While in Berlin in mid-2007, drummer Budgie (ex-SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES and ex-THE CREATURES) started working together with drummer Toby Dammit (ex-IGGY & THE STOOGES) on demos for the debut studio album of American-born songwriter, singer & saxophonist Jessie Evans, who was then living also in Berlin.
The two drummers had been recording live drums for the last couple weeks of July & during early August 2007 at SAAL4 studios, engineered by Thomas Stern (Einstürzende Neubauten, Crime and The City Solution), while Jessie Evans provided vox/sax that were recorded initially at Himmel studios in Berlin but finally the recording was decided to take place in Tijuana, Mexico.
The album titled 'Is It Fire?' was released on 14 May 2009 in Germany on Fantomette Records, produced by Jessie Evans with Pepe Mogt (of Nortec Collective) as co-producer and featuring Budgie drumming on three in a total of ten tracks: "Blood & Silver" (an official music video of which was debuted in March 2009), "Let Me On" (an official music video of which was debuted in October 2010) and "Golden Snake", Budgie though does not appear in any of these two promo videos.
Jessie Evans toured extensively to promote the album starting with a show @ SO36 Club in Berlin on 13 March 2009 with Budgie as guest drummer.
This video is from a previous show, also with Budgie on drums, that was filmed on 20 September 2008 at Petit Comité Festival on Mallorca island, showing the band performing the instrumental "To The Sun", a track dedicated to American jazz composer, musician, poet and philosopher Sun Ra (1914-1993).
Jessie Evans and Budgie collaborated once again in July of 2011 for a string of live shows in Switzerland (Club Zukunft, Zurich, July 6th), Slovakia (Pohoda Festival in Trencin, July 8th) and in Germany (CSD Strassenfest mainstage at Marienplatz, Munich, July 9th).