These Animal Men

In 1993 the quartet These Animal Men assembled in Brighton, England, only to be promptly slotted by U.K. music journalists into the short-lived “new wave of new wave” campaign that the press had manufactured to promote a fresh crop of pop-punk acts across the country around 1994. Their opening release, the amphetamine-fueled “Speeed King,” arrived with cover imagery depicting a bowl of white powder flanked by drinking straws; the single was promptly banned yet still earned the group an appearance on the long-running Top of the Pops. Julian Hewings handled vocals and guitar, Patrick Murray played bass, Boag contributed guitar and vocals, and Stevie Hussey sat behind the drums; the four leaned into tabloid portrayals of them as reckless substance abusers.

When their debut album (Come on Join) The High Society reached stores, Oasis had just dropped Definitely Maybe into a British rock scene still reeling from Kurt Cobain’s suicide and hungry for a new figurehead. Oasis restored guitar-driven pop to the U.K. charts and re-established England as a source of international excitement, leaving the “new wave of new wave” tag—and These Animal Men along with their well-publicized accounts of narcotics, alcohol, and self-pleasure—stranded in its wake. The band issued one further album, Accident & Emergency, before quietly disbanding in 1997. Hewings and Boag later reconvened in the project Mo Solid Gold.