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I've got it all in
I've got all the things in
You've just done it all
We can go out now
This week we're doing therapies
Therapy question mark
Yeah
We're doing screen major
I have wanted to do
Not just this album
Yeah
But we often cover
Like we cover on the show
These classic albums
And we've been doing kind of scenes
And stuff
So we did like the L.A. scene
The kind of glam and hair metal scene
And we've
Then we went and did a bunch of stuff
Pacific Northwest
And Seattle
And grunge
And kind of that alt rock movement
That came around
But something I've really wanted to do
Like forever
And I just thought
No one's gonna care
It's just like
It's just me
But there was this kind of
Alt hard rock scene
In the UK
In the 90s
Where you had
Band like Therapy
And You're Mighty
And Thunder
And Skunker Nancy
And Gun
You know what I mean
They were just
And Terror Vision
And The Wild Hearts
There were just so many
Of these bands
That were like
Formed part of my
Yeah
Yeah just my teenage years
Yeah
And
I just thought
I really desperately
Want to cover them
And one of the reasons
I really want to do them
Is when I've not listened
I hadn't listened to this album
Yeah
Probably in 20 years
Yeah
And I put it on
Probably about a month ago
Yeah
And I knew every word
Do you know what I mean
You knew every word
Every song
You knew the order of it
And it just all came back
And you just turned it up louder
And louder
Before you were like
Screaming away at it
Like the energy just
Yeah
I don't know
They're just phenomenal records
But like
People I haven't heard of them
I was talking to people
In my team
And people at work
Yeah
Who?
Yeah
Do you know what I mean
If you weren't there
If you'd blink
You'd miss it
Yeah
It's one of them
If you were there
And you were into rock music
At the time
Yeah
Like I remember
I think I discussed it
Very briefly last week
And my friend
Ben Lyons
Yeah
From school
Yeah
Was a very
Very good friend
Actually for a long time
And he was like
He had the older brothers
Yeah
And the older brothers
Who listened to
Because we were younger
You see
So this one
We were like
Less than teenagers
At the time
And he
Less than teenagers
Yeah
So we hadn't quite
Got into it
And the
He had older brothers
Who listened to this stuff
So they were
Discovering themselves
And he sort of
Had this byproduct
Of like
This is what
All the bigger boys
Like
Do you know what I mean
Yeah
This is like
This is what
We should aspire
To listen to
There was a little bit
Of that going on
And yeah
Therapy was absolutely
That band
And I remember
Actually I remember him saying
He was the first person
That ever told me
I'm going to go
And watch a gig
I'm going to go
And watch therapy
With my brother
So that was the thing
That I think
I might have made that up
But in my brain
In my brain
That's what I remember
Happened
I loved this album
For
Like it was this kind
Of accessible
But angry
Stuff right
It was
You know
They were
Almost venomous
In places
Kind of punky
In places
But it was really
Accessible
It was kind of
Really
Had this like
Amazing groove
To it
And these amazing
Riffs
And like
And the lyrics
I just thought
Were awesome
I've got to
Quote some of
The Screamature
Lyrics
Because I
Like it's
With a face like this
I won't break any hearts
And thinking like that
I won't make any friends
And then
You kind of get that
Screw that
Forget about that
I don't want to hear
About anything like that
And I don't know
It's like
Your beauty makes me
Feel alone
I look inside
But no one's home
I just
Like this album
To me
Is just a
It's an anthem
It was an anthem
For a generation
And you just
Everybody screams
To this
It's a proper
When it comes on
In the car
You just scream
In a way
Like a nutcase
And it's a
It's a mixture
Of like the lyrics
Spoke to
Like teenagers
These lyrics
Spoke to
When you were a teenager
Absolutely
Like
They hit you
And then
Like the
The music itself
Was kind of
So anthemic
Yeah
And that's
Absolutely the word for it
It is
It's
How can something
That is
So grungy
And spiky
And punky
And aggressive
Be so anthemic
And I think
That's the song craft
Yeah
But it's
There's riffs
Every
Like that
I wanted to play
Like at the start
When we played
That scream major
And normally
I play a bit of an intro
Yeah
And then we start
But I wanted to hear
The whole intro
Because the vocals
Don't come in for ages
No
They've got
There's like
There's three sets of riffs
Before the vocal comes in
How do you write that
Someone sat down in the studio
And just went
That's not a rock song
Yeah yeah yeah
But then made it into
This anthemic rock song
Anyway I just think
It's just astounding
To me this is
Another thing is
Is that Andy Cairns
Have I pronounced that right?
I think so
He interviews so well
Yeah
He's so good
Like when we've done
Sort of interviews
And I've been trying to
Cut up interviews
From like the time
And they're kids
They don't really make any sense
But even then
He was thinking
He was thinking quite deeply
About things
Yeah
You know
It's really interesting
I mean a lot of the interviews
That we're going to use in this
Are from a more recent
More recent set of interviews
But there's a couple
That are from
You know
Right back in that sort of day
And I don't know
He's
I don't know
He's got it
I don't know what it is
But he's just
You know
Remember when we spoke
About Alanis Morissette
Yeah
And we spoke about
Who was it the week after
That we did
And they were very
Oh it was
Skin
Oh Skin
Yeah it was Skin
And they had this kind of
Wisdom in the way they spoke
And the way they sort of
Reflected on things
And you get that exact
Same sort of thing
Of Andy Cairns
Yeah
He's a bit of a thinker
You know
I think so
You got there with a lot
Of the punk bands
Didn't you
Do you know
They kind of came across
As being brash
And kind of
You know
In your face
And irreverent
And didn't care
But actually
When you heard them speak
They were a little bit like
More like professors
Do you know what I mean
There was this dissonance
Between that public persona
Yeah
And then actually
What they were
Yeah
What they were like
One thing
One thing you said earlier
That I've just got to make sure
That I get into the podcast
Is that
You were describing the albums
Yeah
And you were saying
Oh there's a whole load of albums
We're going to do
And they're like
They're like off the roof
And I'm like
What a great
What a great thing that is
What a great term that is
That's in the bank
They are
So there's a lot of good things
About this album
First of all
How long is the longest track
On this album
Oh they're all short aren't they
I was listening to it
Because the thing is
With it
With me
Is that
I'm not
I've never
I don't think I've ever
Listened to the album
Through until this week
Right
And I've always like
Just picked songs
Yeah
And there were some songs
That I'd never even heard
And actually
Become my favourites
So I
You know
Nowhere
And you know
Screamager
Yeah
And you know
Is it Hellbelly
Is it
Yeah
Trigger Inside
Of course
Yeah
You get
You get those
But then
Like Turn
Yeah
And
What was the other one
Absolutely hit me like a train
Oh it's gone
Luna
What is it
Lunacy Booth
Yeah
That one
That was
Amazing
Lunacy Booth
Is probably my favourite song
On the album
It's like
It's super short
It's packed
There's no filler
No
It's one of those
That there's like
Oh yeah
Sorry
The point I was going to make
Sorry
Because I got distracted
By my own brain
Was that
After listening to it
All the way through
For that first time
Yeah
By the time
I'd sort of
Check my phone
To sort of see
Where it was
Where I got to
And I was like
Two songs left
Yeah
And it hardly felt like
Any time had passed
You know
It's a
It's a fast
It's a fast record
Produced
By
Chris Sheldon
Now
I'm going to read you
Some albums
That Chris Sheldon did
So he did
Feed a Swim
Oh wow
Gun Swagger
Did this one
My Vitriol Fine Lines
They were great
My Vitriol
Biffy Pyro
2002
Ocean Size
Which Biffy?
