Sham 69 were a British punk band from Hersham, Surrey, a suburb of London. Deriving their name from a piece of football graffiti that singer Jimmy Pursey had seen on a bathroom stall wall that read "Hersham 69" ( the "Her" part was wiped out). They were known for being the first punk band with a truly suburban style.
Sham 69 lacked the art school background of many British punk bands of the time, and brought in football chant backup vocals, and a sort of inarticulate populism in politics. The band were notoriously plagued by violence at their shows, and helped set the tone for the Oi! movement. The National Front, ignoring the fact that Sham 69 had a Jewish drummer, tried to associate themselves with the band and recruit members at their gigs. The band ceased doing live performances after one of their concerts at Middlesex Polytechnic was famously broken up by fighting NF skinheads in 1978.
After being the first punk band with a Top 10 UK single, "If The Kids Are United", then following it with another top ten single "Hurry Up Harry" from their second album and first full studio album, That's Life, they started to move away from punk into a sound heavily influenced by classic British hard rock such as Mott The Hoople, The Who and The Faces, on their third album, Hersham Boys.
They broke up after their fourth album. Singer Jimmy Pursey moved in a heavy metal direction afterwards, and bassist Dave Tregenna joined the pioneering 1980s glam-punk- Gothic band, The Lords of the New Church, with Stiv Bators from The Dead Boys, plus Brian James from The Damned.
