Elvis Costello has reunited his teenage band Rusty for new EP

Elvis Costello's first band, Rusty, are set to release their debut EP – over 50 years after first forming. The Resurrection of Rust, which features new recordings of songs Rusty played in 1972, is out on June 10.

Costello – then called D.P. MacManus – joined Allan Mayes' band on New Year's Day 1972, and spent that year playing dozens of gig. Before this release, however, they never made it to the recording studio.

On The Resurrection of Rust, Costello and Mayes have recorded six songs from Rusty's setlists: renditions of Nick Lowe's 'Surrender To The Rhythm' and 'Don’t Lose Your Grip On Love'; Kentucky songwriter Jim Ford’s 'I’m Ahead If I Can Quit While I’m Behind'; two originals 'Warm House' (written by D.P. MacManus'' in 1971) and 'Maureen and Sam' (a collaboration by Mayes and MacManus); and, finally, an arrangement incorporating Neil Young's 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' and 'Dance, Dance, Dance' – the latter marking Costello's debut on the electric violin.

"In 2021, my pal and singing partner in the Liverpool clubs, Allan Mayes wrote to me from his home in Austin, Texas," Costello says of The Resurrection of Rust. "He wanted to remind me that it would soon be fifty years since I joined his band, “Rusty”, just after our first meeting at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1971.

"The group was then a quartet, with Allan’s school friend, Alan Brown ‐ who would play bass until he left for university later that year ‐ and there was also another vocalist called “Dave”, whose main credentials as a singer were the ownership of a microphone and tambourine. A month later, after a couple of pretty ragged gigs, Allan and I became the only vocalists and there was not a tambourine in sight. Show business is a cruel game."

Costello goes on to note that Rusty played a support slot for Irish duo Tír na nÓg (featuring Sonny Condell and Leo O'Kelly) "in the little recital room at St. George’s Hall, where Charles Dickens had once given a public reading."

"That show was on the eve of my rainy departure for the Bickershaw Festival at which I contracted something close to trench foot while watching the Grateful Dead in a sodden field," he adds.

"By the summer of ’72 we were playing up to five or six nights a week," Costello resumes. "I was still at school, supposedly studying for my A‐Levels. Once I got a job, we had to schedule our Rusty gigs around my shift work as a computer operator until early in 1973, when I decided to leave Liverpool looking for something and took to this long and crooked road. I asked if Allan wanted to come with me but I had a place to live with my Dad and he had a steady job to give up and I suppose I thought we might travel lighter and further alone.

"Allan had always been the more accomplished, presentable performer ‐ even then, I looked like a sack of spuds that had been left out in the rain. He continued to play the local club circuit after I left town, took over a group he re‐named, “Restless” (formerly “Severed Head”) and even made raids down from Merseyside to hit the London pub circuit of 1975 and found themselves playing the same venue and same week as my own semi‐pro band, Flip City. Allan recorded a solo album in the early 80s before traveling the world, playing on cruise ships in the Pacific and in oil worker bars in Alaska, before settling in Texas, where he still plays other people’s songs that other people want to hear in a strong true voice."

Costello states that The Resurrection of Rust is "the record we would have cut when we were 18, if anyone had let us."

The Resurrection Of Rust was produced by Costello and Sebastian Krys, featuring Costello and Mayes backed by Costello’s band the Imposters. It's available for sale on CD at Costello’s in-person events and concerts – and will be available on CD and digitally on June 10, to be followed by vinyl release later this summer.

Our newly recorded debut record after 50 years. D.P. MacManus & Allan Mayes are the band Rusty - produced by Elvis Costello & Sebastian Krys pic.twitter.com/yBy78iOlsU

— Elvis Costello (@ElvisCostello) May 29, 2022