Black and Sky
Best album
It's brilliant isn't it
Yeah
Biffy are kind of in that
They're kind of in that
They were Scottish aren't they
They're kind of in that
We did say
An album that is
We did say albums
That have got to be
25 years old
Yeah
For us to cover them
That's 2002
I'd do Black and Sky
It was
Yeah
I'd do Black and Sky
I'd do Silver Chairs
Diorama
I'd do
What was the other one
That I'd love to do
100 Reasons
Yeah
What else am I thinking
That was in this
It was Incubus
Morning View
Which was a stunner
I'm just thinking of other bands
That were in this
Was it Three Colors Red
Three Colors Red
Yeah
And then you had
I was thinking feeder albums
Was it Polythene
Yeah
Yeah that was a great album
I liked
One of my favourite feeder songs
Was
High
Oh yeah
Honestly
There's just so
This group
Of bands
Like you say
Are kind of almost
I wouldn't say forgotten
But I don't mean it
No no
It's like you blink and you miss it
It's kind of thing
But I guess what I mean
Is they've not got that
You talk about Pearl Jam
Yeah
And like
You mentioned Pearl Jam
In any room
And somebody would go
Oh I like Pearl Jam
Yeah
But you say therapy
In a room
And people will be like
What
I don't get it
Right
And so it's not that
There aren't any
Passionate fans out there
But just
Like the following
Is not as big as
Yeah
I think it should be
I think this is
It's up there
With like the perfect records
For me
It's just such
An astounding record
And for a lot of these
90s UK
Hard rock records
Yeah
They're just exquisite
Absolutely phenomenal
We did Skunk and Nancy's
Stoosh
Yeah
Did The Prodigy as well
Yeah
You know
They're all quite similar
Here aren't they
Yeah
They're all that same
And you know
Skin talked about
That they weren't part
Of Britpop
Yeah
But there was a scene
That they were part of
And this is that scene
That kind of hard rock
None of them were similar
Yeah
None of them were making
Like similar music
No no
They were from different
Areas of the country
Yeah
Ash
Ash 1977 is probably
Another one
Oh yeah
That's a good one
Yeah
Because they weren't
Quite Britpop
They weren't quite there
No they weren't
Manson
Yeah
Mannix
Supergrass
When they got
A bit heavier
I remember seeing
A clip on TV
Of Supergrass
And they looked
About five
Honestly looked like
They'd run away
From their teacher
They looked like
Somebody in a
Hive's jacket
Was about to come
And retrieve them
Come on lads
Stop working
But there were
There were loads
Actually
And another band
That never quite
Saw the light of day
From that kind of era
And they really
Didn't fit
Was Superman
Oh
I don't know
Yeah I like them
A lot
Yeah
Are they British
Yeah I think so
Hey Petrunko
Was there
Yeah
I fell in love with
And that
That's
That's well worth
Listening to actually
It's a bit of a
Bit of a monster
I think we should
Stay in Britain
For the next
Like
Stonehenge
Yeah
But I think we should
Do it for the next
Couple of months
And work our way through
You know
You mentioned the
Mannix
Yeah
I've not covered them
Lindsay's been
Harassing us to do
For years
She's threatened to
Throw fruit pastels
At you next time
She sees you
Live
So
Be glad that
And yeah
You better buy
A bumper packet
Lindsay
Because he gets
Through them
But yeah
I just think
I don't know
I just think
There's so much
Cool stuff
From this era
Yeah
In the UK
That I bet
Loads of our US
Yeah
They won't have heard
Won't have heard
So it's kind of
We'll uncover that
A little bit
I bet tons of people
That were there
Have forgotten
About them
Like when I went
Through this
And started to
Pick stuff out
I kind of thought
Oh Gun
Yeah
Or Swagger
And then I remembered
Their Gallus album
Yeah you said about that
I preferred that
It was absolutely phenomenal
You know
And then there are bands
Like I mean
There are the
Like what I consider
The big American bands
Right
So you had like
Def Leppard
Who are still
I mean
I guess after High and Dry
They don't feel like
A British band anymore
No
They acted
They lookeded
American
And sounded like
An American band
Bush
Similar
They were British band
But from London
They're huge in America
They went
They hit the stratosphere
They did
They sounded like
An American band as well
And I think
Although
Was it 16 Stone
Yeah 16 Stone
That was
I would put that
In this bracket
Oh really
That particular album
Yeah
But it did
Yeah I understand
If you listen to it
Next to
The Pearl Jam
And you know
The Sound God
And if you listen to it
Side by side to them
It's probably got more
In common with those
Than it has with these
There's something about
The production
I hadn't realised
Chris Sheldon
Had done
So much of this stuff
Right
Yeah that's interesting
Isn't it
But it's like
On this album
But also on
Trouble Gun particularly
The snare sound
Yeah
Is
I love it
I absolutely
Love the snare sound
It's
There's a band
Called Tala
Yeah
Kind of like a
Hardcore band
Probably
They're quite modern
Most of our listeners
Probably hate them
But they've got
A similar snare sound
Yeah yeah
And I don't know
It pulls me in
I like it
It's got this kind
Of organic feel to it
You know that wasn't
Triggered
And it's not done
You know what I mean
There's no click
Happening here
This was just
Feel based
And it just
I just think it sounds
Phenomenal
And there are bits
In this album
Where the snares
Was properly
Out of place
Yeah
That kind of
Do you know what I mean
And then the song
Goes off
Yeah yeah yeah
And you just think
Whoa
And then it's just
And it all adds
To the chaos
And the liveliness
Of it
But
Yeah it definitely
Cuts
Yeah
It cuts through
There's something
About the production
Style of them
I think
Like there's
The Almighty
Their albums
Had like a very
British sound
To it
Gun did to
Yeah
There were
Wild Hearts
Yes
As well
We've got that
Kind of
And I think
A lot of it
Is that kind
Of British
Punky
Sound
That's kind
Of in here
It's still
Kicking around
You know
You've got
Like the grungy
Elements
Kind of coming
In I think
In these records
But yeah
There's like
You've got that
Punky spirit
And that
Kind of
The production
A little
Yes
But then
There's this melody
On top
And the
You know
The
That
Commentary
If you like
Coming from
Northern Ireland
Whenever we all
Got together
We started the
Band during the
Political unrest
Getting together
In a room
And making noise
Was our escape
Because it was all
Around us
In the news
And in the papers
What was going on
In our country
And if we went to
Visit another country
Oh you're from
Northern Ireland
That's where the
Bombs are
You know
So like whenever
The three of us
Got to make music
In a tiny little room
On a very wet night
In November or December
Whenever we got together
It was our way
Of getting away
From the world
For two and a half hours
This for me
Trouble Gum is up there
As one of the
The best
One of my favourite
Records
I think of all time
And I haven't
Listened to it enough
You know
When you look
Look back on it
Yeah
You kind of think
There were probably
Decades
Yeah
Where I
I didn't listen
To this
Yeah
True
Yeah
So it's same
The sort of thing
You kind of forget
About them a little bit
Yeah
But they've still been
Doing great things
Yeah
You know
Like they've
I mean
In Amsterdam
I think
In the Netherlands
And there are places
In the world
Where they're
Where they're still
You know
They can
Draw in a crowd
And I think
They did a 20th anniversary
For Trouble Gum
Yeah
Which
Which was obviously
A couple of
A few years back now
But
You know
That was a
A big deal
You know
They were doing
Big
Big events
And big festivals
And that kind of thing
And big shows
Kind of
You know
Performing that album
And I think
I think it's one
Of those albums
That
Because it
It did define
A generation
As you say
It became
Something that people
Had a sense of identity
With and also a sense
Of belonging
With the record
Yeah
So hearing about it
Than playing again live
It would have been
Like a nice warm hook
You know
For a lot of people
Yeah
I think so
And I think
There's a
There's that certain thing
Isn't there
Where you
Yeah
There's like
Times in my life
And this time
In my life
When this stuff
Was coming out
I was kind of
Late teens
Early 20s
I was at university
I was doing
Doing stuff
You don't have that much
You know
You're busy doing things
But music is a part of that
Like you're going out
And music is like
A big big part of it
And then probably
Five
Five to ten years later
All of a sudden
You've got
A mortgage
And
Do you know what I mean
And actually life is
It changes a little bit
