OK, so Pissed and Proud was our first album, but this was our first studio album recorded in 1983 at Britannia Row and Southern Studios in London. It was around this time that we somehow acquired a Manager Nick McGerr. He persuaded us to ditch No Future Records and set up our own label, hence Trapper Records. In theory it sounded a good idea and it certainly seemed to work well, however, do you think anyone in the band ever saw any money from it? 

Anyway, rather than keep commuting up to London from Brighton every day, we set up camp in Brixton at Marek Pytel's house. God knows how he put up with us?!! Still, we had some dosh advanced to us from the distributors and set to work to make our first 'proper' album. Me and Del had written all of the songs and it was obvious this batch of material was far superior to what we'd done previously, also by now, the band really could play and were improving by the day. Also, Barry Sage had done some work with the Rolling Stones so we were somewhat in awe of him (we were still kids remember). 

All of this contributed to us making a really good album in only a few weeks.  OK, so sometimes we got a bit carried away - I remember one day some kettle drums and Tubular Bells being delivered at huge expense just because Ogs said he really needed them on one track. But we all worked hard and produced what is often called THE classic Testies album. We even released three singles from it - Jinx, Blown Out Again and Wimpeez. 

Listening back to it now, I think Barry 'condensed' the sound a bit too much, but I remember at the time being well chuffed with it. It was also at this time that we actually featured in the British music press quite a bit so we were all on a bit of a high. 

While we were recording the album, we were of course constantly trying to come up with a title for it, as we had none. I remember one afternoon that me and Trapper were sitting bored in the studio looking thru the sound effects albums. We could not believe that there was actually a whole album of frog noises which was entitled 'The Mating Sounds Of North American Frogs' which we actually used. So of course we ripped it off. 

The front photo of the frogs, me and Trap obtained from Wood Green Library by tearing a page from a book. The inside drawing of us as frogs was done by Doumé - a friend of ours from Paris who at the time was also the singer of the Trotskids. 

Again, if you look at the photo of us on the back, you'll notice that I've got a black eye, so we'd released two albums and on both of them I'm injured! Anyway, all in all a classic album even if I do say so myself!