Dave Crook – Co-Founder of The Kon-rads and Early David Bowie Bandmate

The birth of The Kon-rads

The Kon-rads were formed in early 1962 by drummer Dave Crook and guitarist Neville Wills. At the time, Britain was in the midst of a rapidly expanding youth music culture inspired by rock ’n’ roll, skiffle, instrumental groups and the first wave of beat music.

Like many young musicians of the era, Crook and Wills were eager to create a band that could perform locally and perhaps eventually break into the growing professional music scene. Their ambitions were modest compared with what would later happen, but the group would unexpectedly become part of rock history.

The band’s name was originally written as The Kon-rads, with a hyphen. Over time the spelling evolved into the better-known form The Konrads, partly reflecting the influence of the young David Jones, who was already fascinated by image, presentation and marketing ideas.

George Underwood brings David Jones into the band

One of the most important moments in the group’s history occurred when singer George Underwood joined the band during 1962. Underwood and David Jones had been close friends since childhood, and shortly after joining, Underwood introduced Jones to the group.

In June 1962, the fifteen-year-old David Jones officially joined The Kon-rads. At that stage he was known primarily as a saxophone player rather than a singer. His father had purchased him a tenor saxophone, and Jones was enthusiastic about rhythm and blues, jazz and the emerging British beat scene.

This means that Dave Crook belongs to an exceptionally small group of musicians who knew Bowie before he became either David Bowie or even a lead vocalist.

Bowie the saxophone player

Modern audiences often think of Bowie primarily as a singer, songwriter and performer. However, when Dave Crook first met him, David Jones was focused largely on the saxophone.

The early Kon-rads line-up reflected the popularity of instrumental groups such as The Shadows. The band played a mixture of instrumental material and vocal numbers, with Jones contributing on tenor saxophone and gradually becoming more involved in singing.

These experiences gave Bowie valuable lessons in stagecraft, rehearsal discipline and ensemble performance. Although his future would ultimately take him far beyond beat music, the foundations were being established during these formative years.

Early rehearsals

The Kon-rads rehearsed extensively in church halls and community venues around Bromley. One of their best-known rehearsal spaces was St Mary’s Church Hall in Bromley Common, where the group worked on building a repertoire and improving its musicianship.

Rehearsals often attracted local supporters who paid a small fee to watch. Even at this early stage, music was becoming an increasingly serious pursuit for the teenage David Jones.

Former bandmates later remembered that Jones was already full of ideas. He constantly suggested new directions, alternative spellings of the band’s name, changes to their image and different approaches to presentation. Even before fame, he was thinking beyond simply playing songs.

The first public performances

Dave Crook was part of the line-up during some of David Jones’s earliest documented public appearances. The Kon-rads performed at local events, youth clubs, school functions and community venues across the Bromley area.

One of the most significant early appearances took place at Bromley Technical High School in June 1962, often cited as one of Bowie’s earliest public performances. The band also appeared at local fêtes, church halls and venues such as Chislehurst Caves.

These performances may have been modest, but they represented the beginning of Bowie’s life on stage. For the future superstar, every small audience provided experience and confidence that would prove invaluable later.

Life on the local circuit

During 1962, The Kon-rads were typical of hundreds of young British groups trying to establish themselves on the local music circuit. Their performances took place at youth clubs, church halls, school events, village dances and community venues rather than professional theatres or major clubs.

The band played throughout Bromley, Beckenham, Chislehurst and surrounding areas, building experience one performance at a time. For Dave Crook and the other members, success meant securing another booking and gradually improving as musicians.

For David Jones, however, even these small engagements became opportunities to develop ideas about presentation, stagecraft and performance. Bandmates later remembered that he constantly thought about how the group could distinguish itself from countless other local acts.

An ideas man from the beginning

Former Kon-rads members frequently recalled that David Jones contributed far more than his saxophone playing. He was already full of creative ideas, often suggesting changes to the band’s appearance, publicity and identity.

According to later recollections, Jones regularly proposed new spellings of the band’s name, alternative clothing concepts and promotional ideas. He also produced sketches and visual concepts for how the group might present itself.

These stories are fascinating because they reveal traits that would remain visible throughout Bowie’s career. Long before creating Ziggy Stardust or the Thin White Duke, he was already thinking visually as well as musically.

The Kon-rads as Bowie’s first real band

While David Jones had played music before joining The Kon-rads, many historians regard the group as his first genuine working band. It was the first environment in which he rehearsed regularly, performed publicly and learned how a functioning group operated.

The lessons were practical as much as artistic. Bowie learned how to prepare for performances, work with other musicians, cope with unreliable equipment and deal with audiences. These experiences would become essential foundations for everything that followed.

Dave Crook therefore occupies a small but meaningful place in Bowie’s development because he was present during this critical learning period.

Dave Crook leaves the group

By late 1962, the band’s line-up began to change. Dave Crook left The Kon-rads and was replaced by drummer Dave Hadfield, who soon became an important figure within the group.

This transition marked the end of Crook’s direct involvement with David Jones. Much of what later became associated with The Kon-rads—including expanded line-ups, more ambitious performances and the eventual Decca studio recording—would occur after Crook’s departure.

For that reason, it is important not to exaggerate his role. Crook was not involved in every stage of the band’s history, but his contribution belongs to its earliest and most formative chapter.

The arrival of Dave Hadfield

After Crook’s departure, Dave Hadfield joined as drummer and gradually assumed a leadership role within the group. Hadfield was older and more experienced than most of the other members, bringing a different level of confidence and organisation.

