Eat Static was formed in 1989 by Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton as a creative outlet for the diverse range of electronic music that the pair were writing. Always intended as a live band, Eat Static can legitimately claim to be one of the UK's first live techno outfits, cutting their teeth at many of the 'orbital' raves of the early 90's. They appeared 3 times at the legendary Rage nights playing alongside names such as Carl Cox, Fabio and Grooverider as well as playing at early incarnations of Universe and Tribal Gathering.

Playing many of their formative gigs at hardcore raves around the UK, Eat Static quickly developed a spectacular live show that included a huge lightshow ,a giant illuminated brain and a loyal following quickly formed, with the crowds realising that dance could be performed live at a time when 'live' performances by other bands were often mimed PA's. Eat Static were always reknown to have that same energy as the traditional rock bands had had for decades and have continued to stay true to that live spirit to this day...

Since that time Eat Static have played hundreds of gigs in the UK, Europe,the USA (touring with Moby and BT) and the Far East. These shows included a number of appearances at The Eclipse, the opening night of the long running London techno club Eurobeat 2000 and appearances at all the big UK and European festivals including Glastonbury and Dance Valley in Amsterdam.

After a while, tiring of how the rave scene was turning into a battleground of musical genre's, gangster wars and the majority of acts standing around and miming, they felt it was time to bring dance music into an album environment...

In 1991 Eat Static released three singles and the cassette album 'Prepare Your Spirit' on their own Alien Records label before signing to Planet Dog Records in 1993. The album 'Abduction' was Eat Static's first release for Planet Dog in 1993 and Eat Static ended the year on a high note when the 'Lost In Time' EP was voted Single of the Week in the UK's Melody Maker magazine and when they were voted Best Dance Act in the NME readers poll.

Eat Static's second album 'Implant' was released in 1994 and it reached number 9 in the national album charts, combined with a furious touring schedule, made more and more people very aware of the band. The 'Epsylon EP' was released in 1995 and again saw Eat Static headline both dance stages at the UK's Phoenix and Glastonbury festivals as well as headlining the sell-out 'Decadog' - Megadog's two day tenth anniversary show at London's Brixton Academy. In 1996 'Bony Incus' was released and proved so popular that it should have entered the UK's Top 40 had not a quirk of fate occurred that saw the single enter the UK single charts AND album charts at the same time.

1997 saw the release of 'Hybrid' - their most popular single release so far featuring remixes by PFM, Dave Angel, The Infinity Project and Yum Yum. 'Hybrid' reached 41 in the UK singles chart missing that elusive Top 40 place by 60 sales. After a summer of festivals and recording and a visit to the USA, Eat Static released the single 'Interceptor' on an unsuspecting public. Much more of an outlandish drum and bass excursion, the video for 'Interceptor' features footage from the 'Conquest Earth' computer game which Eat Static have provided the soundtrack for. 'Interceptor' was the first single from the third album 'Science of the Gods' which was released in mid October 1997.

A live album followed called B-World which showed the power and diversity of the Eat Static sound...

The year 1998 saw Eat Static establishing a new record label, MESMOBEAT. The first release, "Alien EP's" collated the first three long deleted 12" singles on CD for the first time, after massive demand from the fans.The album was closely followed with "Decadance", nine tracks of rare and previously unreleased materiato celebrate the band's 10th anniversary... Further demands from their fan base resulted in the re-release of Eat Static's first ever album "Prepare Your Spirit", originally released in 1992 on cassette format only, and long since deleted. The double CD has been enhanced with four brand new tracks and a new sleeve.

CRASH AND BURN!, released in May 2000 was the first studio album in over 2 years and marked a different direction for Static, featuring more live instrumentation and guest collaborations with Will "Propellerheads" White and Steve "Tangerine Dream" Jolliffe, thus culminating in a fresh new sound, mixing in more traditional instruments (like guitars and sax!), resulting in the catchiest tunes they have written to date! Various remixes culled from this including one for Charlie Watts,featuring Stuart Zender from Jamiroquai..

