[1] Bates grew up listening to English folk music before as a teenager becoming excited by punk, getting involved in the more diverse and experimental post-punk scene.
[2] After releasing tapes of experimental, industrial music as Migraine Inducers he formed Eyeless In Gaza with Peter Becker in January 1980.
These were Photographs as Memories (1981), Caught in Flux (1981), Pale Hands I Loved So Well (1982), Drumming the Beating Heart (1982), Rust Red September (1983) and Back from the Rains, and then went on hiatus until 1992.
Then he temporarily relocated his main focus to Europe, releasing three solo albums on the Belgian based Antler Subway label – Love Smashed on a Rock (1988), Letters to a Scattered Family (1990) and Stars Come Trembling (1990), which musically offered initial glimpses of the acoustic folk roots of his youth.
[3] In 1993, Bates began working with former Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris, collaborating on a three album series of Murder Ballads, creating an innovative marriage of “isolationist” ambience with folk-song form.