The Official Weak13 Fansite

WEAK13 Bio 1999-present day:
British band WEAK13 was first founded in 1999 by Kidderminster-born musician Nick J.Townsend. The band first started playing small gigs on the UK live circuit and quickly gained a reputation for being a “band to be feared by other bands” due to their powerful live shows. The band had many line-up changes in it’s early days and gave many musicians a starting platform such as Jim Taylor (Bull VS Bear), Paul Balmer, Jack Skilton, Luke Kennedy,  Daniel Hinton (Eyes Of The Raven) and Luke Johnson (Lostprophets).

In the early days WEAK13 would blow away audiences in small pubs and clubs.  The band became barred from pubs such as The Boars Head for being “Too loud”. The Ye Olde Seven Stars was a favourite place for Nick J.Townsend to hangout and play gigs.

Nick J.Townsend writes all material for the band and started recording demos in 2001. The first track to get any recognition was ‘PROUDER THAN U’ (produced by former WEAK13 bassplayer Wayne Webb). ‘PROUDER THAN U’ was burned onto thousands of CD’s and passed around underground clubs, metal DJ’s and fans around the live gig circuit. Nick spent a lot of time burning CD’s off and giving them to friends and people who wanted to hear music. Flyers for the next gig were often included in the CD case. In early copys of the CD’s were $13 Dollar bills and button badges.

One of the first demos for WEAK13 was titled ‘The Great Silent Majority’ and was funded by The Prince’s Trust. The artwork was by Kerry Stewart who then ran the Ye Olde Seven Stars pub in Kidderminster.

In 2002 ‘PROUDER THAN U’ became featured on a college complilation CD patronised by Robert Plant of British band Led Zepplin. Nick started taking the recording side of WEAK13 a lot more seriously after this and further songs were recorded soon after including the WEAK13 songs ‘THIS LIFE’ and ‘WHEN U SAY WHEN’ which featured musicians Daniel Bailey, Luke ‘Morph’ Pearson, Laura Sandel,  Robert Adam Plant and John Keen. In 2003 the band played it’s first self funded 10 date tour playing shows in Worcester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Plymouth. Around this time the band was helped and promoted by accomplished Midland musician Tony ‘the teeth’ Goodwin who runs the company T.A.G. Artists. WEAK13 continued to perform gigs at festivals and clubs up until late 2004 including opening for the band Skindred and a performance at the Birmingahm Carling Academy (Now known as The Ballroom Birmingham) for the Ink & Iron Tattoo Convention along with the band Girls Love Ponies. Shortly after the band took a massive U-Turn and Nick decided to focus more on the recording side of WEAK13 and halted the live gigs in order to start working with experienced producers.

“I started playing tunes, some of which eventually became WEAK13 tunes in pubs and beer gardens with a drum machine just before and around the time i began a college course in 1998. My first gig with Jim Taylor was me and Anna Clark in 1999. Before that I was in a band called Bamboo Puncturing with two great musicians Stu Smith and Chris Wilson and supported Strapping Young Lad during their ‘City’ tour. There was one gig under the name Kuntz with Jim, Anna and me and a chap called Steve Tuffy who wanted to do some backing vocals, it wasn’t really as successful as a band name. I had already come up with the name WEAK13 before that and wanted to use it officially in 1999. I met Jim and Anna and I saw the WEAK13 name again in the note pad I had written it in and wanted to use it”

- Nick J.Townsend

Photo: Nick J.Townsend with Devin Townsend

In 2005 WEAK13 started recording sessions with producer and skilled musician Matt Tarbuck. Demos were created such as ‘UNIQUE PROTEST’, ‘I NAME MYSELF’, ‘FUCK FACE WHORE’ and ‘A DIFFERENT KID’. WEAK13 self-released an album titled ‘The very worst of WEAK13 – Volume 1′ which was a collection of live tracks and demos from 2002-2005. The band made a few live appearences at festivals but continued to focus on new material.

The band performed as a three piece which seemed to suit the songs much better live, WEAK13 began to get taken a lot more seriously by reviewers. People noticed a radical improvement on tightness and musicianship. A lot was due to the bass payer Matt Tarbuck and Nick spending so much time together working on songs. Luke ‘Morph’ Pearson was the live drummer and was also responsible for providing drums to the WEAK13 song WHEN U SAY WHEN which was produced by Craig Grove.

