Change to the East originated for the ashes of Plants from the East. Stuart Wood, the unquestioned leader of the band recollects:
“Change to the East was a strange old affair really. It lasted from 1982 til March 1987 when I think we'd all had enough. I certainly had hahaha. It started as "Plants from The East" which was a trio of me, Dave Newbold and Les Boyd. I was on a YTS called Liverpool Youth Music Project and met Dave there who introduced me to Les. Les introduced me to some weird stuff recorded in a pyramid, I was heavily influenced by Penetration and the 70's wave of punk bands and Dave was into all sorts of Psychedelic stuff. We smoked lots of dope and jammed for hours in the rehearsal room on Prescot Road. Hence the whole Eastern thing came about. I loved the "Moving Targets" album by Penetration and the track "Stone Heroes" had a real Eastern flavour to it. Images of Pyramids, Cleopatra queens of the deserts etc were whizzing around in my head. That went on for about 6 months I think, but we ended up remaining friends but parted company musically.”
At about the same time (1982) another popular Liverpool act, the Ponderosa Glee Boys did split for good (living few traces, among which one Peel session recorded in 1981). Tomo, the original vocalists had already left (1981) to join Rebel da Fe, Gordon Longsworth (guitar) would later (1985) join Foundation, Steve Coy (drums) joined Dead or Alive, Carl Eaton (vocals, bass) joined Always the Now, and Bob Davies (bass) teamed up with Stuart Wood in a his band the name of Change to the East, replacing original bass-player Andy Thompson. This line-up included also Gary Cooke (drums, later Hi-Tech) and Dave Stinson (from Twisted Nervez) on vocals, later replaced by Gareth Davies. Neil Tilley manage the band from late 1983 to 1984
In 1984 was a quite hectic year: Cooke was replaced by Colin Morris and then Sean Butler (later Western Promise), Gareth Davis was substituted by Dave Ball first and Dave Inelli then, and also Bob Davies left to join Adams Family.
As Wood recollects: “A settled line up came about in summer 1985 with the Chesworth [Mark,
vocals] / Wood [Stuart, guitars] / Baker [Ian, bas] / Benson [Paul, drums] set up and we moved forward wearing […] funny clothes and make up. By this time, the bubble I was living in was pure 60's. Donovan, Traffic, Soft Machine, Caravan, Hendrix etc. It made for an interesting influence on our music. My brother had played a lot of this stuff when I was a kid and it was like rediscovering something from your childhood. It all fell apart when we got a record deal in the states in late 1986. […] It was all a bit late in the day really for what we were churning out and certainly the way we looked […] I think something was telling us our time was up.”
Change to the East disbanded in 1987 after recording their first Ep for the California based label Victoria Recs (Victoria Street, Wide Awake b/w Never Again, White Gates) that had remained unreleased until recently.
Wood: “We were an odd lot as I recall, but the recollections are very hazy. The 80’s were an odd time… I think we were a sort of bizarre mix of Glam rock fused with Psychedelia and punkiness trying desperately not to appear New Romantic, but failing! Still, it was a fun time and those few years in the 80’s were like our own 60’s. We had a go, pretended to be pop stars, and moved on.”
Demos (1985-86)
- Guilty
- I Want You / Wide Awake
- Love in the City
- Strange Love
- Victoria Street
change to the east - demos(see also:
www.myspace.com/changetotheeastwww.myspace.com/ctteliverpoolwww.link2wales.co.uk/liverpool/liverpool-a-m/liverpool-c/http://www.youtube.com/user/ChangetotheEast#p/u )
In May 1985 Western Promise - John Mcglone (Rhythm Guita, Lead Vocal), Dave King (Bass), Phil Fowler (Lead Guitar), Sean Butler (Drums) – recorded their only Peel Session which would be aired the following month. It consisted of new songs: 
