The Faith

1988 is nearly twenty years ago. If you listen to The Faith’s only album, “Chain of Flowers”. It’s like listening to history in reverse. This is the sound of MTV as heard now, as if launched from a time capsule. The sound of today heard through the prism of hindsight.
The Faith existed for a just a few years. A comparatively short career by any measure, however The Faith managed to have a lasting effect on the Sydney live music landscape, as evident in their listing in 1988’s Rolling Stone’s Hot List, and by the many people their style and short fuse musical collages inspired and awed.
The Faith was germinated after Alan White and Chris Briggs wound up their band Sons Of Guns and came across Scott Millard and Jonathan Purcell sharing a house in Redfern. Both Jonathan and Scott had just been fired from the Seamonsters, a band that had notoriously fired nearly every musician in Sydney, including future Crowded House drummer Paul Hester. But they had been on Countdown (Famous national Australian TV Music program), which seemed to counter the knowledge that being fired was inevitable. Thereafter, The Faith was born.
The Faith debut performance was in late 1987 supporting well-known local band Bell Jar at the Harold Park Hotel in Sydney’s inner west. They were noticed straight away by their peers and quickly became a part of many local billings and line ups throughout the next few months.
Upon the establishment of RooArt records in 1987, The Faith were invited to record a track for RooArt’s inaugural Youngblood compilation with leading producer Nick Mainsbridge at Sydney’s Paradise Studios. The compilation, which was released in January of 1988, showcased cutting edge Australian bands of the time, and went on to sell gold status in Australia and was released in Europe, United States and Canada to critical acclaim.
After many more live dates and touring commitments, The Faith had the chance to return to the studio in winter 1988 and record their debut album, Chain Of Flowers.
Brett Myers, whom was better known as the guitarist and songwriter for one Australia’s most acclaimed international acts, Died Pretty took the reigns and produced the effort at Studios 301 in Castlereagh St. Brett and Jonathan had previously played guitar together in the band which formed the roots of Died Pretty ‘The End”.
Partnering with Tony Espie , the Aria award winning sound engineer, Brett took control of the desk, and 15 days later the album was finished.
Chain of Flowers was released in December 1988 and everyone expected it to be a huge hit. The album received enormous amounts of critical praise from street press around the country. But for whatever reason, radio failed to latch on and inevitably record sales failed to match the expectations that so many felt was deserved of what would become one of the best examples of Australian independent music. Although sales were respectable for an Independent release and the record proved an export hit, it wasn’t enough to guarantee interest from any of the major labels and the band lost momentum.
The band toured throughout 1989 and 1990 and experimented with new musicians, Alex and with vocalist Annette, and Alan moving to keyboards. These line-ups recorded at Megaphon and Trinity studios in Sydney, and the track ‘Wild Changes’ from these sessions eventually appeared on the Erskinville Kings soundtrack.
Eventually different visions of the future forced the band to call it quits and no further material was released.
Most bands end and that’s it, but for the Faith it was the beginning. Alan White followed his passion for film and went on direct some of the world’s most popular TV commercials and in 1999 released his first feature film, Erskineville Kings , starring Hugh Jackman. This was shortly followed by Risk , with Bryan Brown and the 2007 film Broken with Heather Graham. He is currently directing the TV series Technology Jones and working on his next film Days Like This. Alan now lives in Los Angeles, California.
Scott Millard left The Faith and briefly joined the Candy Harlots thence Crash Politics, Bell Jar, ID (Mushroom Records) and Clusterfunk (members of Crash Politics). After a break from playing rock based music he released a solo vinyl ep under the name Crackerjack , produced by Paul Mac , which was reproduced in its entirety on Sony Music’s “Itch-ee and Scratch-ee and Friends” album. He held numerous positions in sales at Warner Music, where after a 4-year stint, moved on to a new generation of entertainment products with the Japanese company Sega, as Marketing Manager. In 1998 he was appointed as National Marketing Manager at Festival Mushroom records and in 1999 launched the now defunct Air Recordings that released albums from The Blue Hour , Nick Barker , Lime, Halo Effect, The Craw, Flight 47 and of course FC Europa. At the end of 1999 he left Australia and worked for various entertainment firms in Asia, where he still lives.
Jonathan Purcell went on to play with ID (non concurrent to Scott Millard’s stint) and a career in taxation where he is now a GST legal interpretations advisor.. Jonathan has recently recorded with Tegan Northwood on her new CD to be released on the Endgame Label later in 2007. Jonathan was also a member of Mark Easton's band Soggy Porridge in the mid 1980’s and appears on their long awaited compilation CD ‘Broken Romance’ now available on plastic donut records.
Chris Briggs is at this time whereabouts unknown.
In April of 2006, Alan White and Scott Millard reunited for the first time in nearly ten years over breakfast in a Café in Santa Monica, Los Angeles and the seeds for the re-release of the Chain of Flowers album and the possible reunion for a one of tour in 2008 was sparked.
It took another year for the pair to find Jonathan Purcell, and the search still continues for Chris Briggs.
Upon finding Jonathan, and various email correspondence between the three members, it became apparent that none of the band had a clean copy of the vinyl album “Chain Of Flowers”, from which a new master for a CD could be created. All copies had been either damaged or lost.
A massive search was undertaken and finally, what Scott Millard believes is the two last unsold copies in the world were found. One was in Lyon, France and the other was in Colorado USA.
For reference the band found the “RooArt presents Youngblood” album in a second hand shop in Seattle and the “Survival of the Fittest” album was purchased from a large brand store in Toronto. Canada.
From these far gathered parts, John Herbert from Lion Studios in Singapore was able to create a re-mastered version of the “Chain Of Flowers”.
The Faith - Heaven (roo-art youngblood album)
The Faith - Red Light (from the Chain of Flowers Album)