Tony Cummings chronicles the extraordinary musical journey of grizzled veteran ISHMAEL

In 1979 Ishmael formed a band, Ishmael United, which he called "a unique lineup of eccentrics." Certainly Ishmael (lead vocals, guitar), Dave Evans (guitar, keyboards), Laurie Mellor (bass) and Pedro Wills (drums) had a sound and an approach unlike anything else in Christendom. Wrote Ish, "The lead guitarist only listened to John Peel and didn't seem to like anything that had a tune. The bass player hated being called Larry, saying he preferred to be called Piggy, and whilst the drummer had a habit of arriving at a gig and shouting out in front of the organiser, 'What are we doing here, Lord?', I spent most of my time winding this motley crew up."

Ish continued, "When the punk bit came in, it seemed the natural thing to play, because we were evangelists and wanted to play a style of music which people were listening to. And because punk is anti-music, and I've never been a wonderful musician, it seemed perfect for me to get involved with."

Ishmael United's first recording experience wasn't too enjoyable. "We did this song for a compilation, and deliberately we made sure it was just thump, thump, thump. We came out, left the studio, and then somebody put a saxophone on it! It was dreadful; the boys were furious. So we didn't have a lot of control over it."

Kingsway Music released Ishmael United's 'If You Can't Shout Saved.You'll Have To Face The Penalty'. Ish wrote, "Musically it contained more variety than Heinz. Unlike 'Charge' it was hard hitting yet more palatable. It's quite a crazy album and to prove it, in the title track we even sung 'pedalbin' instead of 'penalty' at one stage just for a laugh. This is the only album of mine to date to be released in America, apparently they considered it the most punky Christian record they had ever heard, and I suppose compared with the US recordings of that time, it certainly would have sounded that way."

Ishmael admitted that performing 'If You Can't Shout Saved' live was an unforgettable experience. "Of course, with a live set in those days you knew how well you went down by the amount of spit that was running down your face by the end of a concert, because everybody spat at you. I remember we did London University - obviously it's in the bar - and people were just throwing beer glasses at us, but that's because they enjoyed it. I dread to think what they'd have done if they didn't enjoy it. Some of them were half full, so if you had your mouth open you were okay. I was all right, I could move around; it was the poor drummer who got soaked, because he couldn't move."

The band released a single "Song Of The Last Generation/Crowd Trouble". But being a member of Ishmael United was no easy thing. "To be honest we didn't get on in the band. I can say that because we all get on really well now, but in those days the pressure came from the Church, because we were far too secular in their eyes to be Christian. And then of course, when we got to play to people who weren't Christian, we were far too Christian to be secular. The NME did a review of our album, and it was like, 'Lions 10, Christians nil'. There was so much aggression against us, we would argue amongst ourselves - even fight sometimes, physically. We changed our name to Rev Counta & The Speedose. We were doing a lot of Christian bookings but we wanted to try and get into the mainstream. It wasn't totally successful, but we did play quite a few gigs and radio things, which certainly we wouldn't have done being tagged as Christians."

In 1980 Rev Counta & The Speedoze released the 'Life Begins At 30' on the band's own Duff label. With its mix of styles including new wave and Madness-style ska it should have been a creative tour-de-force. But it wasn't quite that. Ishmael remembered the recording. "It was in q strange place, a funny little studio in someone's house in London. It wasn't anything to do with Christian things. It was a strange little studio, I remember that much; it was just all mattresses around the walls. We weren't very impressed with the outcome, if the truth is known. This guy thought he knew what he was doing, but it wasn't the sound that we really wanted: it was still too tame."

And in truth things were changing for Ishmael. As he wrote, "I had by now written my first Glorie song, and the band felt shouting 'Boing!' and bouncing around on springs in the middle of a manic new wave set was not quite the done thing. Soon after, the band disbanded and I pursued the Glorie theme."

Ishmael wrote about the theological background to the unexpected entrance of a one-time punk rocker into children's ministry. "At this stage in world history, baptism in the Spirit and the gifts were still controversial, and sadly many charismatics were very heavy, serious people. I had an ambition to change all this, and to bring fun into the charismatic movement. My uncle Allan (he was the artist) and I had created a Glorie character who was a charismatic cartoon figure with springs instead of legs, a massive smile across its face and bashing a tambourine. The opposition were the miseries who were all dressed in dark colours, no smile, no springs and had an aversion to the very name Glorie. Of course this could have been interpreted as the Glorie being the Christian and the miserie being the not yet Christian, but equally another interpretation could have been the happy raving charismatics like myself and those who gave us a hard time."

