Scrapbook Bands... The Phantom Band.

Inspired by our most recent article, I decided to write something about one of my favourite underground bands back in the 2000s, alongside The Apple Scruffs, Figure 5 and We Are The Physics.

This article is about an act called The Phantom Band. Consisting of Duncan Marquiss, Gerry Hart, Andy Wake, Rick “Redbeard” Anthony, Iain Stewart and Greg Sinclair.

It was 2009, Facebook was only starting to take off in popularity and we were still using MSN to chat to our friends, I noticed that my friend Craig McGee was binge listening to this act called The Phantom Band so that left me intrigued to find out what was so special, we have a very similar music taste. Spotify was non-existent and MySpace reached its peak, so I was unable to get a hold of their material, as Craig worked for DF at the time, he was able to get a hold of all sorts of underground stuff, from Phantom Band to Twilight Sad.

I started a new job in late November 2009, and my supervisor always listened to this very album every Friday afternoon, we had this 1990s iMac that acted as our music player and it was full of albums for us to listen to, we then listened to this particular album called Checkmate Savage by The Phantom Band.

When I first heard it, I was like “this is one of the best albums I’ve heard for a long long time”, and fast forward onto 2025, listening to the album while on a bus home from Dundee after watching Tom Jones, I still thought “this album is still fucking wonderful”.

I got to meet the guys at Mono in 2010, this was back when Damien Tonner was still their drummer, covering their show there as well as taking them out for a photo shoot in behalf of The Skinny Mag. It was then where they told me exclusive and classified information about their upcoming second album, The Wants, I was one of the first to hear about their upcoming new material.

I was excited, considering how much I loved Checkmate Savage.

The Wants was released in late 2010, and I went straight to Spotify to listen to it, the album was a great follow up with songs like "Everbody Knows Its True", "A Glamour" "The None Of One" and "Walls".. It was also generally well received by the press.

Their last 2 albums were the 2014 release of Strange Friend and 2015’s Fears Trending, which are respectable but definitely not as strong as Checkmate Savage or The Wants, but I still listen to the great song that was “The Wind That Cried The World”.

The Phantom Band are technically still active, however they have not released new material or performed live since 2015, when their equipment got stolen after a break in. Rick Redbeard still performs solo gigs, but the band as a whole have been idle for over a decade.

If you’re a big Frightened Rabbit fan and never heard of this band before, then go ahead and check them out, highly recommended. I consider Checkmate Savage to be an absolute masterpiece and one of the greatest underground albums I have ever listened to.

Article by Stewart Fullerton.

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