SUCK: The Untold Story of South Africa’s Pioneering Heavy Metal Band

Steve Gilroy was raised in Liverpool and educated in London. Gil was the firebrand guitarist of the Johannesburg band SUCK between late-1970 and early-1971. This iconic heavy metal band started up in the same year Black Sabbath released their seminal album Paranoid and rose quickly to fame, then suddenly disappeared – all within the span of a single year. But, what a year it was!

Suck changed the face of South African music. The outrageous antics of the band won them notoriety throughout the land. They chopped up pianos, set fire to stages, used colourful language on stage, and smashed up everything and anything around them. They were wild and they were banned from playing in every South African city and major town. They were evicted from what was then known as Rhodesia and escorted to the border by the police. Their only album, ‘Time to Suck’ (1970), recorded in less than a dozen hours at EMI Studios in Joburg, was banned from the South African Broadcasting Company and shunned by many radio stations. Every newspaper carried stories about their wiles, however, for if there was one thing that Suck made sure of, it was that they were being sufficiently noticed.

Suck specialized in an infectious style of acid-soaked hard rock and proto-metal, brought to life its four original members:

• Andrew “Andy” Ioannides (vocals, flute)
• Stephen “Gil” Gilroy (guitar)
• Louis “Moose” Forer (bass)
• Savario “Savvy” Grande (drums)

Now, nearly fifty years later, Suck are finally being recognised for their music and the one vinyl album to their name is currently being sold for about R 18,000 (approximately $1,279 USD). The album was pirated in Europe and Japan with a purple record sleeve and many of these still exist. Not until 2009 was it officially released in the United States, two years after Suck’s mention in the Classic Rock article, ‘The Lost Pioneers of Heavy Metal.’

This is their story as best remembered by Gil, whose recollections are being shared for the very first time in the pages of Doomed & Stoned.

Two Rabbits Runnin’ In A Ditch

“I came to South Africa in April 1970 by invitation of the South African Government as a mechanical engineer. The day I landed, I phoned Eddie Eckstein who was the drummer with the Bats. I met Eddie in England when the Bats were touring there and we played on the same gig. We drank a few beers together and he said, 'Wow, man, you’ve got to come to South Africa. It’s great!’ When I called him he said, 'Shit, you’re really here. Did you bring your guitar? Let’s go jamming!’

"That night he took me to some of the big clubs in Joburg: Club Tomorrow, the Black Out, Ciros, and The Underground. I jammed with the top bands, drank a lot of beer, and had fun. I remember Eddie grabbing a bass guitar – a brand new Fender – off a bass player and performing an incredible head-first roll across the stage. The bass player nearly passed out! It was a night to remember, but how it finished I have no recollection.

"About a week later, when the word had spread one of the bands introduced me to ‘Moose’ Forer. He was a really good, aggressive bass player. We had a few beers together and went to jam with a band. We clicked and blew that club away. Clive Calder and Ralph Simon had just started Sagittarius Promotions. They had heard about Moose and I and they saw an opportunity to do something big.”

Season of the Witch

“Savvy (Savario Pasquale Maria Grande) came up from Cape Town and we played together. Shit! What a drummer. We were blown away! Every number we played was a perfectly timed drum solo from start to finish. Savvy was like Keith Moon of The Who, but Savvy was far better. He was a big part of Suck’s big sound. We had the musos, now we needed a vocalist, a real screamer. Andy Ionidies was a real screamer! Now we had a band.

"Before we even started to play together, Clive Calder organised a record deal. We had just three weeks to get material together for an album. There was no time to write new material so we listened to music we liked and gave it the Suck treatment. Moose and I did write ‘The Whip’ during a lunch break and that was the only original number. When we played it live, I had a cat o’ nine tails and whipped Andy while he was singing. The audience went into spasm!

"We recorded the entire album and a few extras in nine hours. Four hours on one late afternoon and five hours the following morning. That was it, most of the album was recorded in one take and then onto the next song. Everything was on a budget – that’s how we did it in those days. None of this 'We’ve spent six months in the studio’ bullshit.”

