John Allen, lead singer of Boston's Big Bad Bollocks, speaks the language of the working class. It can be witnessed in his lyrics that he draws the majority of his inspiration from his childhood and youth in Derbyshire and Liverpool--"the two places most responsible for who I am. . . I can only write about stuff I know about."

Allen left his home in Tideswell, Derbyshire England for the United States in 1981. When he arrived, he worked a variety of jobs ranging from topless waiter to silk-screen printer to gardener to truck driver. Finally he opened a nightclub in Northampton, Massachusetts. During his tenure there as a limited partner, manager and booking agent, Allen brought into town the likes of James Brown, The Pogues, Los Lobos, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Mojo Nixon. It was during this period of his life that Allen's interest in the art of performance took wing. He recalls the comments of a local bluesman "Vast Ed Vadas", who, upon witnessing Allen's fledgling act (a duo with collaborator Patrick Owens), proclaimed, "Goddamn, Allen! What the fuck? Do you think you're a musician by osmosis or something after hanging out at that club for a few years?" According to Allen, Vast Ed is only partly correct. He also gives credit to his songwriting partner, Owens, who in Allen's words was "Nervy enough to throw in with a musical illiterate like me and see what would happen up there on stage."

Formed in 1989, the Bollocks started out as a "fuckknowswhat" band, evolving through trashy-folk/punk, rockabilly and pop rounding out into what they are now: a true pub-rock band. The BBB clan calls their music "Celtic-flavored jig-a-billy rock," serving as a vehicle for Allen's tales of school-, home-, bar-, and pub life as well as life the way he sees it. Along with his musical heroes George Formby, Shane MacGowan, Gene Vincent and Joe Cocker, Allen holds a special place in his heart for everybody he's ever seen singing spontaneously in pubs and bars from Tideswell to New Orleans.