March 2001 saw the release of Eat Static's ninth album. Entitled "In The Nude!" the release co-incided with a stunning new website that went up for several website awards and was shortlisted down to four (rolling stones,kylie and the gorillaz!) and a UK tour followed featuring guest DJ's including old friend Paul Hartnoll from Orbital and Dave Angel. The latter part of 2001 saw Merv concentrating on various outside projects,including 'the Hi-Fi Companions',which explored electronic music crossed with latin music..

The year 2002 had seen Eat Static return more to their trance roots,with Merv DJing all around the world and new material being recorded for various labels including Israel trance giants BNE, TIP World records, Solstice, and Twisted, following that was a host of summer appearances around england, including an epic set at glastonbury that enticed 8000 people to the glade arena... it helped to establish the now Glade Festival of which they headlined most years...

Following the tenth Eat Static album 'Alien Artifacts', Merv was then back in the studio alongside Propellerhead Will White to produce yet another fresh sounding album 'Joyrider' under the name The Flexitones... this was very well received and delved into the worlds of 70's kitsch, Funk and easy listening Latino...

Eat Static then followed this by releasing their eleventh studio album entitled 'De-Classified' on Solstice records of Japan. This featured a return to their roots, a more Sci-fi dancefloor orientated album and it delighted their long staying ever faithful following... The summer of 2007 saw them play numerous headline slots at the major festivals including Glastonbury, The Glade, The Wickerman, Endorse it In Dorset, Eastern Haze, Earthdance and Solfest... following this was the release of their first Sample cd entitled 'Around The World in 80 Raves' for Sample Magic, and Merv doing pieces for TV around the world. After this, Joie parted company from the band and eat static became a solo act. By no means did this mean the band's sound suffered, indeed, it gave Merv even more scope to experiment and also gave him the space to unleash a more tightly honed, razor sharp sound...

The summer of 2008 saw the release of Eat Static's first ever full length down-tempo album,entitled 'Back To Earth' with Canada's Interchill label... It featured an exquisite tracklist of tunes that revealed the true extent of Eat Static's musical ingenuity. The album was infused with dashes of Arabian and jazzy influences alongside solid rhythmic elements of dub/breaks and spaced out other-worldly electronica. The rest of 2008 took Static abroad once more, with events in Moscow, Finland, Croatia, Paris, Japan ,Ireland, Amsterdam and more uk dates.

2009 saw Planet Dog re-release all the single's from the 93-97 on a new album entitled 'Revisitation' which celebrated Eat Static's 20th anniversary... most of these were remixed by contempory artists of the time, including T Power, PFM, Dave Angel, Sasha amongst others... the end of the year saw Merv complete a huge DJ tour of Israel, a place he had been falling more and more in love with... this tour pushed the already established trance scene there to even dizzier heights... and it also gave him the chance to re-visit his passion of playing out deep ,squelchy techno for some venues as well as his already defined Sci Trance sets...

2010 saw a return to playing numerous festival's worldwide again as demand has never let up for the formidable live set's... these now include extra sets being played at some festival's, exploring the more world music/downtempo flavour... and work had also began on the 14th studio album, due for release in 2011...

And so to this year! 2011 see's founder member Merv Pepler as the only surviving member of the original band, Steve Everitt having left in '94 just after their 'Implant' album hit no.9 in the national album charts, and Joie Hinton leaving in early 2008 after going to 'one party too many!' These 22 years has seen 13 Eat Static albums released to date, with a new anniversary album in the pipeline for release later this year. There are also plan's afoot to release an album featuring many of the old school acts that grew up alongside them, remixing a few Eat Static classics... Their own label 'Mesmobeat' is also a breeding ground for new up and coming talent and will see some interesting releases in the coming months. True to form, Merv has promised that none of this music shall be predictable or following any commercial trends!

"Experimentation equals progress..."

Alongside this, Merv has also found time for several remixes for numerous artists including Charlie Watts, Duke Ellington, Frontline Assembly, Uzumaki, Infected Mushroom and Shpongle and worked on several side project's, including Dendron, De-Fex, The Flexitones with Propellerheads' Will White and The Hi-Fi Companion's with Tangerine Dreams' Steve Jolliffe... He has also released a string of sample cd's providing top sounds for contemporary dance producers and tv music producers alike...

Be sure to catch Eat Static melting people's brain's someplace near you soon...

Keep watching the skies!

iFLYER