999: London Punk Lifers and "Inside Out" From The Biggest Prize in Sport

Named after Britain's emergency number, still going since 1976. "Inside Out" is from The Biggest Prize in Sport.

WURN-DB · U-Rock® Network — HQ · 2026-10-13

999: London Punk Lifers and "Inside Out" From The Biggest Prize in Sport

Photo: Gripweed / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:999live.JPG

999 are an English punk rock band, formed in London in December 1976 and named after the UK's emergency phone number. U-Rock® has logged 1,768 plays of "Inside Out."

The long haul

According to Wikipedia, the band was founded by brothers Nick Cash (vocals and guitar) and Guy Days (lead guitar), with Jon Watson on bass and Pablo LaBritain on drums. Between 1978 and 2007 they released 14 singles and 12 studio albums. Five singles reached the UK Top 75, and "Homicide" made the Top 40 in 1978. Heavy touring in the US in the early 1980s took The Biggest Prize in Sport and Concrete onto the Billboard 200. The band have had only two permanent line-up changes, and AllMusic calls them "one of the longest-lived groups of the punk era."

"Inside Out"

"Inside Out" is the second track on The Biggest Prize in Sport, the band's third album, produced by Vic Maile. It reached No. 177 on the Billboard album chart. Ed Case, a 17-year-old fan from the band's "Southall Crew" following, played drums while LaBritain recovered from a broken arm. Wikipedia notes that "Inside Out" was later used in the US version of Shameless on Showtime. The photo here shows the band in Düsseldorf in 2010.

Why it matters on U-Rock®

999 have been playing punk since 1976 with almost the same line-up, and "Inside Out" ended up on Shameless.

U-Rock® play data: 1,768 plays logged across the BROADCAST and CORE histories (2026-07-02 to 2026-10-12), using the higher of the two logs.

Sources 1. Wikipedia, "999 (band)" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/999_(band) 2. Wikipedia, "The Biggest Prize in Sport" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biggest_Prize_in_Sport 3. Wikimedia Commons, "999 live in Düsseldorf (Gripweed, 2010)" — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:999live.JPG 4. U-Rock® BROADCAST (AzuraCast) and CORE (airplay_spins) play logs

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