Under this revised line-up, The Kon-rads became more active and ambitious. David Jones continued developing as both a performer and songwriter, moving steadily beyond the role of teenage saxophone player.

Although Crook was no longer present, the foundations established during the band’s earliest months remained important to its continuing evolution.

David Jones begins to change

During and shortly after his time with the early Kon-rads, David Jones began moving away from the purely instrumental approach that had initially attracted him. He became increasingly interested in singing, songwriting and rhythm-and-blues music.

His ambitions also grew rapidly. While many local musicians were content to remain part of the dance-hall and youth-club circuit, Jones was already imagining a broader future. He studied successful artists, analysed their presentation and constantly searched for ways to move forward.

This restless creativity would eventually lead him beyond The Kon-rads and into a succession of increasingly ambitious projects.

The importance of local venues

Looking back, it is easy to focus exclusively on Bowie’s later success. However, the halls, schools and youth clubs where The Kon-rads performed were crucial parts of his development.

These venues allowed young musicians to gain confidence in front of audiences, test material and learn the realities of live performance. Every future star had to begin somewhere, and for David Jones that journey started in exactly these kinds of places.

Dave Crook was among the musicians who shared those earliest experiences with him.

A glimpse of the future

Even during the Kon-rads years, there were occasional signs that David Jones might not remain an ordinary local musician. His curiosity, determination and willingness to experiment often distinguished him from his peers.

Yet nobody in 1962 could reasonably have predicted the scale of what was to come. To Crook and the rest of the band, Jones was simply another ambitious teenager trying to make music and find his place in the world.

That perspective makes the early Kon-rads story especially valuable. It captures Bowie before fame, before image reinventions and before international recognition transformed him into one of the defining artists of the twentieth century.

Why Dave Crook still matters

Dave Crook‘s place in Bowie history is not based on chart success, famous recordings or long-term collaboration. Instead, it rests on something much rarer: he was there at the very beginning.

As co-founder and original drummer of The Kon-rads, Crook helped create the environment in which David Jones gained some of his earliest practical experience as a performing musician.

Without musicians such as Crook, there would have been no first rehearsals, no first local performances and no first opportunities for Bowie to learn how bands functioned. His contribution may have been brief, but it forms part of the foundation upon which everything else was built.

The Marquee Club connection

One of the most important milestones in Bowie’s early development was his eventual appearance at London’s famous Marquee Club. Although Dave Crook was no longer a member of The Kon-rads by the time some of the band’s later performances took place, the foundations laid during the group’s earliest period helped prepare David Jones for larger stages and more ambitious opportunities.

The Marquee was already becoming one of Britain’s most important live music venues, hosting emerging rhythm-and-blues and beat acts that would soon shape the future of British popular music. For Bowie, performing there represented another step away from local youth-club performances and toward a professional career.

The journey from church halls in Bromley to venues such as the Marquee was gradual, but it began during the period when Dave Crook was still helping establish The Kon-rads.

The Decca recording and Bowie’s departure

In August 1963, The Kon-rads entered Decca Studios and recorded the song I Never Dreamed. The session is historically significant because it produced the earliest surviving studio recording featuring David Jones.

However, it is important to note that Dave Crook was no longer the band’s drummer at this stage. The recording took place after his departure and therefore belongs to a later chapter in the group’s history.

Even so, the existence of the Decca recording helps demonstrate how quickly the band developed after its formation. Within little more than a year of the original Crook-Wills line-up, The Kon-rads had progressed from local rehearsals to a professional recording studio.

David Jones moves on

Shortly after the Decca session, David Jones became increasingly dissatisfied with the band’s musical direction. He wanted to explore stronger rhythm-and-blues influences and pursue a more ambitious artistic path.

The Kon-rads remained rooted in a mixture of beat music, instrumentals and popular covers, while Jones was becoming increasingly interested in developing his own musical identity. Eventually he left the group and began moving through a succession of projects that would lead to the King Bees, the Manish Boys, the Lower Third and, ultimately, David Bowie.

The departure marked the end of one chapter but the beginning of a much larger story.

The earliest Bowie collaborator?

Dave Crook is rarely mentioned alongside famous Bowie collaborators such as Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Brian Eno or Tony Visconti. Yet chronologically he belongs to an even earlier category.

Crook was part of Bowie’s musical life before recording contracts, before management deals, before major concerts and before the David Bowie name even existed. He knew David Jones as a school-age musician carrying a saxophone and searching for opportunities to perform.

In that sense, Crook belongs to the earliest layer of Bowie history: the group of young musicians who shared the future star’s first attempts to build a career in music.

The Kon-rads legacy

Although The Kon-rads never achieved major commercial success, their place in music history is secure because of their connection to David Bowie. The group provided the setting in which Bowie learned many of the practical lessons that every musician must master before finding a personal voice.

The band taught him about rehearsals, teamwork, audiences, equipment, local promotion and the realities of performing live. These experiences may seem ordinary, but they formed the groundwork for everything that followed.

For Bowie historians, The Kon-rads remain fascinating precisely because they capture a moment before the legend existed. They reveal a talented teenager still discovering who he wanted to become.

Dave Crook’s place in Bowie history

Dave Crook‘s contribution to David Bowie’s story was brief but historically important. As co-founder and original drummer of The Kon-rads, he helped create the first serious musical environment in which David Jones could develop as a performer.

While Crook did not participate in Bowie’s later successes, recordings or artistic reinventions, his significance lies in his presence at the starting point. He was there when Bowie was still learning, experimenting and taking his first steps toward a future nobody could yet imagine.

Within the wider Bowie narrative, Crook represents the foundation rather than the finished structure: one of the earliest collaborators who helped make the journey possible.