And music is a less
Big part of that
Yeah
Of that
And then
Like for me particularly
I would say probably
Another ten years after that
Yeah
Then actually getting back
Into music
But more modern music
Yeah yeah
And then it's only been
Probably the last five
Five to ten years
Yeah
Going back and rediscovering
This stuff from the
Eighties and nineties
Yeah yeah
And having it have
That same impact on me
Yeah
That it did back then
Yes
You know
So going to
Listen to
I listened to
I did listen to
Gallus and Swagger
From Gun
A month so ago
I've been listening to him
Quite a lot lately
And for those that
Follow us on social
Especially on X
You'll see that I kind of
Post on Friday
What I've been listening to
That week
So you'll see a lot of
That nineties stuff in there
But it hit me in the
Like almost the same way
It did
Yeah yeah
I remember going up to
Bath University
Because they'd got
An applied maths course
And I was thinking of doing it
So I'd headed up to
Bath Uni for their open day
And I'd got
Gallus guns
Gallus on
And I didn't know to come out
But when I got there
I did the open day thing
And then I came back
Took the car to get some petrol
And I saw Swagger
In the
You remember back when
They used to sell CDs
Yeah yeah yeah
And so I bought it
And then listened to it
On the way down
One of the strongest
In the services
Yeah
One of the strongest memories
Is listening to
Like you know
Word Up
And
Yeah yeah
Steal Your Fire
And all those kind of tracks
As I was driving back down
From
From the open day
Yeah
But it's weird
It brings back those
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Those memories
And the nostalgia
And the time
Time machines
Yeah
It's just
I don't know
I think this
Music is incredible
Like
Trouble gum this album
Is that I've been
I'm sure I've talked about this
On the show before
But I cook most nights
So I finish work
And because I work from home
I find it really difficult
To switch off
Yeah
So I've got quite disciplined
Over the past couple of years
I kind of finish
And I'm like
I write down my to do's
For the next day
And I'm like
I'm going to do that
But I can't switch off
I can't
Like stop
You know what I mean
Stop obsessing over
The problems
Which makes it really difficult
You know when somebody
You kids and family
Want to have a conversation
With you about some random
Yeah yeah yeah
And I'm still buried in code
Or a problem
Or something that I'm trying to solve
And what I do is
I finish
Write my to do's
For the next day
Go into the kitchen
And we cook
Well I cook
As I go and grab stuff
And we cook
We get these
Like meal kit things
And I cook with them
And I always listen to music
And the last week
It's just been Trouble Gum
Every night
I just go in there
Scream at Alexa
Play you know
At Alexa
Play Trouble Gum
And off she goes
Yeah yeah yeah
And it's just
I don't know
It puts me in a good mood
Screaming along
While I'm chopping my onions
But it's
I don't know
Yeah yeah yeah
Something epic about this record
Yeah yeah
I made the kids listen to it
We've been in Derby
Escape Room today
Made them listen to this
On the way in the car
It's Dad's old man music again
Come and listen to
Imagine Dragons
No
Scream at you
What was it about
Shut up
But it's
It has a
I don't know
It controls how I feel
This music does
Yeah yeah yeah
You know like
You know we talked
I joked ages ago
About that
The kind of music
From the Pacific Northwest
That Seattle stuff
Is
Like
It's connecting
To your
Your feelings
It's kind of
Quite dour in a way
It's kind of
It touches and pulls
On your
Your emotions
A little bit
But in a
Like in a sad way
Right
It's kind of
Encouraging you
To connect to yourself
This is encouraging you
To go and like
Chop your onion
Do you know what I mean
Yeah yeah yeah
This gives me
Such a massive
Amount of energy
And like drive
To go and do
Like nothing can stop me
This album's on
Like there's a bunch
A lot of these
That we're going to cover
Have the same effect on me
Where I just
Take over the world
Yeah yeah yeah
If someone came in
And said like
There's a tank outside
Do you want to go
And like invade someone
Yeah
Do you know what I mean
I'd have ACDC blaring
And I'd go and invade Surrey
Or something
But do you know what I mean
It's like
Just nothing's a no
It's just like
You just get that
You just like
Wow I could take
Yeah yeah yeah
It just absolutely fills you
With this
This energy
And this drive
To go and
And it reminds me
Of the student clubs
You know the student nightclubs
And things
You would go there
And they would
You know they would
They would play
A bunch of different music
But then this stuff
Would come on
And everyone would
Just throw themselves
And it would be
Just mega
And then you'd wake up
The next day going
Why do I feel
Not very well
Vomit everywhere
Yeah
A bit of vomit
On your shoes
And that
I'm not afraid to die
I'm just scared of going to hell
Your car shoes
You're just scared of going to hell
She's in love
You just want to be
Jesus without the suffering
Old twisted white
Dead crow in advance is your style
You blame me again, sir
Is this it all you just want to be?
Jesus without the suffering
Fire, fire, fire, fire.
Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire.
Fire, fire, fire, fire.
If you look at the tunes and the melodies and the humour and stuff, they're quite uplifting.
And I find if you listen to it, there's always a bit of hope in there somewhere, no matter how aggressive or angry the song or music can seem.
The guitar sounds, you commented on this while we're listening to it, are very crunchy.
I think so, yeah.
They're very, they're quite, like, it's quite a high gain.
It's quite, you know, really, really distorted.
It's one of the things you can tell it apart from a U.S. record.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, the U.S., like, the stuff that came out in the 80s from L.A. was, like, pretty sweet, I would say.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's obviously distorted, but it had a lovely kind of sweet melodic tone to it.
And then you had, you know, often with a lot of reverb as well.
It was quite, you know, almost kind of a wet sound.
And then you had the stuff from, you know, Pacific Northwest.
Again, the Seattle sound, it got its own, it was kind of quite thick, I think, that sound.
Whereas this has got, it's got a bite.
It's like a...
Yeah, it's bite.
Bite is the word I'd use.
That's a really good word for it.
I think that's why it appealed to me.
I loved, there's a few guitar sounds that I just adore.
Yeah.
One is this.
The other one is the stuff that came out of Sweden for the death scene, like in two, that buzz song.
You know, when they had the Boss HM2s and they just wound everything up.
There's this lovely article which says that, like, you never see people saying, how do I get that tone?
Because it's literally up, it's the sound, the whole scene was one pedal and everything wound up for me.
And I just love it.
I just, you know, I had no idea how they got the tone for this record, but yeah, I love it.
Absolutely adore, adore this.
I love the snare sound.
And yeah, I don't know.
There's a lot of, we've talked about this a lot in the past, actually, but the bass on this, the space,
the, like, Chris pulls out space so you can hear the bass, which is absolutely vital for this sound work.
It really is, but it's full.
It does mush together.
There is space for everything, but there's not, other than the snare, which rips through everything.
Everything's kind of sort of glued, glued together.
The snare sounds almost like a rim shot and the snare at the same time.
Like, it's all played at the same, the same time.
But I'm sure someone will write in and tell us.
No one's corrected us on our Blind Melon article.
That's interesting.
We normally get at least one correction.
We did, yeah.
So I'm taking that, that we were perfect.
And that, it's all been factually checked.
So that one's in the box.
So we're all good.
Well, you were talking earlier, actually, about the, like, the genesis of the band and where
they came from in Northern Ireland as well.
Yeah, yeah.
It hadn't occurred to me, actually, until, only until you mentioned it, that that would have
put them, like, right in the middle of, like, those rough years of the troubles in Northern
Ireland.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's, I just think it's interesting that that, you know, the type of music that they
produced.
