The Wild Poppies were an alt/psychedelic rock band from New Zealand, who relocated to the UK in the late 1980s.

Our first recording was an album: Heroine, recorded in Wellington,New Zealand in about 1986, and a single a year later. We then moved to the UK where we:

a) took six months off to learn how to play
b) moved to Oxford
c) randomly toured the UK for 3 years
d) recorded a couple of demos and released an EP.

We became part of the fledgling Oxford music scene – contemporaries of Ride… shared a house with Swervedriver… I’m guessing Radiohead must have been there in the background somewhere. Musically we were somwhere between The Rickenbacker jangle of the Paisley Underground (The Rain Parade, The Church) and the proto-shoegaze art-rock white-noise of Loop, Spacemen-3, My Bloody Valentine.

1001 nights in every low-end venue and subterranean dive in the UK turned us into a fairly formidable live-act, but Time had other ideas – the rave culture hit and England changed. Overnight. So in the summer of 89, the Poppies released “Out of Time”, then split.

Most of us are back in NZ, Andrew’s in Portugal, Ian’s moved upstairs. I think we’re all doing odds and ends music-wise. Nothing terribly coherent though. Yet.

The Wild Poppies were (in different incarnations)

Alan Carter : Bass, Vocals
Andrew Young : Guitar, Vocals, Piano
Ian Hopkins : Drums
Nick Taylor : Guitar, Vocals
Richard Geismar : Drums
Robert Axford : Guitar
Richard Gordon : Management