East-17 attempted to make a comeback during Freshers Week when they played in Break for the Border during Club Philth. The reaction was lukewarm especially when frontman Brian Harvey spoke to Trinity News about his belief in a large Jewish conspiracy.
East-17 attempted to make a comeback during Freshers Week when they played in Break for the Border during Club Philth. The reaction was lukewarm especially when frontman Brian Harvey spoke to Trinity News about his belief in a large Jewish conspiracy.
Life hasn’t been kind to East 17 frontman Brian Harvey since the halcyon days of the mid-nineties, when he was the poster boy for a generation of teenage girls and single-handedly popularised wearing baseball caps at a 90 degree angle.
After five years at the top of the charts with such hits as “Stay Another Day”, “House of Love” and “If You Ever”, East 17’s downfall was swift.
In 1997, Harvey boasted in a radio interview about taking 12 ecstasy tablets a night. His record label forced him to leave the band, which fell apart soon afterwards.
Brian still hasn’t forgiven the media and the record industry for what happened.
“One minute you’re massive, the next you’re not worth a wank. I think we were mistreated, we were young and stupid.” he said, speaking upstairs at Break for the Border nightclub after the London boy band’s Freshers’ Week performance.
The aggressively anti-record label lyrics of the band’s newest song, “Fuck That”, met with mixed reaction from the Club Philth crowd.
After being ejected from the band, the former plumber attempted a solo career with help from Wyclef John. His most recent venture was a failed entry in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest. His song ‘I Can’ later reached number 199 in the UK charts.
Harvey “quit music for good”. But it didn’t stop him continuing to make headlines, often for the wrong reasons.
In 2001 he was hospitalised having been attacked with a machete outside a Nottingham nightclub. He then spent almost two months in jail for breaching a restraining order taken out against him by his ex-wife.
Harvey remerged in 2004 for a stint on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! but walked off the show after arguing with fellow contestants.
2005 was particularly difficult for Brian. He was diagnosed with clinical depression, was allegedly suicidal, and was almost killed in a freak car accident.
“I was reversing my Merc and the door was still open, I fell out and was trapped under the wheel. It smashed through my pelvis” he says, lifting his t-shirt to show the scars on his chest. Harvey spent several days in a coma but has since made a full recovery.
Despite wearing a crucifix, Harvey declared “I’m not religious at all. Religion is a form of mass mind control.’ He then lashed out at the prominent Jewish banking family, the Rothschilds claiming they are part of the reason for the current economic climate. Harvey spoke of a “new world order” and claimed there is a “secret elite running the world”. He spoke of secret societies such as the skull and bones club that President George W. Bush was a member of while at Yale University.
Harvey also said “On December 12th, 2012 you’re going to see something. Everything their finding us is mass mind control and government manipulation.” He spoke of his interest in British Author David Icke who wrote that George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Tony Blair, Hilary Clinton and Kris Kristofferson are a race of reptilian humanoids.
Speaking on the current financial crisis Harvey claimed “the Jews are responsible, I mean the whole world banking system, we’re paying interest on money that doesn’t exist”. He didn’t offer any explanation for this theory. He simply said that if we wanted to know more then we should read David Icke and American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones is noted for his 2002 Film 9-11: The Road to Tyranny (2002) which claims that governments are responsible for many of the 20th and 21st centuries worst terrorist attacks.
Indiscreet words from a man who has never fully recovered from an indiscreet radio interview 11 years ago.
