Buster were an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band, formed in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 in 1974.

Formation and early years (1974-1977)

Buster was formed in March 1974 in Liverpool, England. Its members included Pete Leay (lead guitar

Lead guitar

Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

), Rob Fennah (rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar

Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

), Kevin Roberts (bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

) and Les Brians (drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s). They were originally called 'The New Attraction', and began playing the cabaret circuit in North Wales. The average age of the members was fifteen.

The band released a limited edition 7" EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 in January 1975. They signed to RCA

RCA Records

RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

 immediately on leaving school and changed their name to 'Buster'.

In May 1976, Buster released their debut single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

, "Sunday", which reached #46 in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

.

RVC (presently BMG

BMG

Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...

) which was the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese division of RCA released "Sunday" in Japan in January 1977. The single was a Top 10 hit

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

. Four further singles followed and all were Top 20 hits in Japan. At Christmastime in 1977, the band toured Japan, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Buster played live on Japanese television and performed two sell-out concerts at the Budokan arena in one day. The band also picked up a gold disc

Music recording sales certification

Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

 for record sales in Japan.

In Australia the band performed as part of the Festival of Sydney in 1977, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...

.

Returning to Britain and Alternative Radio (1978-1982)

In January 1978, the band arrived back in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. They had achieved five hit singles and three best selling albums overseas and expectations were high, but Buster's teenage image was outdated, and RCA and the band parted the company in 1979.

Their new manager suggested they changed their name to 'The Jax'. In 1980, on a small independent record label

Independent record label

An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...

, they released one single under this name with a cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of "Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

"Bits and Pieces" is a song by 1960s quintet The Dave Clark Five. The single hit number two in the UK and number four in the US. The song was a success in other countries too. It was number two in Australia and number one in Canada and Ireland. It reached number four in the Netherlands. In Germany...

", which was originally recorded

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 by The Dave Clark Five

The Dave Clark Five

The Dave Clark Five were an English pop rock group. Their single "Glad All Over" knocked The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK singles charts in January 1964: it eventually peaked at No.6 in the United States in April 1964.They were the second group of the British Invasion,...

. The single did not make any impression, and the band split from the manager and re-grouped.

Rob Fennah had started to write songs with his younger brother, Alan, they got a local pirate radio station, Merseyland Alternative Radio (MAR), to play some of their demos

Demo (music)

A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...

. The twosome also played in local pubs

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 and clubs

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

 as the duo

Duet (music)

A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...

 Rob and Alan Fennah. Pete Leay left the band to concentrate on studio

Recording studio

A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...

recording. During 1981, Buster's three original members Fennah, Brians and Roberts became Alternative Radio. In 1982, they decided to enter the Liverpool 'Battle of the Bands' competition, which they won.

However, with only two of its original members left, Buster was officially disbanded in October 1982.

Recent years (2008-present)

When footage of the band turned up on the internet, there was interest in the group and demand for the re-release of old recordings. They were able to buy back the rights to the recordings, and Buster's records were produced again for the Japanese market. They also showed some of their early footage on their website.

Fennah, Leay, and Roberts were invited to the Liverpool Museum at the opening of The Beat Goes On, an exhibition of Liverpool popular music and culture. Buster are featured in the "Global Impact" section of the exhibition, in recognition of the band's success in Japan.

Band members

• Rob Fennah - vocals, rhythm guitar
• Pete Leay - lead guitar, vocals
• Kevin Roberts - bass, vocals
• Les Brians - drums, vocals

Singles

• "Sunday" (UK & Japan) RCA 1976
• "Beautiful Child" (Japan) RCA 1976
• "Love Rules OK" (Japan) 1976
• "Dance With Me" (Japan) 1977
• "She Ain't My Baby"