C'mon and Save Me

“It was the same story with the poster shoot. We had a photographer booked for three hours one afternoon. We were taken to an old, falling apart house with an upstairs fireplace jutting out of a half-demolished wall. Rick Alexander, the photographer, said, 'That would make a great shot. Can you get up there?’ I went up to see if it was safe and the floor collapsed! I fell through the floor, hit the ground floor, went through that and ended up in the cellar. Moose dug me out of the rubble. We did the shoot, blood running down my chest, my carefully combed hair a disaster and Andy holding me up. In those days you just did it.

"The band took me to Joburg General Hospital and a very Afrikaans matron took one look and told me to come back if I started coughing blood. I said, 'If I start coughing blood I’ll be dying.’ She casually looked over her shoulder and sneered, 'Well, you had better hurry then.’ The guys took me back to the flat, leaned me against the wall, knocked on the door and ran like hell. Lin put me in a bath full of Dettol and started cleaning wounds. It was a big job and involved a lot of alcohol one way or another.”

Hear Me Talkin’ Baby

“Suck never really gigged, we went straight into playing packed stadiums and theatres. There was a huge amount of hype around Suck, but the band was plenty good enough to pull it off. Moose and I perfected the art of smoking huge amounts of grass, drinking insane amounts of beer and throwing up out of lots of windows and all whilst playing never-ending chess games.

"Travelling around was hell. Clive found an old Volkswagen panel van that the Singer Sewing Machine company had put out to pasture. Three guys in the front, and two Marshall stacks, a PA system, a drum kit, and one guy squeezing in between the equipment and the roof. We kept the Singer signs on the van because it was much safer than Suck. South Africa was by most standards a very conservative country and Suck came as a bit of a shock to most. There were quite a few confrontations – a typical example was Pietersburg.

"I think there was an Air Force base there and, while we were unloading the van at the hall, about 40 or 50 guys popped into town to inform us that they had come to ‘f*ck us up.’ We got used to this and the usual procedure was to face them off. My weapon of choice was a heavy claw hammer. Moose had an insane f*ck off sized Bowie knife, Andy had a mike stand with a cast iron base, and Savvy would get hold of anything handy. On this occasion it was a fire axe. We would just stand in a line our backs to a wall, cracking jokes between ourselves, and looking tough. It was obvious that our opponents would suffer casualties and sooner or later our aggressors would chicken out and walk away shouting, 'Fok jou.’ It worked every time, I’m delighted to say”

So Many People I Can Be

“The road was hard and shows were always a long way apart. Sagittarius gave us an allowance of R1.00 per day. That was it! We played to big crowds. I seem to remember at Kingsmead Stadium we pulled about 12,000 people, and we lived on R1 per day. It was enough for Viennas, chips, and a slice of bread. We lived on that.

"Clive Calder learned a lot from Suck. We were his first big band and he went on to the USA to produce some of the world’s biggest bands. Suck was promised an American tour, money and more albums, when suddenly nothing happened! We got to the top in South Africa and there was nothing there. It wasn’t going anywhere. I lost interest in music and went back to engineering for a while.

"I started Mame Enterprises – South Africa’s first nudie photo company. All tastefully presented as an aide to budding artists, complete with drawing instructions. We were banned (I was used to getting banned) and we took the case to the Rand Supreme Court and won. So, the government changed the law and, about a year later, a court case in Pretoria resulted in being banned again, this time for all future publications. The 1974 Publications Control Act was written for me, the bastards.

"Later, I started a small printing company that developed into a pharmaceutical printing business and then I decided to follow my passion: beer! In late 2008 Gilroy’s Brewery, Restaurant and Pub opened in Muldersdrift where my band plays Jazz and Blues on most Friday afternoons.

"Sadly, Andy passed away from a gun accident and Moose was taken by cancer. I’ve heard that Savvy is building racing cars in the Cape and I’m at Gilroy’s having a great time. In the old days Moose and I would play for beer – it seems that I’m still doing that but this time it’s Gilroy Beer!

"It was tough but I’m really glad that I did it. That feeling of being on stage playing with top-end musicians to a raving crowd – there is no feeling quite like it.”