Hi, my name is Ken Lockie, I formed COWBOYS INTERNATIONAL in 1978.  I’d been writing and recording songs for a while and had gotten a recording contract with Virgin Records on the strength of a two song demo tape I’d written and produced.  The original line up was Terry Chimes (formerly of The Clash), Evan Charles, Jimmy Hughes (formerly of The Banned), Alan Rawlings and myself.  We did lots of gigs around London, the UK and eventually Europe.  This site contains information mainly about those days and the music of COWBOYS INTERNATIONAL.

Playing gigs then recording in 1979.  In mid summer ’79 COWBOYS INTERNATIONAL began recording their only album for Virgin at AdVision Studios in London.  The repertoire of the group was 40 or 45 minutes at the time.  We recorded the 5 strongest songs and 6 new songs that I wrote in the studio that summer.  By then,  Alan Rawlings was no longer with the band and had been replaced by Rick Jacks who was credited with playing Aquarium Guitars on The Original Sin album.

The tape had barely stopped rolling when personnel within the band began to change.  Terry Chimes was out, he left to join Generation X, Marco Pirroni replaced Rick Jacks on guitars.  Changes within the band line up continued with Dolph Taylor on drums, Stevie Shears on guitars, Paul Simon on drums and Pete Jones on bass.  It was chaos for a while, then it stopped.

The band recorded one album and four singles on Virgin, Aftermath, Nothing Doing, Thrash and Today, Today.  Playing television shows in Europe, the band also appeared on BBC TV’s Old Grey Whistle Test