With 3 new songs penned and more on the way, Tim accepted the offer from a producer friend to record the new material. This friend turned out to have something that Tim lacked (a great big bushy beard). The substantial yet tenacious hard-rocker Simon Moor agreed to provide jaded bass guitar related complaints; and emaciated compulsive obsessive Ben Palmer offered experience in guitars and vague uninformed neurotic mumblings (Ben was previously a dolphin midwife until they inevitably became extinct. He once received wide acclaim for his stupid hair in ‘Bowling Stoned’ magazine in an article entitled ‘When the Beatles met the Dingles: In a dark, dark box..’). Simon and Ben were the last surviving members of his previous band and agreed to help record the songs in what was essentially a loose project. A charming afro-haired Irish beefcake by the name of Lee Murray was recruited to sing. With a session drummer in place, (and aforementioned afro now tamed via dreadlocks) recording commenced in mid June. Without ever playing the songs together previously, 3 songs where recorded in the space of just 1 day in the bedroom of a terraced house.

The completed demos were recorded on analogue tape and provided a great learning experience for the keen, but let’s face it: ‘slow on the uptake’ musicians. This very importantly recaptured something strikingly vital that the guys were somewhat unable to quite put their finger on.

With a stand-in drummer in place, rehearsals were scheduled, with the somewhat backwards (probably dense) aim of actually playing the songs together as a band, and recreating the songs that had been more or less pieced together like a tedious charity shop jigsaw (“look: another bit of sky..”). The rehearsals were almost successful and not quite as dull as they could have been. Thus a drummer was quickly found in the interesting shape of Eddy Harrod, a talented and pragmatic young musical pop-playboy pin-up (with yet more grimy dreads for fragrance). Eddy says his dreads give him his ‘tang’ (no, we don’t know either). With the line-up ‘sort of’ complete, the project became a band. ‘Gods of Whatever’ now had a poor if not exactly legitimate excuse to immediately toss off life’s responsibilities, get drunker, and dribble profusely. The band took to this like pigs in shit (apart from Lee who had some serious Christian Missionary work to do that weekend).

In January, 2005, the band took to the stage for their live debut at the incestuous Adelphi, in support of the mighty Last People on Earth, and established their credentials as an energetic live act. The crowd are won over a set of 8 songs, and the band resort to having to repeat a song as an encore they didn’t expect to perform (no, this didn’t go unnoticed).

In June, after studying some ‘specialist’ magazines for a few minutes, Lee announced his intention to quit the band and move to Australia to fulfil his lifelong dream of rearing sheep on a daily basis (with the option to do a spot of guilt induced God-bothering whenever the mood takes him). A last gig is planned and the band play a farewell set at the Sailmaker’s Arms, Hull. The band was supported by undistinguished singer-songwriter and friend Dave Tobin, an ingenious musician, who has that perverse sort of aggressive yet caressing voice. Dave was asked to audition and it quickly became clear that he was the only one to take over from Lee as no fucker else was interested. When he wasn’t pissed or sleeping, Dave spouted lacklustre ideas of grandiosity and curiously demanded to know “what’s happening?!” He then shut up, learnt the songs, and added his own style of soulful singing and casually contributed some catchy new hit singles.

April, 2006: Gods of Whatever demonstrate their new line-up to a full capacity Three Crowns, Hull. The atmosphere is electric and gosh-darn it, their best gig to date. The gods smile with emotion as their photo is taken (“Relax: we can leave now before one of us becomes another Anlaby road homicide statistic..”). Later that month, the band play at the empty Bricklayers Arms on an empty Walton street to a similarly well received reception, thus finally beginning their career as an active gigging band. Next, they play at the Three Tuns a few times. However the new landlord was slothful in inviting the band back and so he was punished when a rat’s piss wave of near biblical proportions gushed forth and ruined his pub (at least commercially speaking). Anyway, that’ll ‘learn’ him. It is worth noting at this point that Gods of Whatever did not however get paid any money for any of these gigs as the band are not tax registered (in fact, gods, idols and deities are not even actually eligible to become tax registered).

November, 2006: Misguidedly assured by the power of his own omnipotence, Simon decides to sack the rest of the band to concentrate on ‘The Stools’ (This was not as it transpired a band as first thought, but rather an ongoing personal project). Simon was subsequently sent to a prolapse or relapse centre or something. Anyhow, he was swiftly replaced on bass by a token East Hulla’, Tom Walker who’s actually quite enigmatic you know (stage name: ‘The Fucknumpty’). Tom is like an American muscle car in that he has muscles and stuff (and attitude for all the wrong reasons). Indeed, Tom was recently praised for his practical skills in the ‘Irish Genius Book of Records’ when it was found he could strip a 2-stroke engine in less than 2 minutes and a woman in just fewer than 10.

Knucklehead Strings (US) were on the prowl to sponsor a collection of dumb musicians to promote their product in the influential UK market (and in Hull). They chose Gods of Whatever. Knucklehead makes affordable high quality durable guitar strings. They sound great too, with fantastic playability. Gods of Whatever wouldn’t use anything else.

As the band hadn’t yet recorded an album, they decided it would be good to record a ‘debut’ album to start with. This went well with recording of 11 songs completed in August 2007, with only the sad loss of Tim’s favourite useless human organ, the vermiform appendix (RIP) hindering progress. Job done, the band sat around on their arses wondering what to do with the music. Concerned that corrupt music-loving apes may attempt to hold him hostage, Dave suggests ‘releasing’ it (Paranoia 1: Dave 0). The rest of the band decides to keep it, make it into a CD, and let people have it instead. And so, a glorious album launch party is scheduled for 7th December 2007 to allow the band the opportunity to play a vanity gig to friends who can suck them off and tell them just how damn beautiful and brilliant they have been all along. The band was suitably able to adopt self-regarding shit-eating grins.