IT was almost like music changed overnight when Grant Macabre was watching Top of the Pops in the 70s.

One minute it was glam rockers on the screen but the next it was the Sex Pistols bringing anarchy to the UK.

Suddenly – by picking up a guitar and breaking all the rules – music seemed accessible to the then Orford resident.

Grant said: “I was in early teens when punk was happening and I remember watching the Sex Pistols doing Pretty Vacant on Top of the Pops. It was just one of those moments that changed everything for me. It was so exciting and different and I think that spirit has remained.”

It certainly has for The Graves who reformed earlier this year when guitarist Bellington St John-Smythe wanted to get the band back together for his 50th birthday. Grant, who now lives in Southampton, travelled to the Saracen’s Head for the show in May.

The former Priestley College student added: “We really loved it and realised how much we missed it so the plan is now to do three or four gigs a year.

“It was absolutely fantastic because there were loads of people there that used to see us who I’d not seen for more than 10 years. It’s amazing how quick you can reconnect with people you’ve not seen in so long. You get talking and it’s as if you were talking to them yesterday.”

The Warrington group originally formed in 1983 and had their first gig at the YMCA in 1985.

Grant said: “That gig ended in chaos because I was doing a kind of thing like Roger Daltrey where I was swirling my microphone around and it went flying off the lead right to the back of the hall.

“There wasn’t a replacement mic so I had to go: ‘That’s it!’”

So how did The Graves come to be?

Grant, 53, added: “When I first started watching Top of the Pops it was glam rock in the early 70s and it all just seemed very ‘us and them’.

“But when punk came along you feel like you’re all part of the same thing.

“You go to punk gigs and the band are stood at the bar with the fans and I love that up close involvement side of it.”

So Grant picked up a guitar, his mate from Sir Thomas Boteler CE High School picked up a bass and started to put together three-chord songs.

The 53-year-old said: “We had the typical punk ethos of buying instruments that we couldn’t play and learning to play them in the bedroom.

“We’d wrote a few songs and it kind of came together over a year or two and when we finally had a better idea of what we were doing we started to write some decent songs.”

Back then Grant was inspired by The Damned – and he still is. He has seen the band 50 times.

He added: “I think everyone has one band they really connect with when they’re growing up. The first time I saw the Damned was in 1982 at Manchester Apollo. It just blew me away. It was such a great gig and Captain Sensible had been number one in the charts solo that year with his cover version of Happy Talk.

“I remember at the gig there were several families who had taken kids along because they were expecting to see Captain Sensible the family entertainer doing these cheesy cover songs.

“When they heard the Damned there were a few walking out.

“The special chemistry between Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian is what I love in the band and I love the fact their style has changed so much over the years. It’s good to see a lot of those bands still going now.

“I still go to the gigs by those sorts of bands and there’s still a good following for it.”

The Graves play in the upstairs room of The Causeway in Wilderspool Causeway on Saturday at 9pm. Entry is free.