In 2006 Nick wrote the song DEATH MACHINE and recorded his last recording session with Matt Tarbuck. This resulted in an EP being created titled DEATH MACHINE which featured the tracks ‘THE ALL SEEING I’, ‘KIND TO BE CRUEL’, ‘DEATH MACHINE’ and ‘I NEVER REPEAT MYSELF’. A music video was made for DEATH MACHINE directed by Toby Hoare. The entire DEATH MACHINE EP was finally released on to the internet in 2007. The band began the live circuit again.

“In 2007 there were plenty of new songs to show fans live and we recieved a different, exciting and positive reaction. WEAK13 was still a very powerful live act then and it was a crucial time for the band as it hadn’t played live for 18 months other than a few festival appearences before that. Shell Poole was on bass guitar, Rob Hodgson on drums, Xander provided a second guitar Live”                   – Nick J.Townsend

Nick’s partner at the time Katie Doolan was responsible for some of the band’s management decisions up until late 2008 and did much of the photography for the band. On October 31st 2008 WEAK13 organised a live internet gig which was broadcast around the world via a British company called Base Studios. On the bill of the broacast were also the bands Mudball and Malevolent Aspect. The gig was seen in many different countries and was at the time quite a rare and unique event for any underground band. Many new fans were found as a result around the globe. Shortly after the event the band recieved offers for airplay from various independent Internet Radio stations.

Nick decided to make plans for WEAK13 to have a series of music videos to please this new audience. Nick began working with underground Horror film maker Thomas Lee Rutter and produced the WEAK13 music video titled D.N.A. The song was recorded in Stourbridge by live engineer Ian ‘Crazy Mule’ (along with the song LIGHT OF THE NIGHT) and the video was shot just days later.

Late 2008 and throughout 2009 Nick J.Townsend started writting new material for WEAK13 and begain working with an experienced live analogue engineer known as Ian ‘Crazy Mule’. The two of them tried many interesting recording techniques and began making plans for an album which would embrace the sound of live recording (this project became two years later WEAK13′s album titled LIVE AMMO). A photographer by the name of Graham Cropley did a series of publicity photos for Nick to advertise the song LUNATIC, after the photoshoot they arranged a band practise jam together as Graham mentioned he was interested in playing the drums more seriously. Nick was so impressed with the photos that he suggested he pay the photographer back by playing music with him. One demo recording emerged which is the WEAK13 song titled SHUT UP THE FUCK.

Film maker Martyn Kilvert was surprised when Nick rang him one night saying something along the lines of “Mart?…can you meet me in town tomorrow with a camera? I’ve started constructing a suit out of newspaper and it should be completed by morning”. This was part of the conversation which resulted in the making of the WEAK13 music video titled PROUDER THAN U2 shot in 2009.

Another film maker Martyn Kilvert began working with the band and produced new music videos for WEAK13 such as LUNATIC, PROUDER THAN U2 and NOTHING TO LOSE. The track PROUDER THAN U2 was a re-vamped version of the original tune PROUDER THAN U by WEAK13. Nick recorded all the guitar, bass and vocal parts in one day, the drums were programmed using the original  BOSS DR5 drum machine (nick-named Raqueal) which was used on the live gig circuit by WEAK13 in 1999. This song sequel pays homage to the band’s industrial roots.

Nick during this time was also preparing plans with film maker Chris Stone and producer Craig Leonard to create a music video for WEAK13 set in World War 1 (WAKE DOWN). In 2010 the bands music video ‘WAKE DOWN’ won the award for ‘Best music video’ in the London Limelight Film & Arts awards, the music video had an estimated budget of between £250’000 – £400’000. This became the most expensive music video for WEAK13 to date. The song WAKE DOWN was first released onto the internet via a company called Red Monster Records which was set up by Dave Scotford. The image on the frontcover of the single was taken by photographer Mark H.Roberts.

WAKE DOWN was recorded in 2009 but written in 2000 and was one of the original WEAK13 songs played live when they first hit the scene.

