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HIGH TREASON was formed in 1979, in Luton, with members from two existing bands: Earthborn (featuring Barry Fearon vocals and Malcolm Scott guitar) and Crisis (featuring Larry Barbato on bass and Gary Scarbrow on drums).
Both bands were playing at a gig and the guys met and were impressed enough to split and form High Treason. The final member of the band John Pritchard (later John De Barra), from Black Tiger, was a friend of Gary’s and joined on guitar. John was an early expert in home recording and produced many of High Treason’s early songs in their rehearsal base at the Somerset Tavern in Luton.
true classic of the genre, being an incredibly energetic and catchy number, with a decidedly Thin Lizzy edge to compelling guitar work.” Equally, in his definitive work “‘Smokin’ Values: A Headbanger’s Guide To 900 NWOBHM Records”, Martin Popoff awarded the single an 8/10 (a mark typically only obtained by legends such as Motorhead and Iron Maiden), stating, “musically, you’ve got a fast, compressed, tiny NWOBHM, crammed to the brim with characteristic ideas, twin leads, an early Samson exuberance and an almost punky beat”.
The band gigged regularly – but at this time John Pritchard left and was replaced by Mark Taylor (an old school friend of Malcolm’s) on guitar.
This lineup won the local battle of the bands competition (beating, amongst others, Marillion in the process) and as part of their prize recorded a demo session at Quest Studios, which produced two tracks on the Quest Tapes sampler album. This attracted the attention of Chrysalis Records - who commissioned a further demo session at Denmark Street studios. Sadly the band decided to record material which was more new wave in style and the record label lost interest.
The band continued to record and play live – in 1983 Dave South joined on keyboards and vocals and Larry Barbato was replaced on bass. As the 1980s progressed High Treason became increasingly new wave in terms of material and appearance. Eventually the band became based at The Regal Theatre in Hitchin (venue for many episodes of BBC’s Rock Goes to College) before splitting finally in the late 1980s. Time passed, the band members got back in touch with each other again in 2006 and decided to reform for a one-off gig at Grantham College, supporting Overdrive. At this time they recorded their first album Radio Will Find Me, released on High Roller Records, which quickly sold out in both vinyl and CD formats
Barry Fearon left the band in 2008 and was replaced by Peter Yeomans on vocals – the band gigged and recorded. In July 2014, producer Gavin Monaghan (Editors, The Twang, Scott Matthews, Robert Plant, Ryan Adams) invited the band to his Magic Garden Studios to record two tracks.
Tragically, in June 2014, original drummer Gary Scarbrow died very suddenly - to be replaced by Paul Madden - and the band’s second album Everything’s Gonna Change (released on 3Ms Music) was completed by legendary producer Dennis Weinreich (Queen, Supertramp, Blancmange, Wham) with the help of guests such as Elliott Randall (Steely Dan) and Ben Matthews (Thunder).
During the recording of this album Mark Taylor left to be replaced by Paul Bailey on guitar. Guitar Techniques’ review of the album says: “This is classy writing with strong performances all round, demonstrating real understanding of what makes this genre work…..This is good honest British rock, strong on melody and well-delivered”
The band continued to gig regularly and went on to record a third album Silver Bullets, released in 2019 on the 3Ms Music label. This lineup split in 2020.
In the meantime original members Malcolm Scott, Barry Fearon, Larry Barbato, John Pritchard (now De Barra) and new drummer Hudson Deans got together to record an album titled Manchild (released in 2021 on the 3Ms Music label) under the name High Treason 1980, featuring many old songs from the early band’s era in a more overtly NWOBHM style. This band, now known as High Treason once again is relaunching in 2024.
