Nottingham group based in London 1981-83

After Nottingham group “The Drug Squad” came to an end in early 1981 Vaughan Wilkinson and Paul Hartshorne formed Kid Freedom with Tim Ward (ex Art Failure), Melody and Ben Ross.

Vaughan Wilkinson: Bass
Paul Hartshorne: Guitar
Tim Ward: Guitar
Melody: Vocals
Ben Ross: Drums

Vaughan recalls:
“After the Drug Squad finished playing, myself and Paul Hartshorne formed another band called Kid Freedom which was again managed by Dick Lawson. We got together with Tim Ward from Art Failure, a singer called Melody and a drummer who was an old friend of Dick’s called Ben, lovely bloke but sadly can’t remember his surname just now. We rehearsed out at Calverton at Ben’s house.

As far as I remember we only played in Nottingham once as most of our gigs were in London, the Marquee and the 100 club being 2 of them. We attracted interest from EMI and Cherry Red and did a test recording for EMI in their Manchester Square studios, where The Beatles took their iconic photo on the front of Please Please Me.

The deal with Cherry Red was for singles only and Dick decided that we should hold out for a better one. Unfortunately Melody decided to leave the band which was a big blow as she had a fab voice. She did some work with John Maslen a few years later I seem to remember. We tried to replace her and had found a singer called Mark Rissogill but we never gigged. Kid Freedom was formed in Nottingham and all the musicians were from the area.

Tim Ward played guitar. He and Paul were great together, really complemented each others styles as they were so different. It was a shame when we didn’t get a deal in the end because there was a lot of talent in that band. Melody had a fantastic vocal range, almost operatic, some of the notes she could reach were unbelievable to my ears. Ben was/is a good solid drummer.

The recordings Kid Freedom made for EMI were recorded in the Manchester Square Studios. The five members of the band, Vaughan, Paul, Tim, Ben and Melody all contributed. The tracks were recorded in one day in the studio The Beatles had used. Our producer was a chap called Steve Parsons aka ‘Snips.’ He was a an original member of a band called ‘The Sharks’ along with Chris Spedding and Andy Fraser of Roxy Music. He created the sound for us that day and was great to work with. His parting words to us were ‘ I’ll see you for the single’ which was going to be these two tracks. Unfortunately EMI decided that our sound was too much like Kim Wilde’s who they already had signed to the label so we never released the tracks. The two tracks are called ‘Black You’re Ordered’ and ‘Promises.’ The tracks were written by all members of the band.

After Kid Freedom I played with Paul in Garry Slacks band and another band called Bombay Roll with Tim Ward (guitar) and Martin Tuckwood (drums). Martin went on to play with Red Go Red. I left Nottingham in 1985 and moved to London. In 1994 I returned and took over Subway Studios which was then based on Alfreton road. Then moving to The Square Centre, Alfred St. North in 2004″.