GO CRAZY were a four-man band from BOLTON, ENGLAND, comprising (in order of appearance): IAN E (basses, vocals, guitars), DREW WOOD (vocals), GARY BURNETT (guitars and Marlbro fags) and RICK LACEY (drums and percussion).
The band were originally formed as a duo in 1991 to do a few local promotional gigs after IAN E put out his own solo version of COZ I LUV YOU (the first number one single by UK hard rock band SLADE) as GO CRAZY. IAN E played all the instruments and did all the recording and production work in his home studio Toys In The Attic (also the name of his record company).
Coerced by friends, DREW was invited by Ian to sing on the b-side, an IAN E song 'We don't want to go home', which was very much in the Slade vein anyway. The original intention was to use a recording of a Prince song called 'Gotta stop messin about', but The Purple One himself actually vetoed that idea.
After a number of low-key gigs, DREW unexpectedly sold the duo's PA and disapeared off into camper-van land or somewhere similar, so IAN E set about finding more committed musicians to form a band and to promote the rapidly dying single with. GARY BURNETT was a very skilled guitarist who had a similarly hell-for-leather musical approach to IAN E and so the two naturally got on like a house on fire. After plotting out what they really wanted the new band to be like, the next step was to pick up another guitarist, a singer and a drummer.
JOHN BEAZER was chosen as a second guitarist. No group recordings exist with him actually playing on them, as he was so intimidated by GARY's great (and loud) playing that he just turned his guitar down whenever he thought no-one was looking. He was eventually faxed his dismissal by the ever-so-diplomatic new drummer RICK LACEY, who had previously played with IAN E in the group BEYOND BELIEF.
DREW was drafted back in as singer and the band played a good number of shows over the course of a year or so, before DREW started having back problems, serious enough to be resolved years later by operations.
After some truly hideous / hilarious auditions, two alternative singers were taken on, one of whom found the travelling from Huddersfield to rehearsals in Bolton a problem. Another one (GARY DOBSON) was found to be a more than satisfactory replacement and was taken on...... and then DREW actually changed his mind about leaving again....
Eventually DREW gave up hanging on, sticking his fingers in his ears at rehearsals, etc and IAN E realised that the game was up. All the heart and soul, not to mention momentum the band hand built up was again ripped out by his fourth decision to leave. The band disintegrated during late 1993, when IAN went off to join another local group, BAD HABITS. .All that remains from this time is on this site.
IAN E is now with THE KERBCRAWLERS.
DREW joined a far more sedate soul band, soon to be followed by GARY.
They later formed FINAL DEMAND and are now in TRESSPASS.
RICK became quite in-demand as a drummer and has undertaken a number of excellent future projects, mainly in a blues vein. See www.ricklacey.co.uk for more details.
The group re-united a number of times in the mid 90's at occasional jam nights (without DREW) and showed that they had lost none of their live attack at all, punching out obnoxiously loud and ferociously fast versions of some songs from their old set with IAN E singing in DREW's place.
Ian E still uses the name GO CRAZY for some of his solo demos.