And the products.
Yeah.
The products of that.
Yeah, yeah.
And that, and one of the little interviews with Play Dood has spoken about that and actually
how the music, the creation of music with that group of lads was the escape.
Yeah, from the, yeah.
Was the, almost like the safe haven.
And I can resonate with that, you know.
Yeah.
When you, when you need to just get away, a band practice is a really nice place to
forget about the outside world.
Yeah, it's, we, we were at Derbyshire Makes yesterday.
We did a couple of podcasts from, from there, which was really, really cool from our town
in Swaddling Coat doing cool stuff.
But the number of people that were connecting, making stuff and art with escape and mental health
and just them being able to, like, disconnect from whatever's going on in their world.
Yeah, yeah.
So Opus were there and Opus do a, they had a stall and Nick Cutts, who runs Opus, they
kind of come from a, a sort of music for therapy kind of background.
Right, right.
And they do a lot where they'll go and play in hospitals or care homes or, you know, places
like that.
Yeah, of course.
And then they'll use music and musical expression to kind of connect people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they've got one of these, I don't know what they're called, but the big, the big, the big
things are called hand pans.
Right.
And they've got this beautiful, like, hypnotic kind of melodic sound that you can chime, they're
like chimey.
Yeah.
And what they had was a sort of equivalent to it, but it was more like a, not like, not
like a bowl, not like a bowl, more like a kind of, a sort of, a different kind of percussion
instrument.
We made a similar sort of sound.
Okay.
And they had these little sticks with it and, um, they let, they let me loose on
that.
And mate, I've disappeared.
I wasn't, I wasn't in the same realm.
I remember you when we went to Timber one year, went and do, was it gong therapy?
Gong therapy.
Oh yeah.
You just went, you were gone, you were just like zonked under this massive gong.
It was like, what's going on?
That was brilliant.
Yeah.
But this thing, like playing this thing, it was quite similar, I suppose, but I'd gone into
that and it was, you know, Nick was playing guitar and there was another lady there
playing the violin.
Yeah.
And, um, and I, and I just, I'd locked in.
I got, I disappeared and I was doing this thing and like the next, next up to the end,
he went, you weren't there, mate.
You all right.
Yeah.
You, you, you absolutely weren't there.
They often talk about that with drummers, don't they?
Yeah.
That they disappear.
Yeah.
And you can see, you know, as a, as a photographer, I spent a lot of time in, in pits, shooting bands.
Pits.
Okay.
Yeah.
Not armpits or like coal pits.
Um, but you, you often see like, you, you, you know, you, you see musicians and you've
kind of up, up fairly close with them.
Um, and you'll see like guitarists will often do it a little bit.
Yeah.
Not to the same extent.
No.
Um, and you kind of vocalists almost, I, you rarely see it.
They always seem to be pretty conscious of where they are.
Yeah.
Drummers will spend like song after song, like zonked.
Yeah.
You can see it.
They just like jaw open, eyes transfixed.
Yeah.
They're not there.
Yeah.
They're just not aware of what is going on around them.
Yeah.
You could walk and punch them in the face.
But it's that weird, like, almost like, um, yeah, it's like they've transcended to like
a different, a different place kind of thing.
Music's incredible for that.
Yeah.
There was, there were times where, I mean, I suppose because we used to do it for so long,
but when we used to jam sort of a star from Ivy, we'd have a riff, we'd have a riff cycling
round and we'd, and we would all go.
Really?
Yeah.
We'd all go.
And, you know, it becomes almost like a meditation together because you've just gone.
You've just, you know, no, no one's in the room.
Everyone's just exploring their own inner space, but playing together.
You know what I mean?
Everyone should just go and start a punk band.
Just do it now.
Just put your, whatever this is, put it down.
Go and be a punk band.
If I'm totally honest, it wasn't that happy a period.
Recording the album was great.
I really liked recording the record.
And it was done very quickly, comparatively to other bands at the time.
You know, the drums and the bass were done in something stupid like two or three days.
And then the rest of the time was guitar and vocals and mixing.
But at that point in time, you know, we'd just come off a big tour.
We'd went into the studio and we knew that there was two world tours lined up.
The first one was just to promote the record.
And then when the record started selling well, we were booked in to go straight away back
to countries and play bigger venues.
And then I enjoyed it, but I was exhausted because I was a single man of partying a lot.
Fyfe, the drummer, didn't enjoy it because he didn't really like traveling.
He found it quite difficult.
And he was beginning to kind of, you know, find it very, very difficult.
With a lot of sales also comes negative criticism.
So it's the same with anyone.
Once you become popular, all of a sudden, cool critics start saying, oh, this band's not good anymore.
And I think that impacted on Fyfe a little bit as well.
I don't think he liked not being cool.
And it was sad to see.
And then I think with Michael as well, you know, Michael missed home a great deal.
So you had three guys.
One of the guys that didn't want to be on tour, one of the guys that really missed home,
and another guy that was partying too hard together, doing two world tours in nine months.
And it was all really, really quick turnarounds.
So, I mean, to be honest, I mean, recording the album and the success it brought was great,
but the actual tour was really, really difficult.
The best thing about every day was the one hour and 25 minutes we played every night on stage.
And that was what made it worthwhile.
You know, we would maybe have three hours sleep, get up, get a jet, get in a bus, be taken somewhere,
do press all day.
But it was the one and a half hour at the end of the night that made it all worthwhile.
I think it was great for me because I loved it.
You know, I loved it.
I was exhausted.
But when I was a kid with a tennis racket in front of the mirror,
whenever I was 14, wanting to be in a band,
that was what I thought would be part of it.
You know, I liked, you know, I liked coming over here.
I liked speaking to Uru magazine that I knew of and Humo magazine.
I liked speaking to the NMA and Kerrang!
And things that you dream of when you're, like, 15 and 16.
And seeing your video on TV and going to America and talking to Rolling Stone magazine and stuff like that.
It was like, it's not what I would read myself,
but every time I got myself a bit depressed, you know, I would think,
well, from starting out in a tiny little village outside Belfast to this,
it's been quite a great journey.
And I think what that made me do, though, is it made me appreciate that,
hey, you know, you can be a working musician.
I can do this for a living, you know.
And regardless, whenever, you know, the seals collapsed from,
well, the big, big seals collapsed, you know, from the major naval days,
we had it all in place that we could actually do this professionally.
And I feel really good that all of us have been professional musicians now for the last 20 years.
Turn and face the strange, the door is open, you're awake.
Remember, I know where you live, and I know you're on your own.
I may forget, I don't forget, I'm always home.
You turn and face the strange, you turn and face the strange, you turn and face yourself.
I know where you lie, the brightness darkens in your eyes.
This is yours to take control, this is yours now, hold your own.
Remember, I know where you live, and I know you're on your own.
You turn and face the strange, you turn and face the strange, you turn and face the strange, you turn.
Baby, it's yours to take control.
I think that ended up being one of my favourite songs tune.
Sorry, I was sucking on a fruit pastel.
I wasn't ready.
I should say, Chris doesn't give me any warning.
He's just busy doing something and then he just starts talking.
I'm like, what? What's going on?
Yeah, I have to be honest.
This album's full of stuff like that
where there's big bangers, big anthemic stuff
and then there's other stuff that's like a little bit less in your face.
Do you know what I mean?
this a little bit more that the kind of slower burn stuff reminds me massively of what albums used to be like?
Yeah, there would be a few like this album to me is like properly front ended.
Yeah, like the big kind of massive anthemic stuff that you're going to scream your lungs out to in the first.
Early doors, yeah.
And then there's a bunch of others that you kind of grow on to.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
That's how albums used to be in the 90s.
Yeah, yeah.
