Terry Bickers

Terence "Terry" Robert Arthur Bickers (born 6 September 1965 in Kensington, London) is an English musician and songwriter.

During the late 1980s and 1990s Bickers was hailed as one of Britain's leading young guitarists, as well as attracting plenty of press coverage due to his unconventional pronouncements.

Bickers's first significant band was the Northern Irish indie-rock band Colenso Parade, which he joined in 1985 on their move to London.

A guitarist and singer, he is best known for his work as the original lead guitarist with The House of Love (from 1986 to 1989, and again from 2004 to 2020) and as the former frontman/guitarist for Levitation and Cradle.

He played on their Hallelujah Chorus EP and Glentoran album, both released in 1986 on Fire Records.

In 1986 Bickers left Colenso Parade to join The House of Love, playing the role of lead guitarist and creative foil to singer and songwriter Guy Chadwick.

The House of Love rapidly gained critical acclaim in the British weekly music press (much of it focused on Bickers' intense psychedelic guitar approach).

The band's 1988 debut album – also called The House of Love, and released on Creation Records – received glowing reviews and saw the Chadwick/Bickers partnership being compared to the Smiths partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

Hotly tipped as being future stars, the band soon moved on to the major label Fontana and came under pressure to write more commercial singles.

Already a withdrawn character, Bickers had difficulty adjusting both to his musical celebrity and the demands of the record industry.

During this time, although his playing remained acclaimed, he suffered from depression and drug abuse and his relationship with Chadwick began to break down.

This culminated in a notorious episode during a House of Love tour in 1989, when Bickers set fire to banknotes in the back of the band's tour van while chanting "Breadhead!"

at Chadwick.

He was ejected from the band shortly afterwards (although his playing would feature on the band's second album, released the following year).

Bickers would later describe the tour van event as a protest against The House of Love's commercialised state, commenting "That was frustration. I just found at the time that I didn't have the same aspirations as the rest of the band. I was more into exploring music than exploring the exploitation of markets around the globe. They were really into crusading. And winning. I wasn't."

He would also confess to having had a nervous breakdown during this period, recalling "It was exhaustion... I kind of couldn't function as I did before and it's very frightening. It makes you stronger, the experience of something like that helps you build a resistance, because you have to in this day and age."

In 1990, Bickers formed the psychedelic rock band Levitation with drummer David Francolini, former Cardiacs guitarist Bic Hayes, multi-instrumentalist Robert White (later of The Milk and Honey Band) and bass player Joe Allen (who went on to join Strangelove and was replaced by Laurence O'Keefe).

As well as playing guitar, Bickers took on the role of lead singer in the band.

The band quickly became known for their intense collective playing, and were hailed in both the underground and mainstream music press as new psychedelic heroes as well as potential rehabilitators of progressive rock.

Levitation recorded a number of EPs (including the Coppelia EP, heralded by Melody Maker as "this generation's Marquee Moon,") and two albums – Coterie and Need For Not.

With Bickers already notorious for his time with House of Love, Levitation gained a good deal of press attention very quickly.

Despite the band's collective approach (and Bickers' insistence that Levitation was a democracy), much of this attention was focussed on the eminently quotable Bickers himself.

In interviews with the music press, Bickers would provide career-friendly quotes by, for example, citing an interest in the then-current dance and rave music scenes as well as the indie-rock and psychedelic music movements.

However, he was equally likely to suggest that Levitation were considering performing in masks or carrying out a concert tour of Britain via canal, or to raise esoteric ideas such as Gaia theory or the possibilities of communicating with dolphins.

Although reviewers continued to praise his skill as a musician, his schemes and philosophical ideas (though presented with sincerity) led to him being mocked and caricatured for his apparent eccentricity, leading to his reputation and nickname as "Bonkers Bickers".

Despite rave reviews and an excellent reputation as a live band, plus a growing fanbase, the band's career was set back by Bickers's refusal to tour America following an incident on the band's first American tour in which the band was caught in crossfire during a gun battle between police and a criminal gang.

After leaving the band, Bickers sought greater stability, choosing to marry and have a daughter, Ella, in 1991.

He has commented that part of his "difficult" reputation over the years (particularly in his House of Love days) came from his previous behaviour of "push(ing) love away. It was just fear, really. Fear of my own vulnerability. Fear of rejection maybe, being hurt. It was me doing battle with myself."

This led to tension between Bickers and the other members, culminating in Bickers departing the band, acrimoniously, in 1993.

Bickers famously quit Levitation onstage during a London concert, announcing "We've lost it, haven't we?"

Bic Hayes would later comment "It had happened a few times before that last gig but I think that we all knew very early on at (that) one that there was no going back again."

Years later, Bickers would speak about his departure with regret and shame, but claim that his mounting depression had had much to do with the manner of his departure.

Within a week of leaving Levitation in 1993, Bickers teamed up with guitarist Clive Giblin (Alternative TV, Shock Headed Peters, Two Worlds Collide, Sol Invictus).

The duo formed a band called Paradise Estate, named after the Television Personalities' track as they were both fans.

Bickers's most recent work has been with singer-songwriter Pete Fijalkowski, with whom he released the album Broken Heart Surgery in July 2014.

He is currently based in Brighton, England where he teaches music at the college Access To Music.

Terry Bickers was born in Kensington, London, and grew up in nearby Fulham into what he describes as "a family of big gamblers and card players. I learnt from them how to hold my hand back. They'd all be drinking and because I was only seven, I'd be straight, checking them out and learning from their behaviour."

When he was twelve years old, his parents split up, an event which he later described as "my whole life falling down in front of me. The relationship between your parents is how you see the world at that age. You learn not to trust anything."

Bickers would often cite this event as contributing to his later personal vulnerability and his consequent reactions to both people and to band politics.

In 2018 he amicably reunited onstage with his former Levitation bandmate Bic Hayes, when he guested for the first time with the latter's psychedelic band ZOFFF.