The Keytones formed in 1983: James Knowler, Cliff Marshall and Jarrod Coombes. Jim and Jarrold had been playing together for just over a year with Jim’s cousin Andy Knowler. They used to play lots of early Elvis, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran songs and were called The Rocking Trio.
The Keytones began playing in small pubs and was really enthusiastic. So they decided to find a drummer and play more vocal harmony led material, so they asked Tiff, a friend of Jarrold, to join, so he stayed the bands' temporary drummer for two years. Tiff was a big influence on the Keytones as he had a lot of the songs they wanted to cover in his record collection, which was very impressive and well looked after.
The first time the band went abroad was to France, to play as a last minute, stand in band. At this time in the 1980s there were a lot of rockers and the music was quite heavy and no one had heard of the Keytons. After the show they met some Dutch people and were invited to play in Holland, then Germany and proceeded to have a nine year career playing many, many gigs in these and other countries.
After Tiff left The Keytones the band searched for a new drummer and found Peter Bowers who was with them for a couple of years, after which the guys invited Shaun O’Keeffe to join the band. Shaun had been playing for many years in the Rock and Roll group Red Hot (great guys) but made the move to The Keytones and was to stay with them from then on.
After about nine years Jarrod, Jim and Shaun found they wanted to do something new, so Jim and Shaun went on to gain good musical knowledge with their new band, while Jarrod joined a jazz band for six years which really helped him playing and musical awareness. Jim was lucky to later join a group that was very successful in Japan, where they toured, and were signed to Sony Records; Jarrod also had some great experiences with his group and played around the world. Thay are all now in a group called Hullabaloo which is a bit more jazz orientated - we now have a sax player and enjoy playing swing and vocal harmony.
But the guys have decided it would be good to play some gigs as The Keytones as it’s been about 25 years since Jim and Jarrod first started playing music together and they’d like to have some fun playing some of those great songs; playing great music for music’s sake, so come along and enjoy. The band only have been playing a small number of gigs due to their already busy schedule, so don’t miss out!


The band members are:

Jarrod - Double Bass, Lead Vocals
Jim - Guitar, Vocals (and song writer)
Shaun - Drums and Vocals