In the 80s.
I wonder if, you know, I always think about this when you know,
when they're sequencing an album or where these songs come together.
I wonder if they know instinctively which ones the hits are as they're going down, as they're coming through.
I think the labels, because I think the labels get involved in a lot of that.
Yeah.
I think the band are like, there's all this so many stories of bands and labels falling out.
Yeah.
Which are the ones.
The singles are and which ones that, you know, they're not.
So I think the label are, and I think, I don't know, probably controversially, I think the label are probably better place to do it because they're not as close to it.
Yeah, yeah.
So they hear it for the first time and they're like, oh, that one hit me.
I mean, that's, you know, I mean, I can imagine that one being a banger, whereas the band have been so connected to and so close to it for months and months and months.
You lose perspective a little bit, you know, or you think, you know, this song's better.
Yeah, yeah.
Because it's probably maybe more complicated or, you know, it was more harder to write or something.
Yeah.
And then the curation of when to drop things, like which is the first single, which is the second single, you know, that kind of process there.
Like, because I think Going Nowhere was first and then maybe Screamager was second.
I think so, yeah.
Let me go and have a look.
I'm looking at my, I'm looking at my fact sheet.
I mean, you can't, you know, you can't sit in the studio and put Screamager together and not know.
Not know that that's going to, well, that's the one then, isn't it?
That's the one that's going to be the one that people hook into.
Yeah.
You've got to assume that they knew.
I mean, Screamager was nine in the UK, two in Ireland.
Turn was 18 in the UK and number five in Ireland.
Yeah.
So Turn was a single as well.
Yeah.
Nowhere was 18 in the UK and six in Ireland.
Yeah.
Trigger Inside was 22 in the UK and 16 Ireland and Die Laughing was 29 in the UK and 16 Ireland.
So they put out a fair few singles off it then.
They did.
It was interesting because they, there's a lovely quote where Cairns said something like, we, we didn't want to be part of a scene.
Yeah.
We, that's not where we came from.
We didn't want to be, you know, in the Brit pop scene or whatever.
Yeah.
Wasn't us.
Mm.
And then a month later sitting there being interviewed by Kerrang magazine.
Yeah.
And all these others kind of, and people were saying, this is, this album is a classic.
This is going to be, this is going to go down as one of the, you know, class, most classic albums of the decade.
Yeah.
And Kerrang voted it the best record of 94.
Yeah.
Um, you know, they were just like, it was surreal.
Yeah.
That wasn't us.
That wasn't the album we made.
Yeah.
And so.
Doesn't that show that once it goes, you, you don't control that anymore.
Yeah.
That doesn't belong to you.
You know, you, you, you create the art.
Yeah.
But once the art goes into the world, it takes on a life of its own.
Yeah.
And it's people connecting to it, isn't it?
And it's what it means to them.
Yeah.
For me, like this album has got a way about, and then like I said, we talked about before,
a lot of these albums around this time had this like upbeat.
Yeah.
Uh, tone to them.
Like the messaging wasn't, the messaging was, was not necessarily, but the, you know,
the, the tone of the music, if you like, was pretty, um, uh, pretty anthemic and kind
of, you know, scream along to, um, that, that underpins people's lives.
Yes.
I mean, I remember you, you, the immediately when the, that first chorus of Screamager comes
on.
Yeah.
That puts me back in student union bars.
Yes.
You know, and you know, that's just, it just places you back in those times.
So, you know, it might've been the band that created it, but I created the relationship with
it and they're different things.
Yes.
I own that relationship with it.
Yeah.
Uh, and they created it.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I, I just love the fact that they, like they, they kind of knew that they,
they knew that they, what the producer was good.
Yeah.
Um, but I don't think they expected it to do, you know, what it did.
Do you know, do you know what I mean?
Yes.
Yeah.
The, the, the pressure's not as much now because we're not on a major.
I mean, whenever we were on the major label, we followed up Trouble Gum with Infernal Love,
which initially didn't do as well.
And then Diane was a big hit.
So it picked the sales up.
But, um, after that, the record company just wanted another hit album.
And I think really as well, to be honest, a lot of the fans that got into the band through
Trouble Gum, they left supporting the band because they only wanted stuff that sounded
like that.
But I don't think so because I think the band would have split up if we'd have tried
to make the Trouble Gum part two.
Um, I think we either got bored, you know, we're intelligent people.
We listen to all kinds of music.
We like all kinds of things to do with the arts and culture.
And to, I think if you're going to be a band like Motorhead or Ramones or ACDC, a formula
band, then you have to be really comfortable in your own skin.
And, and don't get me wrong.
I admire those bands.
Those bands do what they do.
And they, like ACDC said, we're rock and roll.
This is what we do.
This is what you get.
Um, and you know, sometimes I think it'd be great to feel that comfortable, you know,
but I kind of like to explore things when I go into the studio and I like to try and put
different things into the album.
And, and you know, it's probably acted against us, but it still made me consider myself valid
as a musician, as if I had just done something to keep it on.
I don't know.
Reveal yourself to me
Like she's pornography
Picking at my gills
With promises of hell
Sin, so that you know
I'm glad my mirror's broken
My image is a burden
I want to lose myself
In the coming of the Lord
Sin, so that you know
Reveal yourself to me
Sin, so that you know
Sin, sin
Sin, so that you know
The worst thing I find about it is that it is what it is and it's just a business like any other business and we're not naive people.
But I think what it does is it can, whenever egos are involved, whenever the male ego is involved, it can do terrible things to people.
It can make people greedy, it can make people vain. And you know, I include myself in all of this, I think, in the past, various band members we've had that haven't got on or we haven't got on, and as the setting comes up, it makes you realise, you know, at the end of the day,
people can get bent out of shape about the smallest possible things. So I think that's the one aspect of it I would like to change.
I would like to sort of, the way the band is at the minute and it has been for the past, you know, seven years, is the way that I think the model should work.
It's really simple. It's really, really simple. Rock and roll is a really simple, well not even just rock and roll, contemporary music can be a really simple form of art.
I'm not talking about the complexity of the chord progressions or the complexity of the rhythmic structure or timbre. I'm talking about, if you want to make music with a bunch of people, those bunch of people are different, but when you get on you make group music.
Then, if you're in a room rehearsing or writing and someone doesn't like something, what you do is you don't keep it inside for weeks. Because if you're a touring band of musicians, that will come out. You will be in Amsterdam, three weeks into the tour, someone will be tired or stoned.
Someone will miss home, someone will want to not be there and an argument will start and then someone will say, that song you wrote four weeks ago was shit, I never liked that.
So we said when we got the band together with Neil this time round, we've had, and he's been in various bands in the past that have been the same as Therapy Situation.
We said that we'd always be very honest. We would always tell each other exactly what we thought and we would resolve any problems we had there and then and not let them carry on.
And so far, I mean, that's seven years we've had, we've had no rise. You know, anything that we don't like, anything that bugs each other about each other, we say straight away and it just clears the air and it makes it easier to get on with.
I mean, whenever we were the first line up with the band, you know, things were left on set for years, not even months, for years. And people are carrying that around inside themselves. It's not good.
I initially liked them as people when I met them. And you kind of think they probably initially liked me as well. But you know, whenever you get involved in a creative sense and friction and compromise or ideas of compromise, it begins to go quite sour.
And I think, you know, it's like everything else, looking back on it, you sort of think, none of it, none of it's terrible. You know, when I, I don't dislike any of those people, I certainly hope that they don't dislike me, but it's like you move on.
But you sometimes think, you know, some of the things that you thought over, as you get older and wiser, obviously, as Harold Pinter, the English playwright, said what he liked about getting older was the sense of grievance and grudge that he held against films.
Grudges that he held against fellow human beings diminished. Grudges he held against fellow playwrights and other people diminished as he got older and more mature and wiser.
