The Nimnules formed in Dungannon, Tyrone in 1978. The D.I.Y. ethos of punk/post-punk was still hitting hard in the province and friends Paul Kerr and Davy Campbell thought “Why not? Let’s give it a go.” Paul took up guitar/vocals and Davy bought a drum kit. They were joined on bass by Ronnie Watters, a colleague of Davy's at the local newspaper “The Tyrone Courier”. Davy being a journalist meant that the band, and the local Tyrone punk scene as a whole, benefitted from local coverage in the press. This partially contributed to a lot of local gigs for a lot of the local bands around that time.

The first line up of the band also included Steven Hill, a school friend of Davy’s, on guitar but as Steven was basically a hippy wanting to play Yes songs he quickly left after a couple of rehearsals claiming that there was “no talent in this band”. The band rehearsed in Davy's parents' garage and quickly started gigging locally in 1979. The Nimnules gigged in Tyrone in youth-clubs and dance-halls, sharing billing on a couple of occasions with other local bands such as The Inflatable Dolls and Strictly Prohibited. They played a couple of gigs in Belfast, once in The Harp Bar in Belfast on a midweek billing and once at Queen's University on a billing with Pig. When The Outcasts played Dungannon they were supported by Strictly Prohibited, The Inflatable Dolls and The Nimnules.

Moy band Strictly Prohibited broke up in late ’79 and Kieran ‘Rocko’ Lavery joined the The Nimnules as guitarist. Kieran and Paul were close friends – both being Stranglers obsessives – and everyone thought that an extra addition to the lineup could only be a good thing. It was because Kieran was a proficient guitarist. The Nimnules wrote the bulk of their own material. Their own titles included songs such as “Target”, “Why Don't You?”, “A Man Called Stan” - none of which got too beyond three chords and which often changed structure mid-set depending on the whims and sobriety (or lack thereof) of the band. From time to time they also threw in a few covers – The Cure's “10.15 Saturday Night”, Buzzcocks' “Sixteen” and The Gang of Four's “Armalite Rifle”.

The Nimnules never recorded anything during their original existence other than a couple of home-made rehearsal tapes and they split up when Ronnie moved away to London in late 1980. Davy quit playing live music at that time but Paul went on to play with another Dungannon based band, “One Fat Antelope” and later in Leeds based bands “The Nose Bananas”, “The Motsons” and Dutch band “Ganglions”. Kieran was to have a long stint later in Dungannon band The Inflatable Dolls and a career as a local gigging guitarist.

In mid 2022 after years of “Why don’t we….?/ We should….!” The Nimnules got their act together, reconvened in a studio in The Moy (both virtually and physically) and recorded one of the first songs they wrote when Rocko joined the band – “Wanted You To Know”. This was never recorded earlier but did have live outings at the last few Nimnules gigs. You can listen to the track below