A single "Glories"/"Return Of The Magnificent Glories" was released in 1980 but the concept really took off when Kingsway Music launched the 'Land Of Hope And Glories' album in 1981. Wrote Ishmael, "'Land Of Hope And Glories' was a story album about a character called U who started off a miserie, lived the life of a Glorie and ended up a martyr. Yes, a cheerful little number but certainly not written just with children in mind. I think it's one of the first British children's concept albums. Obviously we'd had all the American stuff - really good stuff, very slick, very professional, but I wanted to do something a bit more edgy and with a lot more humour in it. The sequel 'Power And The Glories' (released in 1982) again proved controversial in its day, as it was fun teaching about how people could relate to the Holy Spirit and his gifts. We made both of these albums shows, and toured with them. It was thrilling to see many saved and filled with the Holy Spirit as they listened, watched and participated in the presentations.

"Between these two major projects I rushed out a cassette called 'Songs For Bouncing Glories'. This contained some of my songs but also a lot of the popular new [worship] songs of the day. Of course I bounced these songs up till they were hardly recognisable with the original, and I had the odd complaint from the songwriter, but I didn't mind as I had now achieved something that I had failed three years before with the 'Amazin' cassette, a real boppy praise tape that would appeal to all ages."

Although by the '80s the Church was slowly allowing rock music to infiltrate adult worship music, the children were still being given music from another (often Victorian) era. Ishmael set out to address that. "What brought me into this sort of ministry with boys and girls was Spring Harvest. I brought my children up in Spring Harvest, because I'd been to all the Spring Harvests. I wasn't impressed with the music. They did wonderful work with the children, and what they were doing [with adult worship] in the Big Top was fantastic: it was now getting into rocky praise. But the children's stuff was a little piano at the front, and was very namby pamby. So when they said they'd let me have a go at doing the Glorie Company, I thought, 'Right, we are going to go way over the top!' I had three drummers in the band, and we were loud, we rocked - and the kids loved it. And it wasn't just the rock, because I wanted depth and content. I really wanted to teach the children about the Holy Spirit. Bear in mind that when it came out it was a really controversial album. The Pentecostal thing, the Holy Spirit thing, it was alright for adults, and teenagers were just about coming into things, but to teach children about the Holy Spirit was very radical. In fact, one church leader came up to me and said, 'Look, I think it's dreadful what you're doing, because you're opening them to up spiritual warfare'. I said, 'The children are already in spiritual warfare: that's why they need the Holy Spirit!' The whole idea was to teach them it's not complicated - gifts, the fruit, everything else - but do it through a story. I just thought it might come over a little more clearly."

Ishmael wrote, "After the Glorie tours finished I thought up a little phrase called Praise Party. Party to me sums up fun and of course nothing can be more fun than praising Jesus. None of these albums were directed at children, although I had children singing on them. I wanted to bring out praise tapes that the whole family could enjoy and also let adults see that children could minister to them and not always vice versa. Three Praise Party albums followed, the first again using a lot of other people's songs given the 'Ishmael' treatment. The second was mostly made up of my songs, but a young chap called Mick had recently joined our church and was writing some great material. Who would have thought that years later the Mick Gisbey would now be travelling around the country with me as part of my little band. The third Praise Party album (released by Kingsway in 1985) proved to be a best seller. It was an album that I was personally very satisfied with. One of the selling points may have been a little song I had just written called 'Father God I Wonder'."

Ish spoke about his classic worship song and how every three months he gets a royalty cheque for its continued use. "It's a great blessing, actually. I write so many songs, but I write to order: I never sit at home and pick up a guitar, unless I'm doing an album. I was asked to do one. People ask, did I get a word from God? Did an angel appear? The truth was, I was in the shower and suddenly this little tune came to mind. Then the words came to mind, I got out of the shower and sang it onto a little cassette recorder. I thought, sounds all right. But as with all the songs I was writing, the only way I'd find out if it was good or bad was the reaction from an audience - if they don't like it, I'll dump it, if they do like it I'll put it on an album. I met Noel Richards - we were at a conference. I said, 'I've written another song', and he said, 'I'd like to hear it'. So I played it to him - 'Father God I Wonder'. He said, 'That's great!' I said, 'Is it?', because I wasn't sure it was. He said, 'Yeah, it's a really good song'. It was Noel, actually, who encouraged me to keep playing, because I would've just dropped it otherwise and written another one. Over the years, the lovely response I've had from people. I don't ever relate myself to writing. It's funny, because as writers some people are very proud of songs. I'm not proud of 'Father God I Wonder'. I just feel if it helped all those people, the Holy Spirit must've done something in that song."