And I think that's probably what it is. You know, now I'm in my fifth decade, I'm 45 years of age, and I think a lot of, a lot of stuff that would have wound me up when I was 22 now doesn't bother me in this list.
Do you know what my favourite thing is about these interviews?
No.
There's a soundcheck going on.
Yeah.
You can hear the drums in the soundcheck while he's doing the interview, and I keep getting distracted by it.
I once interviewed Doug Aldrich off of Whitesnake.
Buzz Aldrin.
Buzz Aldrin, yeah.
For those that are not familiar with Doug Aldrich, he's the nicest guy you'll ever want to meet.
Yeah, yeah.
It's absolutely phenomenal.
And he was, it was an interview with the Dead Daisies.
Oh, cool, yeah, yeah.
We were talking about a whole bunch of stuff, right?
So I've done what I usually do.
It's probably why I don't do this stuff anymore, right?
But I've been asked to go and talk to Doug Aldrich off of the Dead Daisies at the time about their new record.
And we were talking about, like, we were talking about Jeff Beck.
Yeah.
We were talking about The Beatles.
Yeah.
We were talking about nothing about the new album.
Everything but the thing you were supposed to be there for.
And anyway, we kind of got to this point.
And then in the background, there was a band called The Amorettes.
Oh, they're great.
He was supporting them at the time.
They're called...
I think Nick Bryan produced them.
Yeah, he did.
He did, yeah.
They're called The Hot Dam now.
Yeah, that's it, yeah, yeah.
They're Amorettes and Tequila Mockingbird merged together and they're now The Hot Dam.
Yeah, I think he did both of those, actually.
And they're still absolutely awesome.
Anyway, they were...
We've got to do a Nick Bryan one.
We should, shouldn't we?
Yeah, we should get Nick in, actually.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But they were sound checking in the background and we both looked at each other and were just like,
shall we go to the bar?
What is this?
All right, so I went and had a beer with Nick Bryan, with Doug Aldrich at the bar.
It was brilliant.
The best interview ever that was.
So we watched the girls and it was mega.
Yeah.
I forgot where I was going with that now, but...
We were talking about...
Oh, the sound check on the interviews.
Oh, sound checking.
We covered that.
That's fine.
Yeah, it's all good.
The thing about this album, I actually don't know anything about it.
Do you want some facts?
Yes, I think we should have some facts.
Shall I get my fact sheet out?
I know that I like it.
Yeah.
And I know that the things we've talked about...
Everyone likes this album.
If you don't like this album, just go away.
You know there are albums that I think, if you don't like it, I don't think...
We're just so not...
We're just not the same...
But unfriend me now.
Yeah.
A bit like that.
I'm a bit...
I don't know.
But that's kind of how...
You know when you're in an album is so like...
Ooh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ooh, I can't...
And I can't...
I can't understand how anybody wouldn't feel the same.
Because we're all the same.
Anyway, release date, 7th Feb 1994.
Album title, Trouble Gun, which I just loved.
Yeah, yeah.
Everything about this record just appealed to me, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
At the time.
Total runtime, 45 minutes.
Yeah, and it's got 15 songs on it, hasn't it?
Yeah, it's a bit long.
Yeah.
I absolutely loved it.
Yeah, 14 songs on the UK version.
14, sorry.
As they used to do back then, where they would...
The UK version would have their British bands, UK stuff, it would have...
I don't know, like standard issue, like somewhere between 9 and 12 or 13 songs or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
Then, a few months later, you'd get this Japanese version, which had an extra couple of songs.
Yes, yeah.
And Linkin Park are just doing this with their album from Zero.
How are they, right?
I love them.
I love them coming back.
Love The Sound of Emily.
Massive fan of what they're doing.
But, they've just added four tracks to the end and now there's a deluxe version and there's a new vinyl and they've changed the cover.
Don't do that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just release it as an EP or release it properly in the first place.
Oh, I was thinking about something earlier.
You know, like your thing about covers and all that.
Yeah.
You're not keen.
There was something that I was thinking about earlier and I went, oh, that's my thing that I don't like.
What do you not like?
I don't know, I can't remember what it was now.
You don't know what you don't like.
No.
But it'll come back to me.
The thing about covers is, you know, I mean, this is going to be no shock to people that are regular listeners to our show.
But I'll say something like, I don't like covers.
And then I love Bread Fan, Metallica.
And I think Word Up is just epic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, oh, what's the Counting Crows cover?
The big Counting Crows cover.
Oh, yeah.
Big Girl Taxi.
Yeah.
I think that's brilliant.
Yeah.
So just ignore me, basically.
I have no idea what I am talking about.
Anyway, back to facts.
Record label, A&M Records, they were quite supportive of this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I knew this was going somewhere, I think.
It was recorded in Surrey and Chipping Norton.
Okay.
In a bunch of different studios.
It's not very rock and roll, is it?
It's not.
They're not.
They're not rock and roll places.
Produced by Chris Sheldon.
And we'll talk about him in a bit.
It sold a million copies worldwide.
Mm, mm, mm.
It should have sold 10 million copies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think.
Do you know what I mean?
It's one of those albums where, I don't know, I just feel like it should have been made.
I think there are pockets of the world.
Yeah.
That got it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
But not everywhere.
Yeah.
I think Ireland and the UK, and there's a bunch of these albums that were just massive here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But just didn't translate to the States for whatever reason.
And Europe as well.
A lot of these guys would do the Europe tours.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They would do.
That is very, very true.
Back when you could tour Europe.
Oh, yeah, you're not allowed anymore, are you?
You just can't.
It's too expensive.
It was one of the big bands.
I think it was Anthrax saying that it's just unviable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think it was Charlie Benante was saying that that's why you're seeing so many of these
big headline, like joint co-headline tours.
Yeah.
Because you need to connect multiple fan bases together, like fans that will, you know,
where you're not just going to get the same people go and see two bands.
Yeah, yeah.
Bands that are really similar.
They've got to be different enough that it pulls double audiences.
Yeah.
So, yeah, brilliant.
Anyway, Kerrang! would name this album to be their top album of 1994.
And they ranked it 31st in their list of best British rock albums ever.
Wow, wow.
I need to go and track that down again.
Hamilton of Helmet, who guessed it on the album, said it was a masterclass in how to blend
aggression and melody.
And I think that's a great quote.
Yeah, that is a great quote.
So we've talked a bunch about this stuff before, but the band were from Northern Ireland, kind
of grew up in the Troubles.
They used music as a bit of an escape.
At the time, in the UK in the early 90s, there was grunge from Seattle.
You had Britpop.
You kind of had Oasis and Pulp and Blur and all of that stuff kind of happening.
And this felt like a bit of an underbelly to me.
All of these albums we're going to cover next is this kind of dirty, hard, rocky, punky underbelly that were like, we're not Oasis.
Yeah.
We're not, that's not, you know, they're not our people.
That's mainstream, mainstream friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, that's not always with the alternative kids.
Yeah.
Right.
And that was kind of where this stuff, stuff come from.
Maybe that's the label for what I was saying before, but it's really hard to describe, but
maybe it's UK alternative.
It is a little bit.
It's what it feels like.
Yeah, absolutely.
But it wasn't in the main.
I mean, although this stuff got in the charts.
Yes.
It very much wasn't like the mainstream.
No, no.
Stuff right back then.
No, no.
Members of the band is Andy Cairns.
I'm going to get a load of these names.
Fife Ewing.
Yeah.
Drummer.
Yeah.
Michael McKeegan.
Sounds like a footballer.
Paige Hamilton.
Guest league guitar.
Yeah.
From Helmet.
Leslie Rankine.
Guest vocals on Lunacy Booth.
Martin McCarrick did the cello on Unrequited.
Unrequited.
Oh, wow.
