Fudge Tunnel

T

he sludgy, grungy metal of Fudge Tunnel was started by Alex Newport (vocals/guitars), along with Dave Ryley (bass) and Adrian Parkin (drums). Their 1989 EP, Sex Mammoth, made an immediate impact on their home scene by making them darlings of the British press and known for their massive guitar sound and ironic sense of humor. Their follow-up The Sweet Sound of Excess EP (1990) got them a deal with 'Earache'. Featuring a drawing of a headless body on the cover (taken from the John Minnery book How To Kill), their debut album, Hate Songs In E Minor (1991) was not surprisingly seized by the constabulary; it succeeded in further promoting the act to no end. The Fudgecake (1992) compilation, Teeth EP and the follow-up album, Creep Diets (1993), were released at the height of the grunge movement and unfortunately got them caught up in the whole Seattle scene in the eyes of the public; an attitude that failed to recognize their rather harder edge. That same year, Newport had got together with Sepultura's Max Cavalera to release the Nailbomb collaboration. Before the next Nailbomb effort, The Complicated Futility of Ignorance (1994) came about. But Fudge Tunnel's reputation of being involved in the Seattle scene took its toll, and after In a Word 'odds and ends...' compilation in 1995 the act split; Newport returned from the production desk to be in a new band, Theory of Ruin.