Egg (band)

Egg were an English progressive rock band formed in January 1969.

Career

The founding members of the group were Dave Stewart who played organ (not to be confused with guitarist David A. Stewart of Eurythmics), Mont Campbell on bass and vocals and drummer Clive Brooks. The band emerged from an earlier quartet formed whilst at City of London School called Uriel with guitarist Steve Hillage. After Hillage left the band in August 1968, the other three continued as a trio. Having signed a deal with the Middle Earth club's management branch, they were advised to change their name to Egg, allegedly because Uriel "sounded too much like 'urinal'". In mid 1969 the band signed a deal with Decca's 'progressive' music subsidiary Deram and released their debut album in March 1970 on their short-lived Nova series.

While not a commercial success, it was received well enough for the label to finance the recording of a follow-up, but when the time came to release it, they got cold feet and it was all but shelved, until producer Neil Slaven's lobbying finally resulted in The Polite Force coming out in February 1971. Now signed to The Groundhogs' management company, Egg finished the year with an increased touring schedule, but in spite of accumulating enough material for a third album, were unable to secure another record deal, and called it a day in July 1972.