The story of Heavy Load—a punk band known for their chaotic, high-energy live shows—who sparked the Stay Up Late campaign, which later grew into a charity. It’s about the difference we’re making by supporting people with learning disabilities to lead full, active social lives on their own terms.
It’s also a story about using music to create real, mainstream opportunities for people with learning disabilities.
Jim lived in a registered group home run by Southdown Housing Association and spent much of his time strumming his guitar alone in his room. One day, his support worker asked if he’d like to do more with his love of music. Jim said he wanted to be in a band. An advert was sent around Southdown Housing, and just a week later, the band had their first practice.No one could have guessed what the next 15 years would bring.
In the early days, we played gigs at disability nights and day centres—often for little or no money—but we were doing what we loved, and we were just getting started.
Then in 2005, everything changed. Award-winning film director Jerry Rothwell spotted a story about us in a Mencap newsletter while waiting in his GP’s surgery. He was intrigued by the idea of a punk band made up of musicians with and without learning disabilities—playing Clash covers and absolutely crucifying songs by Kylie and Bros in our own chaotic, unmistakable style.
Jerry followed us for two and a half years, capturing the highs, the lows, and everything in between. In 2008, Heavy Load—the film—had its world premiere at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
Looking back on the film it’s about a lot of different things, and on one level it’s just a film about 5 blokes ‘going through a mid-life crisis’ (as Jerry once said). The film also featured us starting a campaign called ‘Stay Up Late’.
One of the common features of our gigs was our fans leaving at 9pm, just as we got on stage. Just like Spinal Tap we never for one moment thought this had anything to do with the quality of our performances and thought something else must be going on related to support workers working inflexible shifts. Typically shifts end at 10pm meaning an exodus at 9pm to make sure everyone is home in time.
If you think about this it’s a crazy situation, and means that people with learning disabilities are missing out on full and active social lives, something that many of us take for granted but is vitally important in terms of our informal support networks, friendships, and how we express ourselves. It’s also no doubt going to have a significant effect on people’s physical and mental health. So we decided to mount an awareness campaign – which was featured in the movie and the consequence was that BBC, IFC (in the US) and cinema goers got in touch with us to say they were also experiencing the same frustrations.
(It also meant that fans weren’t walking out because of the quality of our music!)
The movie went on to receive various awards and was made Film of The Week by Mark Kermode on BBC Radio 5 Live. We were also featured in a 4 page article in the Guardian Weekend by Alexis Petridis – and even got in Heat magazine’s Top 10 movies!
So the movie changed everything for us as a band and promted us to start a national charity.
In 2012, Heavy Load played their final gig—on a massive stage in Trafalgar Square as part of the Paralympic celebrations. What a way to end the ride!
By then, the seeds of our Gig Buddies project had already started to take root. Just a week after that final performance, we found out we’d secured funding to launch the project properly.
In 2013, Gig Buddies was born. Today, we have over 100 pairs of buddies regularly going out together. And through licensing the project, we now have more than 20 partner Gig Buddies projects across seven countries—supporting over 1,000 people with learning disabilities to lead active, connected, and vibrant social lives.
