Defiant 1977

Describing the photo booth photo (above) Fiona Dutton (Pape) tells www.punk77.com “It was on the way to the 100 Club (1977) because I remember it being really cold. I was waiting for Kaye who always used to phone her Mum to see what was for tea before she could decide whether to come out or not”.

Defiant were formed in 1977 around sisters Fiona and Deirdre Dutton.  Defiant song titles included “Throwing Up”, “London Transport” and “Prince Charles”. They were regular customers at The Roxy Club, and inspired by Punk they decided to start their own band.
Fiona Dutton (Pape) explained the starting point in an interview with http://www.punk77.com,
“Everyone had a band so why not us. I was the drummer, my sister Dij (Deirdre) was on bass, Kaye (school with my sister) on vocals, Dok (Dermot O’Keefe) on guitar – he had been at school with someone I was at college with which is how we met. There were various other people in and out but that is the only line up we actually played with. Adrian Thrills (O’Dolan) was in for a while, but he was in every band including The Nips”

Their first gig was on Silver Jubilee weekend at a park in Sheffield where Fiona was studying at college, “That entire week in Sheffield was brilliant, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much, at the gig we were watched by two kids and a dog, the lead from the bass wasn’t working and I had never actually played on a real drum set before”.

Writer Adrian Thrills described the gig in his fanzine 48Thrills

” 1…2…3…4…and they were into their first song “Prince Charles”. Five seconds later “Prince Charles” had finished…several more false started followed…then they actually finished a song…next came “Words”…bass and rhythm are inaudible and it would help if Kaye actually sang into the microphone…the two chords of Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner” were immediately recognisable, and that song was the highlight of the set…It didn’t have much competition because during their next song “What A Life” the people who were running the gig pulled the plug”.

Despite what some would see as a shaky start, Defiant proved themselves to be truly defiant and went on to play further shows at The Man in The Moon in Chelsea, and The Roxy in August 1977 (the night Elvis died according to Fiona), as well as a mini UK tour. Now managed by Alan Anger the band went into the studio to record the tracks for their first single “Social Climber” and “LSD”. Alan decided that rather than waiting for the band to be signed by a record company, he would put the single out himself and ordered the labels to be printed. However, Defiant suddenly split up before any of the vinyl was pressed. Alan allegedly bought 20 copies of a Frank Ifield single, stuck his ready printed Defiant labels on them and mailed them out to the music papers. Linnet Evans reviewed the single in the 19th November 1977 edition of Sounds – found on www.boredteenagers.co.uk

Despite it’s mind-boggling size, the internet is in no way guilty of harbouring too much information about London 1977 five piece Defiant, so we’re grateful to both of these excellent websites  http://www.boredteenagers.co.uk and http://www.punk77.co.uk for being on the ball. If Fiona, Deirdre or Kaye would like to talk to us, we are all ears.