Passion Play first arrived on the scene in the summer of 1997, appearing at the Sacrosanct festival at London's LA2. With a line-up of Justin Stephens (lead vocals & guitar), Linda Lloyd (guitar & vocals) and Mike Watkins (bass), a new demo, 'Waiting In The Wings', was released to coincide and sold out rapidly. Two previous demos featuring founder member Mark Bosley on bass and sharing vocals during Passion Play's formative stages ('Act One:Scene One' in 1995 and 'Character Assassinations' in 1996) had long since sold out.

Slowly but surely, the band started to infiltrate the UK alternative/goth scene, with 1998 seeing appearances at the inaugural Infest event in Bradford, the Whitby Gothic Weekend and the arrival of their debut single - the Name No Names EP. Released on the band's own Perimeter label and distributed world-wide via Resurrection Records' export network, the EP helped put Passion Play on an increasingly wider stage, gaining a lot of interest in the UK and Europe.

The following year saw more shows in London and around the UK to bigger and bigger audiences, before going back into the studio in the summer of 1999 to record their debut album, Stress Fractures. The album was launched in November '99 at the Whitby Gothic Weekend, where the band played the main event, before heading off for their first gig in Germany. Voted album of the year in various alternative polls and magazines, it signalled the inherently strong songwriting, if still a little rough round the edges.

Passion Play toured the UK in the Spring of 2000 to support the release of Stress Fractures before heading back to Germany to play a prime slot at the Wave Gotik Treffen festival in Leipzig, one of Germany's premier annual festivals. After finishing the summer with shows in London and the Distopia all-day event in Bristol, the band returned to Germany again in October, for a triumphant night supporting The Chameleons on the start of their German tour.

2001 saw Passion Play back in the studio to record their new album, taking time out at the end of April 2001 to play the Judgement Day Festival in Austria. The new album, 'Dreaming Spikes', was released in September, followed immediately with a tour of Germany in September / October. With glowing reviews from far & wide, things started to look interesting...

Another new year, and January 2002 saw what was to be the last show with this line-up. With Lin and Mike leaving to start a new adventure of family life, a 'temporary' line-up was put together for the next show in April, at the Whitby Gothic Weekend. Featuring John Berry on guitar and Matthias Dopp on bass, it proved to be a landmark show - and so this 'temporary' line-up was kept...

... and then added to with a long-overdue live drummer. Justin's brother Doug Stephens took to the drum stool for the first time in August 2002, as the now firing-on-all-cylinders Passion Play performed a headline show at London's Camden Underworld. Then in December, they made their first transatlantic trip to play the Saturnalia festival in Chicago. The fact that it was the Stephens brothers' birthday turned out to be the least notable detail in what was a very eventful trip. Despite cancelled flights, car crashes and more weird goings on than a David Lynch movie, they triumphed over it all for a truly memorable night.

It was to be the last for a while - changing circumstances and a determined effort to build new foundations towards bigger things meant a lengthy absence, punctuated only by a return to Chicago in May 2004 to play the Convergence 10 festival (with Matthias unavailable, Ryan Swift filled in valiantly on bass).

The next chapter is still being written...