JAMES : GAVAN WHELAN - THE FOLKLORE STORY

As a youngster, Gavan lived on the same road as Jim Glennie close to Man City's Maine Road ground although the two were never friends. From an early age, Gavan developed an interest in music, particularly bebop and Max Roach, learning to play drums by practising on bins. As he got older he developed an interest in heavier rock bands such as Rush, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.

Hence, when Gavan was introduced to Jim and Paul by a mutual friend David Oates who knew they were looking for a drummer, Gavan was by far the most accomplished musician in the band. He helped rewrite some of the band's earliest lyrics to songs like Just Hip and If Things Were Perfect.

Gavan's own story of his time with James had never been told in any depth so the story below is pulled from the band's Folklore biography.

Gavan developed into the most vociferous member of the band after Paul's departure.  He and Larry felt threatened by Tim and Jim's membership of the Lifewave group and apparently didn't get on with Tim at all.  This was heightened by Lifewave being the reason behind James pulling out of The Smiths 1984 US tour. He rebelled against the band's ethos of wanting no visual promotion of the music as he wanted James to behave like a normal rock band.

The relationship deteriorated after Stutter as Gavan became more influenced by heavier rock music that the rest of the band didn't like.  He felt that his drums were far too low in the mix for the recording of Strip-Mine as he thought Tim's voice and his drumming should be the two key elements in the band's sound.  The other three members were becoming increasingly agitated by Gavan, who himself began to feel increasingly marginalised as the band's management were either preoccupied with the success of Simply Red (Eliot Rashman) or in a relationship with Tim (Martine), leaving him isolated in the band that he loved.

The whole thing came to its head at a show at Stoke Poly in November 1988. There had been a big crush at the front and people were getting injured. Unable to see this, Gavan drummed faster to react to what he was seeing as an audience reaction. Tim told Gavan to stop playing and a fight ensued on stage and then later in the dressing room.

The other three members then held a meeting and decided they had to kick Gavan out.  Tim had lost the will to work with him after the fight and Jim was fed up at an ongoing criticism of his bass playing.  Despite a last-gasp plea from Gavan, it was felt that he had to go as things had gone past the reparable stage. Gavan left feeling Tim had given the rest of the band an ultimatum that it was Tim or Gavan who left.

Since leaving James, Gavan joined Green on Red and then later became drum technician for the Happy Mondays. 

the information in this piece comes primarily from the James biography Folklore by Stuart Maconie where there is a much fuller version of events than this summary