In 1987 Scottish band Wet Wet Wet burst onto the scene with their debut single Wishing I Was Lucky with their debut album Popped In Souled Out producing three more hits including Sweet Little Mystery and Angel Eyes.By this time Marti Pellow, Tommy Cunningham, Graeme Clark and Neil Mitchell became household names as they scored their first number one hit with the cover of Beatles hit With A Little Help From My Friends.But it was the cover of the Troggs record Love Is All Around for the soundtrack to Four Weddings and A Funeral which was to be their biggest hit.It spent fifteen weeks at the top of the UK charts.But things went slowly downhill after a fall out over royalty payments and personal problems. But now a decade after they split the boys are back with a new album Timeless.I caught up with Graeme Clark to talk about the new record and their career.
Timeless is the first studio album in a decade why did you decide that now was the best time to make a comeback?
Well it wasn't really that, we never said this is the time now, we kind of got back together in 2004. We split up in 1997 in true rock and roll fashion it all sort of imploded on itself, to a certain extent, and really we spent seven years apart from each other and we thought that enough time had elapsed and everybody felt good about getting back in to bed so too speak, metaphorically obviously.And it just happen to coincide with a greatest hits the record was putting together and it seemed like a good idea to test the water, excuse the pun, and see if people were going to welcome us back and embrace us back and it seemed that there were people who still enjoyed the band's music, and that was a big surprise.We are blessed that we have got a fiercely loyal bunch of people who follow us around and we did the greatest hits tour in 2004 and it's basically taken three years to write twelve songs.
And were you nervous about coming back?
I wouldn't say nervous but you wonder how songs are going to be received in the climate that we live in today, just the musical climate, when we were first coming out we would get our record on the radio, do a Saturday morning television show and you would theoretically have a hit single.
But now it's completely different so you are always a bit wary about how you are going to be received back in and how your music is going to be received. But I think we are more excited and are going to enjoy it this time round as opposed to enduring it.
You paid for the album yourselves but struggled to get a label to release it why was that?
Well it wasn't that. Basically what was on offer from the label was they were more interested in doing more greatest hits, which is a blueprint that they seem to follow an awful lot especially with bands who have been around in the past and have been away for a couple of years and come back with a greatest hits, so they offered to take four of the new songs and re-release another greatest hits.
But at that point we had to say no we are much more interested in doing twelve new songs, a brand new album and let people know that we are back and a working band and not a nostalgia outfit.
So you set up your own label Dry Records was this as a last resort to release new material or is it something that has been planned for a while?
We had always felt that because, and I've talked about climate and how the music industry is nowadays, there is an outlet for doing it yourself and I think a lot of bands are seeing the benefit of that.
It's different if a record company were to come to you, like they did in the past and offer us substantial amounts of money but it's not like that nowadays so, and in sort of return for the big chunks of money they would own you they would take your album and not pay you very much either, in this way we do it ourselves, yeah we do pay for it and it is a big outlay, but we share in bigger profits if you like because we are not dealing with a massive record company who have taken the vast majority of it.
It just seems, and looking at other bands who have done this, be successful about it, and we are trying not to measure success in how the record sales but how happy we are in the band, I guess that's what changed in a lot of ways to when we were younger.
What was it like recording and writing on your own terms rather than being pressured by a big label?
It does kind of take the pressure off a bit it allows you to work at your own pace. I guess before we were kind of the pace was dictated to us this is what you have to do, you have to write twelve songs and you have to write them quickly and then you go out on tour, and it took us three years to write these songs we had to get them right for us and hopefully they will be right for everybody else.
But yeah as I say the pressure is off and we don't have album tour syndrome lets just do when we want to do it and for the right reasons.
What can we expect from the album it's being labelled as your best?
I hope so, I hope so you will be the judge of that. It's hard for us to gauge, because obviously we are biased in the way that we always think that the newer stuff is going to be out best, but I think a wee bit of experience is in there, maybe more so than we have in the past.
It's always been song based it's always been pop structures, classic pop structures and in that respect it's no different it just sits more comfortable with us, we are no longer twenty one anymore we can't write songs like Sweet Little mystery anymore so we have to find another way.
