feelgood.

Rhys said: “I’ve actually got a pair of Lee’s Chelsea boots, which my dad gave me.

“The Feel-goods were great. They basically had the energy and power of punk, before it started.”

Rhys is in regular contact with Brilleaux’s son, Nick, who lives in America. He said: “Nick lives in Louisiana and comes to see us when we play gigs out there.”

Dr Feelgood hit number one in 1976 with the iconic live album, Stupidity, which captured the band’s stripped-down, hard-driving, r’n’b sound to a tee.

More than 30 years later, Dr Feelgood are still on the road today – albeit with a totally different lineup to the one which recorded Stupidity.

Oil City Confidential, a film about the Feelgoods’ early days, by cult director Julien Temple, is due out soon. It is due to get its first public screening at the London Film Festival in mid-October.

Dr Feelgood’s manager since they started 38 years ago, is Chris Fenwick, owner of the Oysterfleet Hotel, in Knightswick Road, Canvey.

Long before he became their manager Chris was a mate of the original Feelgood musicians.

They started playing Southend gigs at the old Top Alex pub, in Alexandra Street, the Esplanade, on Western Esplanade, and the former roller skating rink on Pier Hill, before going to make their name on the London pub rock scene in the early Seventies.

Chris said: “We played on the circuit of London pubs. From that, we got on the front cover of NME before we even had a record deal, and then on the Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC TV, after Bob Harris watched us one night.”

Later, the future Princess Diana would be a regular at their gigs, back in the days she was a single girl about town. Chris said: “She used to live with three girls in Kensington and when she got engaged to Charlie, she listed the Feelgoods as one of her favourite bands.”

Another band which made it big was Eddie and the Hot Rods, whose hit, Do Anything You Wanna Do came out in the summer of 1977.

Lead singer Barrie Masters, 53, is still a little taken aback the area has produced so many successful bands.

He said: “I’ve never known a town like Southend for music. I know you’ve got cities like Manchester and Liverpool, but for a little town, Southend is special.

“Every now and again, we have this eruption of great musicians and it seems to be happening again.”

However, long before the Seventies, south Essex musicians were making a name for themselves. Probably the first were the Paramounts, who enjoyed a minor hit in 1964, with a cover version of the soul standard, Poison Ivy.

But there was nothing minor about the success some of the band’s members went on to enjoy.

Singer and keyboard player Gary Brooker, bass player Chris Copping, and lead guitarist Robin Trower went on to form Procol Harum, whose 1967 single, Whiter Shade of Pale, was a massive and enduring worldwide hit.

After that, Trower went on to enjoy huge success in the Seventies, especially in the USA where he sold millions of albums.

Dr Feelgood, Eddie and the Hot Rods and the country-tinged pop-rockers Kursaal Flyers – named after the famous float which traditionally led off Southend Carnival – led a second wave in the Seventies.

The Eighties shifted the spotlight to Basildon, where electronic bands Depeche Mode and Yazoo enjoyed major chart success, Depeche Mode going on to become one of the biggest bands in the world in the Nineties.

After Yazoo split up, Southend singer Alison Moyet forged a successful solo career, while songwriter and keyboard player Vince Clark – originally a member of Depeche Mode – enjoyed more hits with Erasure.

The story of the Horrors’ success has distinct echoes of the Paramounts’ early days in Southend, almost 50 years ago.

The Paramounts originally became popular by starting their own club, the Shades, in a cellar beneath a coffee bar on Southend seafront.

Singer Gary Brooker recalls: “The Shades was a specialist club, catering for local record collectors, and r’n’b fans.

“Mods, rockers, and straightforward music fans coexisted without friction in that Coca-Cola and hamburger atmosphere of the club.”

Bobby Harrison, originally from Brentwood, joined Procol Harum on drums just as they were releasing a Whiter Shade of Pale. He said: “In the Sixties, Essex was buzzing with all sorts of different bands.

“They were getting signed up with all the big record companies. That’s how it was.”