After leaving Speed (or breaking the band up, sources don't give much info) he went on to play with a band called Shots. Bruce answered an ad in Melody Maker where a singer was wanted for a recording session, a session for a project run by brothers Phil and Doug Siviter on bass and drums respectively. The band that played on the recording subsequently became Shots and after some time the Siviter brothers jumped ship. The band then consisted of Tony Lee on guitar, Arthur Jung on Bass and Phil Adolfia on Drums. They used to play a mixture of own stuff and covers in the vein of old Montrose songs and sounded more like Deep Purple with Ian Gillan with some elements of the furious music of Speed, but more to normal hard rock.

A later line-up had Bill Leisegangon guitar who went on to form his own band Xero after Shots. On the b-side to their first single "Oh, Baby" there is a track called "Lone Wolf". This song is from an 8-track recording made by Shots and has Bruce on vocals. The song was on a demo that was sent around to promoters to get gigs and it's the only track that has surfaced from Shots as such. The track "Dracula", which is included on the bonus-CD of Bruce's Best Of compilation, is actually from that very first recording session that Bruce attended after replying to the Melody Maker-ad. It is not known ehether any more songs were recorded on that particular session. Bruce mentions "spending an evening recording the song [Dracula]", but mentions no other track so perhaps it is the only number from that session.

Bruce in Shots

Guitarist & Bassist in Shots

Shots used to play pubs and the next step in Bruce's career was taken in the presence of a mr. Barry Purkis and a certain Paul Samson in a pub called the Prince of Wales in Gravesend, Kent. The bands stageshow had touches of street theatre and was centred round the fact that the pub didn't have a stage so they played in an area between the toilets where they had moved the tables away. During the gig people would walk across the stage attempting to go to the loo. This gave Bruce the idea of making fun out of people here and there in the show. This rather scared people off from going to the loo for fear of being grabbed by Bruce and interviewed on stage.

This was also the case one night when Paul and Barry, a.k.a. Thunderstick paid a visit and Barry became a victim of Bruce's gimmick. Obviously impressed with Bruce's stage-act and singing they asked him to audition for their band, Samson. Bruce was of course interested since this meant he could play big gigs in London, and after completing his degree in history three weeks after, he went to rehearse with his new band.

A Shots promo photo.
Spot Bruce in the flying hat!

Bruce in a butcher's hat!

The Prince of Wales in Gravesend in 2005