A new live line-up was created for WEAK13 in 2009. Neel Parmar joined first and became the drummer. Nick had seen him in his previous band Signify and was very impressed with his style. Soon after Nick asked Wesley Smith to join as Bass Player. Wesley had supported WEAK13 in his former band Groove Sadistic and Nick remembered how much of a good musician he was. Along with Nick a three-piece live act was created to become the new-look WEAK13.

Photo by Mark H.Roberts

WEAK13 returned to the live gig circuit and as a three piece again which pleased a lot of the older fans.  Some new elements to the live gigs emerged including shows featuring ‘Sex Pests’ tied to the front of the stage and dancing dominatrix’s.  As well as a strong set the live show became even more visual than ever before.

WEAK13 dancer Rose Bud. Photo taken by Toni Charles photography.

2011 the band release the LIVE AMMO album containing tracks ‘LUNATIC’, ‘NOTHING TO LOSE’, ‘WAKE DOWN’, ‘MY LAST PARTNER’, ‘PROUDER THAN U2′, ‘D.N.A.’, ‘MY OWN YOURS’ and ‘M1TH3R F1CK3R’. This album was produced and engineered by Ian ‘Crazy Mule’. The track MY OWN YOURS was one of the first songs played Live in 1999 by WEAK13 along with the tune FAMINE PILE.

In 2011 the band recorded the strongest WEAK13 song yet titled You Don’t Love Me.

About Nick J.Townsend:
Nick J. Townsend was born in 1975 in Kidderminster, a small industrial town in the United Kingdom. Nick was born with a disfigurment on his head, a birth mark and was constantly bullied till the age of 13. After having surgery that year to help remove the mark it was a success and Nick became in the eyes of his hometown a “normal boy again”. Years later Nick felt awkward adjusting to everyday life and decided to shave off the one side of his hair, this was done 13 weeks before the millenium as his own protest to society. His hair has remained that way ever since.

Although bullied at a very early age for his appearence, Nick’s happiest memories were his childhood days, especially the times he spent playing with his toys in the garden with his grandad. His grandad sadly passed away in 2008.

He started life as an artist. As a child he was a big comic book fan, in his college days he created and published his own magazines/comic books. Nick has been an editor of many self-financed Independent British music magazines including: ‘Ban(NE)d magazine‘ (1999-2001), ‘PMT Magazine’ (2002-2004), ‘Nick The Mag‘ (2004-2006). Most of the magazines were distributed throughout the UK in their thousands and have since become cult sought-after memorabilia. An accomplished festival promoter with a love of original music, Nick created many annual music festivals between 2003 and 2008 but his work as a music promoter is best remembered when he ran his own monthly Rock night at an English club called ‘Redwoods‘ (2003-2006). He along with good friend and fellow songwriter ‘King Rich’ organised Live gigs for over 300 unsigned bands and in that time created huge foundations in the British underground music scene.

At school Nick J.Townsend mainly did art but never did music till he picked up his first guitar at 15 years of age. The guitar which he borrowed was from his nextdoor neighbour Jeremy Baker.  He later then formed a highschool band called Incision which featured Adam Mancrief, Anthony Hubble, Justin Bodley and Simon Hughes.

His artwork has been used for the series of Children’s Books ‘PigTails’ (2007) written by the author Hollie Day. From 2008-2011 Nick became the host of a global internet radio station called Basementsound and soon became known for his crazy radio show ‘Metal Time‘ which salute many of the writtings from his earlier more humourous magazines such as PMT Magazine.

Photo by Katie Doolan

Nick J.Townsend is best known as a British underground musician, singer and multi-instrumentalist. He operates under the studio name WEAK13. As the only official member of WEAK13 he remains solely responsible for its direction, Townsend recruits a live band to perform with him on stage after recording a WEAK13 album. His music has now been heard by many around the globe thanks to the rise in popularity of the internet and satellite television.

Nick is currently a columnist and writer for Ryan’s Gig Guide Magazine and first started to write for them in 2008. His column is read by thousands every month. He mainly promotes bands from the Midlands area of the UK.  Since 2011, Nick continues broadcasting metal podcasts and promotes underground bands with co-presenter Reverend Tool on WestWorld Underground via the MetalTime show.

Photo taken by Mark H.Roberts