And Eileen Rose did additional vocals on Femtex.
Yes.
Yeah.
I like that.
Great name of a song.
Yeah.
So A&M Records signed them after that.
They did a bunch of EPs before this, which are awesome too.
But yeah.
So they were pretty well funded, I think.
As albums and bands were back then.
Yeah.
I think if you proved that you got a bit of a following then, you kind of, you did get
that.
Guess who else Chris Sheldon produced?
Oh, you said earlier, didn't you?
Soundgarden.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
He did some Soundgarden stuff eventually, which was cool.
What I'm going to do.
Oh, yeah.
So Chris Sheldon as well.
We talked about, he was kind of one of your go to's in the UK.
So he did Feed a Gun.
Yeah.
My Vitriol, Biffy, Ocean Size, Reuben.
Reuben might be quite a good.
Yeah.
Reuben McGray, actually.
And then he also did Hard Cold Fire from Therapy in 2023.
Yeah.
So fairly, fairly recently.
Like, they worked with Chris Sheldon over the years.
So they did, but they've also worked with some other big producers as well on other records
Clay and Head and Andy Gill as well.
Trouble Gun was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in '94, which I didn't know.
Do you know what the Mercury Prize was?
No.
As in like where it came from?
No.
Do you remember Mercury is in the...
A planet.
No, no, no.
No.
The metal.
Nope.
The planet.
The phone provider.
No.
The phone network provider.
I don't know.
Or internet provider or something like that.
No.
I have to Google this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's what it is.
Oh, really?
So, you know, like if you said like the Amazon Awards for something or the Orange Awards.
Yeah.
Well, that company doesn't exist anymore.
No, no.
But it's still called the Mercury Music Prize.
It's still named after Mercury.
That's interesting, isn't it?
I feel like I need to go and educate myself.
I feel uneducated.
Oh, the records released in 1994.
Yeah.
A bunch of these we've covered.
Super Unknown.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
By Soundgarden.
Dookie.
Wow.
What a time.
Guess how many albums that sold.
Well, Dookie.
It's got to be tens of millions.
20 million.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They sold 1 million.
Yeah.
And that's it for me.
That kind of.
There's a.
The music on Dookie to me is phenomenal, but this is no less phenomenal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The impact this had on me is equal to Dookie, I think.
You had Grace by Jeff Buckley.
Yeah.
Wow.
Right.
Which we've done one on.
We should do Dookie.
We were going to do it, weren't we?
Yeah, yeah.
With.
Oh, Adam.
Adam.
Yeah, we were going to get Adam on.
Yeah.
And then I forget whatever, whatever.
It's probably our fault.
We should do that because he's awesome.
He loves that.
Yeah, we should get back to him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And do that because that would be great.
You know, I.
Let's do this British stuff and then we'll go.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll dive back over.
Maybe we'll do some pop punk US stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We could do Blink as well.
Yeah, yeah.
A bit of Sum 41 and all that lot.
Oh, God, yeah.
Jimmy Eat World.
Does this look infected?
Yeah.
Who was the.
Could go ranted even.
Oh, God.
Who did that.
They've got even.
Yeah, no effects.
Yeah.
Loads of those bands.
I think they're dead good.
Bowling for Soup.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, God.
I saw them live.
They were dead good.
Purple by Stone Temple Pilots was released in 94.
Park Life by Blur.
That was a lot of great music going on, wasn't there?
Yeah.
The Downward Spiral by Knowledge Nails.
Oh, well, right.
Smash by The Offspring.
Yeah.
And Korn.
That's a big year, isn't it?
It is, isn't it?
That's a big year.
Banging.
In a material way, it's the most important one, because it meant that the band got a worldwide
audience.
You know, the places that were popular with Trouble Gum.
I mean, Trouble Gum sold that many copies.
We were playing to a lot of people.
So it means when we go back now, the audiences might not be as big.
But because we went there with the Trouble Gum album, we have a fan base and companies.
And, you know, that was very, very important for that.
Also as a band that had been struggling at this point in time for four years, you know,
with no money, it kind of set us up a little bit financially.
It gave us the money to kind of get more equipment established.
It made us financially comfortable around those times.
We were able to set up our own management organisation that we wanted and keep everything in-house,
which means that to this day, you know, whenever we're not on a major record label anymore,
we have a financial structure there.
It's a business model, you know, that we set up from the money that we got from Trouble Gum.
So it's been very helpful in materialistic terms and in terms of setting up a fan base.
If you had to choose your favourite song off this record...
Yeah.
...like the standout, what would it be?
Because at one time, I'd have said Scream Ager.
Yeah.
But I think now, it would probably be Going Nowhere.
No, I can't choose that.
Actually, if I skip through this album, I Scream Ager and I scream at it.
Then, going nowhere, turn.
Yeah.
And then...
I know, it's weird.
It depends what mood I'm in.
If I'm in the car, like coming over here, it takes me about seven or eight minutes.
Yeah.
So I got through half of Scream Ager, scream my lungs out to that.
Then I flip to going nowhere, scream my lungs out to that.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
But if I'm at home...
Yeah.
...I would listen to it all.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
And I think...
Oh, yeah.
It's a really interesting one.
Because...
I think I have developed a...
Like a love for albums.
Okay.
Yeah.
When I say I've developed a love for...
I think I have...
I've realised how much they mean to me.
The thing itself, the whole thing.
Whereas when I discovered this record, I would have had it on tape.
And I remember getting my first Walkman that let me skip songs.
You know that?
Oh, right.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I pressed play and then I held play and pressed fast forward and it would zip to the next track.
Yeah.
Now, doing that on an audio cassette was like a...
That was like the best thing ever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it takes me back to that, like the time before that, when you literally...
I would be on the bus into college or whatever, put the tape on and you'd listen to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All the way through.
Because you kind of didn't have much choice.
Yeah.
I loved it when the tape technology came along, where it auto turned itself over.
Oh!
God, yeah.
And then it turned back itself over again.
So you never had to take it out and do it.
It was that sound, wasn't it?
Where it would get to the end and it would go...
And then you'd race to it thinking, "Oh, it's going to rip it apart!"
I don't miss tape very much.
No.
I do like that almost the way it forces you to make time for it and to listen to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And like vinyl is doing that for me again at the moment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where people talk about, "Oh, it sounds better."
And blah, blah, blah.
I don't think it sounds better.
But I love the fact that I can pick it up.
It's a thing that I can hold.
I often put the record on and I'll flip it over.
You just can't help yourself.
You just sit back in my chair.
You flip it over.
Yeah.
You read through the back of the record.
You pull the liner notes out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Before you know it, you've finished that side.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you've...
You were in there.
Yeah, you've given yourself over to that music at that time.
So the thing I don't like about lots of these flashy vinyls, they do them on two records.
Yes, yeah.
So you put it on.
Yeah.
And it's over.
Yeah.
When you put it on two songs, it's gone.
I don't want that.
I want...
Give me one where I can listen to it all on one side.
Make them massive.
Like...
Do you know what I mean though?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like a kind of...
And when you get old, like getting up and sitting down again, it's hard work.
But I do like it.
What about you?
So you were saying that "Going Nowhere"?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it is "Going Nowhere", I think.
And...
Because it's the one that actually is like...
Because the album's full of riffs, but they're quite...
It's quite a minor album.
Yeah.
There's a lot of songs in minor keys.
Yeah.
Whereas "Going Nowhere" is a major key.
And I think that makes it jump out a little bit for me.
I love it.
I'm gonna get me a motor car, maybe a Jaguar, maybe a plane, or a day of fame.
I'm gonna be a millionaire, so can you take me there?
Yeah.
That was "Going Nowhere" by Oasis.
Is it?
Yeah.
How cool is that?
Very, very cool.
But do you know, the lyrics on this album from Therapy as well, they're really short and pointed.
