HLAH - History

History

HLAH formed in Wellington, originally consisting of Nigel Regan, Mark Hamill, Nigel Beazley and Andrew Durno. Previous to HLAH forming Nigel Regan and Mark Hamill were playing in a covers band playing songs by artists such as early Masters of Reality, Black Sabbath, Tad, Faith No More, Nirvana, Butthole Surfers, Mudhoney and Fugazi among others. "It wasn't a cover band as such that we played gigs and got paid, more an excuse to get together jam and bash out songs we could play" says Regan.

At the end of 1990 Nigel Beazley returned to Wellington from art school in Auckland and was roped in as singer (even though he had never sung or been in a band in his life), as Nigel and Mark's latest singer and bass player had fallen by the wayside and they wished to form an original band. The three of them went to their practice space at the 'Hopper Street Warehouse' in Wellington (the old Empire Spice Warehouse complete with dripping water and stairs that would cause a heart attack) and after blasting though a rendition of 'War Pigs' by 'Black Sabbath' to see if Beazley could actually sing the decision was made and the band was born, minus a name and a bass player which was soon rectified by the addition of Andrew 'Tall' Durno who Mark had met at a party and invited along to a practice.

Not long after the band was fully formed, for a bottle of Whiskey and $100, they recorded their first self-penned songs on an 8 track at (now defunct) Tongue studios in Wellington above the pool hall on Manners Street. this became their first self released cassette titled 'Shitnoise'. Only 100 copies of this were made and these are now rare sought after items.

Around this time Head Like a Hole shared a run down practice room at the old Empire Spice Warehose on Hopper Street with local act Shihad. After an off the cuff remark from Jon Toogood that HLAH should support Shihad on their up and coming 'Devolve' tour Regan rang Gerald Dwyer (Shihad's then manager)and said "Hi, I'm Nigel from Head Like a Hole and we're coming on tour with Shihad" to which Dwyer replied "Is that right?". Toogood had neglected to actually inform Gerald of this great idea. However, seeing the benefits in it, Dwyer stopped in to see HLAH playing upstairs at the Empire Warehouse (above the practice room occasional gigs were put on even though the place was an OSH nightmare and fire hazard with the dodgiest staircase in history) and the idea was put into play and it was on this tour that Regan for lack of a suitable 'rock wardrobe' hit upon the idea of playing naked.

They started off playing small gigs at the Hopper Street warehouse, The Carpark, and Rocky's pub and soon started touring the university circuit. Having taken the name Head Like a Hole the band gained a following with outrageous gigs, performing naked and caked with mud, or with complete face and body paint. With a strong and dedicated following, HLAH got signed to Wildside Records, who at around the same time signed another Wellington act, Shihad.