Gary Thain - Biography 1948

Gary Thain was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on the 15th of May. He had his first contact with music when he was 14 years old. Then, his father bought him his first bass as a birthday present. After his college time he became a bassist in the Blues-club The Plainsman. Several singers came there without any musicians, so the workers from The Plainsman had to learn every day new songs. Later, when he joined Heep, he talked about this time and said that you got into trouble when you couldn't play your songs you had to learn and that the Motown-bass lines were the most difficult for him to learn. "Those bass parts were RIGHT ON!", he said. But back to the 60s:

Later on he went to Christchurch to work in a garage. In this garage there is a memorial now and they call him "The Christchurch Heroe", even nowadays! After this short time he decided to do music as a full-time job. In NZ he had several groups, for example The Strangers, The Secrets and Me & The Others.

His brother Arthur Thain also joined The Strangers and in this time they say the group released several singles. When Gary was 17 years old he went to Australia and stayed there for one year, before he went to England to join New Nadir, his first professional group. They spent half a year in Switzerland where the band was very popular in smoke-covered pubs. This was, many people think, the first time when Gary had something to do with drugs. At the beginning of 1968 New Nadir had recorded a whole album for the lable Witchseason but it was never released. In 1970 Joe Boyd recorded an album with covers from the Witchseason artists and he used one song from New Nadir (I don't think whether it is fact or fiction), which was sung by the Chartbusters combo, that included Elton John and, ironically, David Byron, who was the Heep singer at the time.

But New Nadir split in 1968 and the musicians went to work with others. Gary Thain went to work with the drummer Keef Hartley in his group, The Keef Hartley Band. At this time, Gary sang the only song, he ever had sung in his career, called "You Say You're Together Now". The Keef Hartley Band played many Jazz and Blues stuff and this music was Gary's favourite music, even through the Heep-time, when he played hardrock. The band often played at the Marquee in London and in 1969 they joined Woodstock. There had been many complications so the band played after the Santana gig. Then, Gary could use the Santana-amps. He never played with such huge amps ever and Woodstock remained the best gig for him in his whole career. In 1970 Gary played also on the Martha Velez album, "Fiends And Angles". Martha Velez was very similar to Janis Joplin and on this album, Gary played with stars such as Eric Clapton. Even at that time Gary's bass playing was professional and he played bluesly. His favourite KHB-album was the album "Live at the Marquee", you can see him in the booklet near to his bass amps and near to the drum. But on the album, "72nd Brave", which included the song Gary sang, the singer Miller Anderson quit and so the whole band split. People also said that in 1970 Gary released a solo album, but that is pure fiction!

In 1971 Gary played on the Miller Anderson-album "Bright City". This album is very popular under the Heepsters. It made #7 when they were asked what non-Heep-album they liked. After this work Gary Thain went together with Pete York and joined the Pete York Persussion Band with Miller Anderson. But soon this group also split up and at home Gary's telephone rang and Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep was on the phone. Gary was asked if he would like to join Heep, because the last bassist, Mark Clarke, a friend of Gary's, didn't want to join the group any longer. Faster than he could turn himself around he saw himself in the plane to fly to America to join Uriah Heep ...

To the next part of the Biography section - 1972 - 1974