For Burnt Out Wreck, Gary Moat has traded the back in the day drum stool for the microphone and the opportunity to front his own, unpretentious old school, classic guitar-rock outfit.

 

Following the disbandment of Scottish rockers Heavy Pettin, Gary kept himself busy by writing songs and performing and developing his vocal style with, first, Mother’s Ruin (who rose from the late 80s ashes of Heavy Pettin in 1991) and, latterly, Burnt Out Wreck.

 

Mother’s Ruin had a few years’ hiatus until 2011 when the band supported Duff McKagan and played both HRH Ibiza and the Bulldog Bash, to great review and interest.

 

In 2014 Gary concentrated even more on song writing.

Mother’s Ruin morphed in to studio project Burn Out Wreck (and 2017’s attention grabbing debut album Swallow) before becoming a fully-fledged, high-energy guitar band in their own rock and roll right, featuring Gary (songwriter, vocals, guitars, studio drums), fellow Scott Alex Carmichael (La Paz) on bass, rhythm and lead guitarist Miles Goodman and drummer Paul Gray.

 

The band have since performed a large number of headline shows, added more fans through significant support slots (Pete Way Band, Anvil among many others) and played extremely well-received sets at notable events including Bon Fest, The Great British Rock and Blues Festival and WinterStorm (the latter to a set ending crowd chant of “one more song!”).

 

2019’s This is Hell, featuring the dark-edged title track and the rock and roll fun of ‘Paddywack’ (both released as singles), was an even bigger and better received album; music journalists and music reviewers waxed lyrical in the most positive of rock voices.

 

While compared frequently to Bon Scott and Marc Storace, which he takes as the highest voiced compliment, Gary has his own imitable vocal style, which suits the high energy, rock and roll swagger and anthemic nature of the Burnt Out Wreck songs.

 

In short, Rock Ain’t Dead, it just has a different name.