Severed Heads

Severed Heads
Severed Heads performing at Primavera Sound, 2019
Background information
Also known as	Mr. and Mrs. No Smoking Sign (1979)
Origin	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Genres	Industrial synth-pop post-punk electronica dance
Years active	1979 (1979)–2008 (2008), 2010 (2010)–2011 (2011), 2013, 2015 (2015)–2019 (2019)
Labels	Terse/Wrong Terse Tapes/Dogfood Production System Virgin Ink/Red Flame Volition Nettwerk CBS Sony Les Temps Modernes Dark Entries Medical
Spinoffs	Coklacoma
Members	Tom Ellard Stewart Lawler
Past members	Richard Fielding Andrew Wright Garry Bradbury Simon Knuckey Stephen Jones Paul Deering
Website	tomellard.com

Severed Heads were an Australian electronic music group founded in 1979 as Mr and Mrs No Smoking Sign. The original members were Richard Fielding and Andrew Wright, who were soon joined by Tom Ellard. Fielding and Wright had both left the band by mid-1981 with Ellard remaining the sole consistent member for the rest of the band's existence. Throughout the next decade, several musicians joined Severed Heads' ranks, including Garry Bradbury, Simon Knuckey, Stephen Jones and Paul Deering.

In 1984 the band released "Dead Eyes Opened" as a single, which was remixed in 1994 and re-released, reaching No. 16 on the ARIA Singles Chart.^[1] Two of their singles, "Greater Reward" (1988) and "All Saints Day" (1989), reached the top 30 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart.^[2] Ellard disbanded the group in 2007 and continued with other projects. Subsequent Severed Heads reunions have occurred: in 2010 for a 30th-anniversary concert, in 2011 in support of Gary Numan's tour of Australia, again in 2011 at BimFEST in Antwerp, in 2013 with a gig at the Adelaide Festival of Arts and in September 2015 with a tour of the United States for the first time in more than 20 years. In November 2016, Severed Heads played at the State Library of Victoria as part of Melbourne Music Week and in November 2017 they headlined a one-off double act along with Snog at the Corner Hotel in Richmond, Victoria. Severed Heads announced that they would again disband following headlining shows in September 2019.