Virgin Prunes
Irish band
Virgin Prunes were an Irish post-punk/gothic rock band formed in 1977 in Dublin. They disbanded in 1986 after the departure of singer Gavin Friday. The other members continued under the name The Prunes until they split up in 1991.
History
The Virgin Prunes were founded in 1977 by vocalists Guggi (né Derek Rowen), Gavin Friday (né Fionan Hanvey) and Dave-iD Busaras, guitarist Dik Evans (brother of U2's The Edge), bassist Strongman (Trevor Rowen, brother of Guggi) and drummer Pod (Anthony Murphy).
Two of the band members, Guggi and Friday, had been part of Lypton Village, a "youthful gang" in early 1970s Dublin, which had also included U2's Bono.
Known for their outrageous and controversial stage performances, led by theatrical singer/songwriter Friday, the band began playing small shows in Dublin, gaining them a cult audience. Pod left the group and was replaced by Haa-Lacka Binttii (né Daniel Figgis). With Binttii on drums, tape loops and keyboards, the band secured a deal with Rough Trade Records. They released their first single, "Twenty Tens" on their own Baby Records label (distributed by Rough Trade) on 8 January 1981, followed by a second single, "Moments and Mine (Despite Straight Lines)", on 27 June 1981.
Two other tracks recorded with Binttii were released during 1981 before conflicts with other members forced him out of the band.
The public source identifies “Virgin Prunes” as irish band. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Virgin, Prunes and Irish.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1281958. VIAF identifies the subject as 174149196465874791479. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1986, 1991 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Virgin Prunes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.