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Artist
Vietnam Veterans
12+ albums
french garage psychGarage RockgarageprogModern Prog
about
Here's the story of the band you won't see on the cover of the Rolling Stone. The group was founded in 1982 (in Chalon, France) with its first lineup including Mark Enbatta (vocals, guitar), Lucas Trouble (keyboard), Greg Jones (guitar), Angelo Jupp (bass), Steve Palermo (drums) and D.D Richardson (harmonica). The name that was they chose for the band referred to men who had given a lot and got nothing in return; though the band had not done any military service themselves. Enbatta grew up in France's Basque region and started playing guitar in the late '60's, mostly doing R&B (Otis Redding, James Brown) and the usual British invasion stuff. In one of his bands, he met Jones, who played in a band with his own brother. In the late '70's, Enbatta started writing his own material (some of which appeared on the first Veterans LP) and played mostly on the street and at political demonstrations but also with some other groups. Over the years, he picked up a variety of influences from different types of music including blues, country, rockabilly, surf, rock and roll and early NYC punk (Ramones, Patti Smith, Television). He was also influenced by a lot of less commonly-heard traditional music from Russia and Spain. "Music must have a soul behind it to be good," he explained. Lucas Trouble was also playing in several bands throughout the '70's, the last of which was Tango Lüger. All of his bands played dark stuff, in the style of Joy Division. In 1982, Mark organized a show for Tang
