The Enid - History

History

The Enid's membership has since undergone several changes, always with Godfrey at the helm. Godfrey has diabetes, and has also described bouts of depression associated with periods of writer's block. The band is still recording sporadically. There were no full-length album releases between 1997 and 2010, when Journey's End was released, although 2009's Arise and Shine featured newly remixed and partly re-recorded tracks from previous albums plus one preview of a Journey's End track.

The Enid began recording at about the same time as punk rock burst upon the scene. Godfrey has said that he always regarded The Enid's ironic takes on classical music as being just as anarchic as anything by the Sex Pistols, but this did not translate into either musical or commercial recognition, despite their work being played frequently by Tommy Vance on BBC Radio One's Friday Rock Show. In 1981, the band played most of the music for Kim Wilde's self-titled debut album.

Robert John Godfrey has said that he does not regard The Enid as a progressive rock band because most of it is "not actually progressive" and he would rather not be associated with the term. But that has not stopped prog rock fanzines and websites from promoting the band. He has also been quite scathing in his criticism of "neo-progressive" bands accusing them of lacking charm, talent and originality. However, this has not prevented the band from taking advantage of publicity in prog rock websites and magazines.

In the 2001 the band formed a marketing agreement with Inner Sanctum that saw most of the band's back-catalogue being reissued on that label. However, in 2009 they announced that Inner Sanctum was illegally attempting to take control of the band's name and copyrights. As a result of the ensuing legal action the Journey's End album was released on the band's own Enidiworks/Operation Seraphim label.

The Enid's official website later carried further details of the dispute as it concerned some of the band's earlier recordings. The site states that in 2010 Inner Sanctum released illegal bootlegs of the original EMI versions of In the Region of the Summer Stars and Aerie Faerie Nonsense. As a result of this EMI took action against Gerald Palmer to stop the bootlegs and agreed to grant a Worldwide License to Operation Seraphim, (the band's own record label) for the three albums they own (In The Region, Aerie Faerie and The Fall Of Hyperion).

William Gilmour taught music for a while at Withywood Comprehensive School in Bristol.