There's not like tons and tons of like nonsense.
No, no.
Do you know what I mean?
It's kind of quite short and repetitive, which makes them easy to scream it onto.
That's your anthem.
That's where your anthem comes in, isn't it?
Yeah.
I, there is very much a, like a, you listen to it once in a, like, certainly for me, almost
everything off this album, you listen to it once and then you will be like, I know that.
Yeah.
So the next time it comes on.
Yeah.
Like, do you know, there's others like basket cases like this and a bunch of the Green Day
songs.
I think that's kind of what makes them special.
They've got that punk simplicity.
Yeah.
The lyrics are easy to remember.
Yeah.
And then, do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, they're the masters of it, aren't they?
I mean, they did it even with American Idiot and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah.
You know what?
It's really, really true.
I, um...
We should probably do American Idiot.
We did too.
Why did we...
Why did we not do...
We talked about this and I can't remember why we didn't do it.
Um...
Because, you know, it's a massive album that is.
Right.
Gonna play Going Nowhere.
You have a choice.
When you do your choices, I want nothing to do with this.
And you can sort of try and follow your own path or else you can just fall in.
And it's an easy trap to fall into.
Especially, I mean, the opening line is Heaven Kicked You Out.
And I mean, that really refers to the fact that people that are born in this circumstance
really have to try harder than privileged people to make an effort to break out of that kind of circle.
And without sounding like a hippie, the only thing you actually have is yourself.
And that's the only thing you have control of.
And if it means losing a few friends to be yourself, then it's worth it at the end of the day.
Because you're wanting yourself to answer to, really.
If it means losing a few friends, then it's worth it at the end of the day.
I'm going to be a little bit more.
Whenever you come back and play the Trouble Gum record,
because it was recorded so long ago,
there are bits of overdubbing and bits of vocal melody
and bits of guitars, studio effects,
which I've forgotten about on some of the track.
And it's quite surprising, going back,
just hearing some of the little subtleties that are in there,
little bits of-- it's mostly to do with effects.
There's quite a lot of little ambient effects
buried in the mix for a rock record.
Your rock records are more often than not in the '90s very dry.
And these were little bits of reverbs
and little bits of kind of vocal effects,
which are quite unusual.
That's actually true what he said there,
because I was listening to something earlier.
Oh no, I was editing another podcast earlier.
And I had this on in the background while I was editing.
And there was something that had a flanger on it.
Explain what a flanger is.
Oh, it's like a kind of sound.
That's like a filtering effect.
It's called a modulation effect,
but it's a filter effect that makes everything sound a bit airplane-y.
Yeah.
Like a jet engine.
Like that kind of stuff.
And it had it on this to the point where I was listening to it going,
"Is that the thing I'm editing that's got like a comb filter on it?"
Oh, right.
And it was this.
Because it can sometimes happen if you've mic'd it in a particular room,
or you get this kind of comb filtering thing where it was suddenly sort of modulating.
And yeah, it wasn't.
It was actually on that.
So there are some really strangely placed, quite extreme...
I mean, he said they're quite subtle.
I suppose some of them are quite subtle.
But some of them are like, they're really in your face effects.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's true.
The one for me last week was Blind Melon.
The same with the vocals on that.
There was a lot of the vocals that had a sort of phaser or a flanger type sound on it.
And you don't normally do that to vocals.
I suppose.
And we've talked about this before, but often it's that lack of confidence in the vocal.
Yeah.
Where they feel the need to put like multiple...
Something on it.
Yeah.
James Hetfield, there's a bunch of interviews with him in the early days,
and he just hates his voice.
Yeah, yeah.
And he was trying to get another vocalist.
They were constantly trying to get...
In those early Metallica albums, James was constantly trying to get another vocalist.
Mm-hmm.
And they would constantly like double track the vocals.
Mm-hmm.
There would always be layers of double track of the vocals.
And it was only with Bob Rock on the Black Album.
Yeah.
That they stopped doing it.
Right, right, right.
And he was really interesting.
He was like, I just couldn't like bear to do it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I was fine with the guitars.
Mm-hmm.
Because I was confident with that.
I kind of, you know, I had confidence in myself and my ability, but I didn't for singing.
I didn't feel like I was a good enough singer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, so we used to do these tracks and we would do tricks in the studio to do that.
That's right, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wonder if it's kind of a confidence thing.
Yeah, yeah, you're probably right.
What are we doing next?
Because it's that time to say goodbye now.
That's a really, really good question.
I think we've got tons of stuff that we can do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm going to throw some bands at you.
Yeah.
And then let's see where we go.
So there's stuff that I think you probably won't know very well.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, you've said gun a couple of times today.
Gun, yeah.
So we could choose, we could do Gallus or Swagger.
Yeah.
Gallus was the, I think Gallus is a better record, but Swagger was the big one.
Swagger was the one that's got like word up on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a bunch of others on there.
Big, big, like similar to this actually, big punchy singles.
Yeah.
There's The Almighty.
You could do Soul Destruction.
Yeah.
I think you've, I bet you've never heard that, but that's full of like cool songwriting stuff.
It's quite, it's very rocky, but there's a lot of really cool kind of acoustic guitar-y songwriting stuff on there.
Yeah.
And some big punchy stuff on there as well.
We could do The Wild Hearts.
Yeah.
We could do, like your mate produced the Thunder Record Backstreet Symphony.
Yeah, yeah.
So we could do that.
Yeah.
As well.
What else could we do?
We could do Three Colours Red.
Yeah.
We could do.
Why don't we do a little poll?
We could do a little poll.
Yeah.
I don't, we've not done one of those for a while actually.
No, but if we do it, we can choose whether we ignore it or not.
Yeah, we could choose Three Colours.
Because we can do it, but we don't have to do as we're told.
What would you choose?
What of this time?
Because I think you would mostly listen to US stuff, weren't you?
Yeah, yeah, I was.
So a lot of this stuff is going to be fairly new to me.
Yeah.
Well, I like what you said about The Almighty with like being a songwriter album.
I think you'd quite like that.
It's got Ricky Warwick, Ricky Warwick's voice.
Yeah.
Like he, his voice for that period for me was like, he was up there as being,
he's got like a really kind of raspy, dark, deep voice, which has always kind of hit me.
There's tracks on there like Little Lost Sometimes and Devil's Toy, which is just mega.
But there's also like bangers on there that just rip your face off stuff.
So we could do, we could definitely do that.
Yeah.
Should we just pick that?
Let's do.
Let's do that.
Let's do Soul Destruction.
Yeah.
I love the cover as well.
Cool.
You know that album, sometimes it's the album covers.
Yeah, yeah.
That's the one.
For the cover without, they did a bunch of stuff before it, which I loved.
And then they did this one, which just blew me with.
And they did an album after called Power Tripping, which I didn't like.
It went a bit American.
Right, right.
It was a great album, but it wasn't.
You know, we've talked about this before, where there's a band that you, like a band should
sound like how you, like I have a relationship with that band.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I expect it to sound a certain way.
And when they release something that doesn't.
Yeah.
And in the interview for Trouble Gum, it talks about losing, losing fans because the albums
that came after this didn't sound the same.
Yeah.
And again, this was one to me where Soul Destruction was like very British sounding.
Yeah.
Very like kind of, it has that like lineage.
You can almost trace it back in sound to like Thin Lizzy.
Oh wow.
Okay.
It doesn't sound like those bands, but you can always trace them.
And then they go very grungy.
Right.
And like Power Tripping is a big, thick American grungy album.
And like lots of bands did that.
Yeah.
Where they kind of chased that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That stuff.
But Soul Destruction for me is like just, oh, it's fantastic.
So let's do that.
Yeah, cool.
Lovely green cover too.
Thanks for listening.
Love you, bye.