Skeptics

Skeptics are an industrial rock and post-punk group from Palmerston North, New Zealand, active from 1979 to 1990. The band forms around David D’Ath and Robin Gauld, who found it at school in 1979. The line-up changes over time, and the band includes Don White on drums, Ian Reiddy on bass guitar, Nick Roughan as a later bass player, and John Halvorsen.

Early years

The band starts with D’Ath and Gauld, who recruit their school friends Don White and Ian Reiddy. A school music department supports them by giving them an old P.A. speaker to use as an amplifier. They record a set of rough, primitive and out-of-tune tracks during lunch breaks on equipment in the school library.

In 1980, Nick Roughan joins after Robin Gauld meets him again and brings him in as the new bass player. Skeptics then build a local following and play support slots for other New Zealand acts on the pub circuit, including The Newmatics and The Red.

Growth and live reputation

In 1981, the band gets its own show at El Clubbo in Palmerston North and breaks the venue’s door-take records. By 1983, after the master tape for a five-track EP is stolen from the office of Propeller Records, they enter the NZ Battle of the Bands competition at Mainstreet in Auckland and finish second out of thirty acts.

Notoriety

The band becomes notorious in 1987 for the graphic music video for “AFFCO”. Skeptics remain one of the better-known New Zealand post-punk groups of their period, with a sound associated with industrial rock and post-punk.