Hailing from Bridge End in South Wales, THE PARTISANS were formed in the summer of 1979 by vocalist Rob"Spike"Harrington , drummer Mark"Shark"Harris, guitarist Andy Lealand and bassist Louise Wright, all four members only 14 years of age at the time! Initially learning to play covers of Punik classics of the day the band started to write their own material and sent a demo to Chris Berry who'd just started No Future Records and had immediate sucess with BLITZ's "All out attack" EP. The demo convinced Berry to make the band his second signing and on September 28th 1981 he issued the double A sided "Police story/Killing machine".

A no nonsense Punk classic the single quickly shot to N05 in the (then) important Independant Chart during a lenghty 22 week chart run and which The Partisans helped promote by playing gigs with label-mates BLITZ at Manchester's legendary Mayflower Club. "Sounds" journalist Garry Bushell raved about the 45 andinvited the band to appear on the third instalment of the Oi! compilation series, "Carry On Oi!". The Partisans contributed "Arms race" and "No U turns", two of the LP's stand out cuts, and their pofil on the Punk scene was further enhanced as the album shot to N°.60 in the UK National charts, the band playing gigs with fellow "Carry OnOi!er's" Blitz, Peter & T.T.T.B and The Ejected as well as taking part in a No Future label night at London's sadly missed Zig Zag Club with Red Alert, Blitz and The Test Tubes.

May 27th 1982 saw the release of the bands second 45 "17 Years Of Hell" which, like "Police Story", spent months in the Independant Chart, eventually peaking at the N.°2 position though very few gigs were under-taken in support of it's release. Instead the next the world heard of The Partisans was when their 12 track self titled LP was issued in February 1983 and promptly sho to N°.5 in the Indie Chart and N°.1 in the Punk Version. Containing new versions of "Arms Race" and "No U Turns" plus the single "17 years of hell", "The Partisans" also featured nine new tracks.

With two indie Top 5 singles and a Top 5 album with their first three releases(and considerable critical acclaim from both national and fanzine press) it seemed as though the world was there for The Partisans taking. However, no news came from their camp until October '83 when new label Cloak & Dagger Records announced the release of a new three track EP "Blind Ambition" by a new re-vamped Partisans, luoise having left due to personality clashes. Shark, Rob and andy had relocated to Bayswater in West London to relaunch the band (and recruited bassist Dave Parsons) and "Blind Ambition" certainly did that as it spent 7 weeks in the Indie Chart(N°.23), got played on prime time Radio 1 and also got the following 5 Star review in "Punk lives".
They followed the single in the summer of '84 with their second LP ""Time Was Right". A half studio half live affair, described as 'The Professionals meets The Clash', the album reached N°.20 in the indie Chart. For the live cuts, recorded at Brixton Ace during one of Conflict's mega bashes that also saw sets by Anthrax, Lost Cherees, etc.., The Partisans were a four piece and went down extremely well considering the show was predominantly an 'Anarcho' event. The studio cuts on the album, recorded after the gigs, saw Andy assuming bass duties due the departure of Parsons.

Despite this 'second coming' no further activity occured on The Partisans front. Dave Parsons found chart sucess with Transvision Vamp(he's now in Bush), Shark took up a film making course and Rob moved to Scandinavia. However, in late 1989 Rob and Shark got in touch with Link Records and said they had a couple of tracks they'd like to record. The session produced "Run go grab" and "Eyes shut" and showed that the pair had lost none of their song-writing flair and that The Clash influences were as strong as ever though, unfortunately, they remain the last tracks ever recorded under The Partisans name...

Biography by Mark Brennan