Your first single is Too Many People why did you choose this as the first single?
We just felt like it was an echo of Wishing I Was Lucky, when we first released our first single, we were kind of looked at as more of a pop soul kind of band so this was the most pop souley song that we had on the album and we just thought it's nice to go full circle and go back to where we started.
Klaus Voorman has designed the album cover, he is famous for Revolver, how did he get involved in the album?
Well we were all sitting around discussing how we were going to make this album cover look blah blah blah and we got our favourite album covers out, and Revolver happened to be one of them. We never even knew if Klaus was alive or anything so somebody sort of mentioned his and said they would try to contact him. So they did contact him, and luckily he knew who we were, with a healthy dialogue, through the space of about three months, he came up with the album cover and we were really happy with it.
Before Klaus did the Revolver album album covers were Colgate adverts and he changed all that so it was nice to get someone like that, I guess a lot of people still expect that from one of our album cover but it just seemed this time that it was more appropriate more sitting comfortable with us to do something like that, an artistic sort of gesture. We had discussions with him and he came up with that and we think that it's brilliant.
You have been in the industry now for twenty years how has it changed in that time?
It has dramatically changed you know? When we came in it was a place that was swimming in money everybody had credit cards, expense accounts etc etc and it just seemed a wonderful place to be. But I guess as w have got older and kids have grown up the record buying habits have changed dramatically and maybe there is not as much money as there was in the past but it just means that we have to cut costs accordingly.
I still enjoy being in this business and I still enjoy writing songs and I still enjoy performing songs so in that respect that part hasn't changed, I guess just the technical aspect and the details they have changed a bit.
When we first came into this business it was about writing songs and making good music and that hasn't really changed that philosophy still the first point of contact that they go to, make the songs as good as possible, we can see what happens out side of that.
You have recently played a string of gigs at the Hard Rock Cafe in support for Breast Cancer how and why did you get involved with that?
Well we just felt that, we have lent our name to a couple of charity foundations, and we just felt that cancer is one that, certainly if it has not effected us directly certainly indirectly, someone each member of the band and each our friends know someone who has been blighted by this horrible disease so it was kind of a natural thing to lend our name to that and hopefully raise some money. And come the end of the tour there will be a healthy cheque donated and it's just trying to put a little tiny bit back, it's just a little gesture ,but one we felt was a good thing to support?
You have become a bit of a British institution are you surprised that your success has lasted so long?
Absolutely! I think if someone had said twenty five years ago when we started this is what would unfold in the next few years well we wouldn't have believed you. Secondly we would have bitten you hand off and said yeah we will take that.
It never ceases to surprise me that we have somehow managed to engrain ourselves in the British psyche and in that respect it's fantastic because it enables us to go out and play, and that's why we started the band in the first place, to go out and play music and we have been lucky enough to stand the test of time.
Why have you decided to stay in the industry so long?
I don't think we set and said right we are going to be in this business for forty five years we just did what was natural and put one foot in front of the other and here we are twenty five years later. I think one of the aspect has to be the music, we have to make good music, I guess another aspect was we wore tight trousers and that kept us in good stead.
You are obviously most famous for Love Is All Around are you proud of what this song achieved or are you sick of everybody going on about it?
Ahh no that is a big question that we get asked all the time is it a good thing or is an albatross? And I guess the answer is a bit of both it's something that defines and we will never be able to escape from that.
I tend to embrace and look at the positive aspects of what it has done for me, as a person, instead of concentrating on the negatives. When any band gets a record like that some people will look at it of blighting their career but I don't see it like that, it would be different if it was a novelty song, but it's a well written well put together song and that is the most important part for me.
You are about to embark on and arena tour in December what can we expect from the show and how excited are you about getting back on the road?
Yeah it's great that is what it's all about it's fantastic to go on the road and play and promoting the album, that's when it all makes sense, because we can do interviews, we can sit and talk to you guys all day and do all the television promotion but at the same time it's nice to go onstage because no one can touch us for those two hours. And playing our songs it's an immediate response to all the work that we have done over the two and half years you know?
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw