Biography
Just like Evil Nine, there were 2 of them & Vile Evils were neither vile nor evil, not really. The name came from their favourite punk rock tune, "Ambition" by Subway Sect, which closes with the line "And I won't be tempted by vile evils cos vile evils are vile evils". Can't argue with that now, can you? They were formed when the 2005 reunion of Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) failed to become a full-time project. Former singer Clint Mansell had declared himself too busy with his film soundtrack work and that was that. Oh well…
Flashing forward to late 2009, the first VE album is inching ever closer and prime 'Evils Graham Crabb and Adam Mole took a third stab at a PWEI reunion in honour of the band's 25th anniversary. The other three erstwhile Poppies couldn't commit to it and didn't see it ever happening; they did, however, seem okay with Crabb reviving the PWEI name. Behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery took place and, with all of a month left before the planned March 2010 release of Vive Le Vile Evils, Crabb and Mole dissolved their duo on friendly terms and a new PWEI sallied forth.
Over the course of the Vile Evils' five-ish year reign of terror, the band's lineup changed semi-regularly. Initially a three-piece (with former PWEI drummer Fuzz Townshend), they parlayed the songs which would have formed the basis of the 6th PWEI album into a 2006/7 tour of the U.K. (along with unsung 'Evils Luke Mole and Matt K). Townshend departed somewhere during the band's extended stretch in the studio in 2007, but come 2008, recordings began trickling forth. February 2008 saw the release of "Council Housed and Violent", a collaboration with U.S. act 3kStatic, which reworked parts of their own first single, "Fucking & Fighting", which found its way to market a month later. Separate videos were made for each version.
The second release, at the end of June 2008, samples Zombies legend Colin Blunstone on vocals, in a drastic reworking of The Zombies "The Way I Feel Inside" acapella. (According to Crabb, "The Zombies were very kind in giving permission to use the vocal, probably because their publishers weren't so kind & insisted on 100% of the publishing.") Two months later, the "No Fear" remix disc was released, and "Demon", a collaboration with Mansell, was scheduled for release shortly afterward. Plans being plans, however, it got delayed a bit and didn't taste sunlight until February 2010, when it emerged as a "split" single with an updated version of PWEI's "Axe of Men" as a b-side. At the time of this writing, there are no plans for any further Vile Evils releases, though American label dPulse have made the artwork for the aborted album available for downloading in the short term.
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