Originally formed in 1995 and based in Huddersfield, the band currently consists of multi-instrumentalist founder members Paul Morricone (vocals, guitar, etc.)
The Scaramanga Six are noted for their aggressive live act and their flamboyant and theatrical songs, which have made them a significant band on the Leeds rock scene.
Entirely self-managed and self-releasing (via their own Wrath Records label), their independent business practices and active promotion of other artists has seen them hailed as "the closest we'll see to a British answer to Fugazi"[1] and described as "working entirely outside the indie scene, let alone the actual industry.
Their song lyrics are characterised by themes of dark humour, desperation, tongue-in-cheek self-aggrandisement, criminality, "the drudgery of everyday life, work and office politics",[7] and human/animal behaviourism.
They spent their formative years absorbing a mixture of The Stranglers and Tony Bennett, resulting in the discovery that "there was much fun to be had in crooning and shouting in equal measures.
"[11] During this period Paul began to learn how to play guitar, insisting that the songs he wanted to write couldn't be written on the saxophone.
Not to be outdone, Steven learned bass guitar and began to develop his own abilities as songwriter and organizer (as well as his talents as "a born entertainer.")
"[12][13] Roger's Trout Farm played for a number of years around Somerset and recorded several demo tapes including SpitTreeDogLove.
[14] Following the departure of McAlpine in 1991, Agnew and the Morricones briefly backed a local songwriter friend (singing guitarist Julia Arnez) in another band, Spawnmate, which recorded a demo tape but never played live.
Several triple-header gigs in Leeds and London were played, one of which was commemorated with a rare sold-on-the-door cassette release featuring the three bands covering each other's songs.
In January 2002, the band released another EP, The Continuing Saga Of The Scaramanga Six with the driving "Pressure Cage" as the lead song.
The EP featured several inventive video clips directed by Paul Morricone, whose day job was as a film and television director/editor.
Trakmarx stated "The Scaramanga Six have talent, taste & humour in spades - all they need now is your patronage" while Gigwise commented that "Cabin Fever makes you laugh, stroke your imaginary goatee, dance like a frog on E and shit your pants in one hearing.
Playing keyboards and trombone and singing backing vocals, he could also double on bass guitar and second drum kit, greatly expanding the band's live potential.
In 2006, following Anthony Sargeant's departure (and temporary fill-ins by Steve Gilchrist and James Kenosha), "Maraca" Gareth Champion joined The Scaramanga Six as the band's new drummer.
"A lot of the lyrical content is designed to draw the listener in and empathise with the characters mentioned, or sung from the point of view of – whether they be real, exaggerated or fictional (sometimes it's hard to distinguish).
However, in an e-mail newsletter to the band's mailing list on 17 October 2008, Steven Morricone announced that A Pound Of Flesh would be shelved indefinitely following the cardiac arrest and subsequent hospitalisation of producer Tim Smith.
The album was once again well received by the alternative press, with This Is Fake DIY describing it as "cinematic art-rock that combines thrashing guitars with orchestral and distinctly non-rock instruments to create something individual and that has instant replay value...
Yes, there's moments where you feel that the most appropriate action to take whilst listening to the record is to thrust your fist in the air in a stadium rock fashion, but somehow this bombast is endearing, where we would expect it to be off-putting.
"[24] The Yorkshire Evening Post also hailed it as "a riff-heavy, ballsy heavy rock album that mixes up the stirring bombast of Rainbow and the compelling muscularity of Queens Of The Stone Age, yet still throws in enough musical and lyrical curveballs to lift it out of the ordinary.
In December 2010, The Scaramanga Six contributed two Cardiacs cover versions to the Leader of the Starry Skies project (a fundraising compilation album initiative to benefit the hospitalised Tim Smith).
The Scaramanga Six's sixth album, Cursed, (described by the band as "our magnum hopeless" and featuring the reworked material from A Pound of Flesh) was released in 2011.
Produced by Alan Smyth, it featured guest appearances from Thomas Truax, playing (amongst other things) his Hornicator and Dracula's Eyeball instruments.
The album generated two further singles—"Autopsy of the Mind" (which "dissect(ed) a failed relationship in CSI: Huddersfield style") and "Trouble" (a further fundraising release for Tim Smith's medical funds which was backed with the band's cover of Cardiacs' "Everything is Easy").
The results were released as the band's seventh album, Phantom Head, in April 2013 (preceded by another single, "I Will Crush Your Heart", in November 2012).
In March, they announced the upcoming release of Scenes of Mild Peril (a combined live-in-session album and DVD recorded in Bridlington and London, featuring 14 tracks in audio and video form including four new songs).
The same news update included details on the band's next studio recording, which Steven Morricone anticipated as being "a huge bloated double album with veerings into some unusual directions, lavish arrangements and more macabre intensity than we have achieved before.
The first and second EPs—The Eye And Skin Machine and Worm Necklace—were named after recurring childhood nightmares suffered by bandmembers, while the third and final EP, The Sleeper Must Awaken, "urge(d) the listener to snap back into reality.
"[30] The Terrifying Dream was released on 11 July 2015, and was followed by Body of Evidence, a DVD compilation collecting together all of The Scaramanga Six's promotional videos between 2002 and 2015 (and also featuring 'That's Billiards', a documentary on the band's Chicago sessions with Steve Albini for the Phantom Head album).
The Morricone brothers have occasionally played as an acoustic duo called The Disclaimers, and also formed the rock trio Being 747 with former Landspeed Loungers songwriter Dave Cooke (which divided its time between pop songs and school educational projects about natural history, evolution and cosmology).