Roman was born in South Wales He joined local punk rock outfit Victimize in the late 70's. The band played self-penned songs and were fortunate to have a manager who also promoted live shows. This enabled them to secure support slots with established bands like The Damned, The Skids, The UK Subs etc Bryn Merrick was also a member of Victimize at this time ( he would also become a fully fledged member of The Damned years later.) Through a chance meeting with the then bass guitarist of The Damned Paul Gray, Roman collaborated in songwriting and helped out with demos culminating with him joining The Damned in 1981 on keyboards. Roman moved to guitar on the departure of Captain Sensible. The Damned enjoyed success over the next 5 years with several top 40 charts positions but this ended when that particular line up disbanded in 1989. They also appeared on the cult TV show The Young Ones During those years they also released an album under the name Naz Nomad and the Nightmares. After this period he embarked on a project with David Vanian and Bryn Merrick called The Phantom Chords recording two albums of which only one saw release. In 1996 Roman effectively turned his back on music only occasionally to be coaxed out retirement to produce local bands (Andy J Gallagher, Wednesday's Child, Dirty Water etc) He released a solo "bedroom" album 2004 called Papa Loco and promptly disappeared again. Now in 2024 he is working on a new album and is involved with soundtrack music for documentary/film as well as other projects including Stray Tracks.
Tony Pontius has worked over the last 25 years in the music Industry in a variety of roles, both as an artist and behind the scenes. Starting his career as a DJ and bass player in the 1990s, Tony progressed to audio engineering (doing live sound for The Nightingales, These New Puritans, Hadouken, and many more) and production, then moving further into the industry side. Still producing, DJing, and playing live under the nom de guerre Spatial Awareness, Tony currently also manages a raft of record labels, runs a music promo company, and lectures at degree level on the music industry at Point Blank Music School.
Darren started his journey in music at the age of 11 when he started playing guitar with school friends performing gigs in local youth centres. Then before leaving school started work in a local recording studio as a tape op/general dogs body and eventually becoming chief engineer recording demos for local artists such as Suzi Quatro, members of the Kinks, Eric Clapton’s band etc. As well as engineering at the studio, he was also picking up the odd session as a guitarist. One such session was for a local band he would later join that eventually became Sunscreem. Sunscreem went on to sign a major album deal with Sony and toured Europe and the USA extensively. As a member of Sunscreem he engineered the first two albums and was mix engineer on various album tracks, singles and remixes. After leaving Sunscreem in the mid 90’s, he was still working as a mix engineer working on remixes for Simply Red, Dave Stewart, the Eurythmics etc at various studios such as Olympic, the Townhouse, Eden, Roundhouse and Strongroom among others. More recently he has been doing session work for Little Mix, supplying guitar parts for several songs on their last tour, and supplied all the guitar parts for the recent Girls Aloud tour. Currently he is programming and mixing backing tracks for the forthcoming series of the Masked Singer, of which he is on his fourth series.
Paul Golder is the founder of Phoenix FM, which has been broadcasting since 1996. The station is one of the UK's longest-running community radio stations and the first community station to stream live on air. Phoenix FM has hosted over 2,000 local and unsigned acts on air in its studios in Brentwood, Essex, and gives airtime to thousands more artists every year who do not get airplay on the BBC or Commercial Radio. Paul has also been hosting and producing a weekly show, Resurrection, for the last 28 years, aimed at mixing established indie and alternative acts with lesser-known ones.
Russell has been djing and promoting bands at the pink toothbrush (and its predecessor crocs) since 1979. Bands booked by Russell include Radiohead, Depeche Mode and The Prodigy- along with countless others. Russell has also been running and djing the Saturday club night at the toothbrush since the 80’s.
A skilled bass player and daughter of the late Lee Andrews, will represent the Andrews family as one of the judges for the competition. Her connection to the music world and her father's legacy makes her an integral part of the event, honouring his memory.
Rob was born in Ilford Essex in 1967 and is the son of local country music legend Thom Fricker (Thomahawk). In 1970 his family moved to Canvey Island, where at junior school he met a young Lee Andrews. Both Rob and Lee shared a passion for music and the two formed their first band at just aged 11 years old. Over the next few years their band 'Accomodation' became well known around the Island playing at school events, youth clubs and played regularly at 'The Monico' for various CB clubs until around 1984 when the band went their separate ways. In 1988 Rob joined Southend band 'Dooyah'. It was during this time Rob switched to a 5-string bass, which would become a very instrumental move in his future. In 1990 he auditioned for Chelmsford based band 'Sunscreem'. Rob completed the line up and in February 1991 they signed a multi-album recording contract with Sony Music. Over the next few years 'Sunscreem' had a string of Top 40 UK chart singles and two US Billboard Dance No1 singles and extensively toured Europe and the USA, appearing on TV shows such as Top of the Pops, The Word, This Morning, The Big Breakfast and The Beat. During this time Rob learnt how to program and remix, and produced remixes for Warners, Sony and some independent labels. Rob left Sunscreem in the late 90's and did some remix work and toured Germany with local Southend Band Vitro. Whilst band-less he hooked back up with his old school pal Lee Andrews and they formed the band ‘Bif Bam Pow’ – who Lee would stay with for more than 20 years - The band received a lot of success on the local pub and club circuit and became favourites on the Scooter Rally scene. In 2007 Rob left the band and moved to France, only to return again in 2010, when he moved to Norfolk, where he still lives now. Since moving to Norfolk Rob has become a well known figure on the local music scene with bands such as 'The Yesterdays' and 'Revival' playing local clubs and festivals. Rob still occasionally appears with 'Sunscreem' and is currently writing and producing original music in his home studio.
