Vocals: Stan Briggs
Guitar: Alan Tubbert
Guitar: John Mulcahy
Bass: Pat Whelan/Pat Carey

Drums: Pat Cox/Paddy Freeney/Reg Walker/ Roger Bourke/Ronan Collins
Piano/Organ: Michael Carwood
Manager:

Formed around 1966 by brothers, Ken and Alan Tubbert with Reg Walker, John Mulcahy and Stan Briggs, The Others were the band who almost exclusively played the Church of Ireland youth group's "Guild of Youth" parish clubs and built up a huge following in most of South Co. Dublin. A residency in Mount Merrion's "Stella House" ensured that the band got maximum exposure to the trendy young things of the day.

John and Stan decided to resign in early1968 and concentrate on their careers and they were replaced by Pat Whelan and Mick Carwood. The band continued to play the parishes and at this time the night clubs were becoming interested in them and there were plenty of gigs in the diary. Drummer Reg left the band in 1969 and was replaced briefly by Pat Freeney who later joined the Freshmen.

A recording session in the Eamonn Andrews Studio, then based in the Television Club in Harcourt Street was booked and from that came the band's first single, "Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep, Cheep" which had been a huge hit in Britain for Middle Of The Road. A few TV appearances put the band into the lower reaches of the charts. The next single "Up On An Aeroplane Ride" was released a few months later but this didn't make much of an impression. Another TV appearance for the band was in the RTE soap "The Riordans", playing at a dance in the village.

A new drummer was then needed and Roger Burke was poached from an other band in Stella House and stayed until he decided to take up flying as a career. Ronan Collins was friendly with the band as a DJ in the beat clubs in Dublin and he was recruited then as the drummer.

A recording deal was done with EMI and another session was booked and this produced a fine version of Abba's "Ring Ring". This was just after the Eurovision and this was the single which had been released in Sweden before they won the contest with "Waterloo". Delays in releasing the Other's version meant that very soon after it was finally released, the song was named as Abba's next release. This was a small help to The Others and lifted their version to No. 6 for a week or two in the Irish charts although Abba's went to No. 1 immediately. The band continued to play clubs and private functions until late 1975 and they then called it a day. 

Memories of The Others
by Ken Tubbert

The original lineup of the band was: Alan Tubbert (guitar), John McEvoy (bass guitar and founder), John Mulcahy  (guitar), Pat Cox (drums) and Michael Carwood (vocals).

Michael Carwood was asked to join a rival band called “ The Gnumphs” who had a lot of gigs doing the protestant parish hall circuit. He accepted and that meant that a vacancy for a lead vocalist became vacant. My brother suggested to the rest of the band that I could fill his shoes as I knew their programme inside out. I was given a chance and our first gig was in support of The Greenbeats in Stella House, Mount Merrion, Dublin on the August bank holiday Saturday in 1964. Incidently we were . . . rubbish!

Soon after Pat Cox told us that he had to leave the band as he was at University and had to study. His replacement was Paddy Freeney. We began to also pick up the odd parish hall gig and soon there was a “friendly war” on gigs between the Gnumphs and ourselves. Soon after it was suggested that John McEvoy should be replaced by an "Image Man". Stan Briggs who had just left The Gnumphs was brought on board. Soon we became bigger than The Gnumphs. As a young band you can understand how we felt.

However just as we were at our best as we thought, John Mulcahy announced that he was about to go due to his studies. And a double blow was around the corner as Stan, who worked for Bank of Ireland was transferred to Donegal. We had two members to replace. We contacted Michael Carwood and asked him to rejoin as keyboardist and second vocalist as he had just left The Gnumphs. As we all were still extremely good friends, he agreed. We still had to find a bass player. Our cousin suggested that we try out a friend of his called Pat Whelan. So at this point the new lineup was: Ken Tubbert (vocals), Alan Tubbert (guitar), Michael Carwood, (keyboards/vocals), Pat Whelan (bass) and Paddy Freeney (drums).

We were beginning to go somewhere at this point and decided to record a couple of songs for a single. These songs being “Lovely Loretta”/ “Seasons In The Sun” which were released on Pye Records in October 1969. The follow up was "Aeroplane Ride" / "Mr. Dyingly Sad".  Soon after Paddy Freeney was replaced on drums by Reg Walker, a friend we had made some years earlier. He in turn was soon replaced by Roger Bourke from a band called “Big Yobbo”, We went on to record “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” and then “Happy Am I”.

At this point we were gigging all over Ireland and also the Dublin Circuit. Roger Bourke was hospitalised with appendicites and Ronan Collins, a DJ friend from the Dublin club circuit helped us out. However as Roger was out longer than we thought, Ronan became a permanent member. Soon after Ronan Collins joined, Pat Whelan was replaced by a close friend of the band who had just left a band called “Jason”. His name was Pat Carey. At this point we recorded our most successful single to date, “Ring Ring” which was an ABBA cover version. However this was a year before ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. This was followed up by a Michael Carwood song called “She Is Mine” with a Ronan Collins song on the B side called  “I Love Nearly Everybody”. A later release of “She Is Mine” had an extra track added, “Why Must They Die?” another Michael Carwood song. Eventually Pat Carey who had been asked to join The Strangers was replaced by Terry Merrick, a very fine musician who was also part of the gigging scene at the time.

The Others broke up in 1976/77 due to the demise of the club circuit that we were part of as well as the constant pressure of the revenue commissioners on our dwindling resources. However we continued to do the odd reunion gig for the fun of it until the very untimely death of our best friend Michael Carwood. My brother and myself went on to be part of “Sing Street”, Rikki and the Rikkiticks” and "The Hipstars”

I would like to say that I have enjoyed every second of the The Others experience and that I would like to thank every musician friend that we met along the way. It was a pleasure.

Ken Tubbert / May 2005