An Irish expatriate, Patrick Campbell-Lyons first came to notice with the short-lived Second Thought, who never managed to make it into the studio (after Campbell-Lyons departed, the band evolved into July, which later splintered, with Jade Warrior being one of the results.) After his separation from the band, he formed Nirvana (UK) with Alex Spyropoulos and several other players, the band eventually becoming just the duo by the time their second album as released.

By the time of Local Anasthetic (1971), Nirvana was just Campbell-Lyons and session players, Spyropoulos leaving to pursue a solo career. Campbell-Lyons recorded and released a second, once again essentially solo, album under the Nirvana name, Songs of Love and Praise. The album failed to sell, and neither of two singles achieved much in the way of airplay or sales action. He worked for Vertigo as an A&R man and producer at the same time, handling some of their more minor acquisitions, the most impressive of which may well have been Dr. Z, while Mike Absalom was certainly the most obscure.

Dropping the Nirvana name, Campbell-Lyons moved to the Sovereign label, releasing the ill-fated Me and My Friend in 1973. Neither the album nor its two singles generated any attention, and Campbell-Lyons vanished into the obscure areas of session and production work, until reuniting with Spyropoulos in 1980 and riding the wave of renewed interest in Nirvana. Campbell-Lyons also worked under the names of Hat & Tie, Pica, and Patrick O'Magic, though none of these raised any deeper interest.