Solo 1989-2000

At the beginning of the 90s, I made a series of solo albums – Submarine and Zoo for Creation, and Paradise and God and Other Stories for the French label, Danceteria. What I was doing after the Weather Prophets as a solo artist seemed to connect particularly well with people in Europe, and France in particular. I’m very proud of the songwriting and the playing of those that made the albums with me.

After the demise of the Weather Prophets, Creation gave me the time and the budget to make a record that used the studio as part of the creative process, layering, editing, refining until everything was in place. I had also had an extended time to gather songs for the record, so the material was very consistent. The result of this was Submarine.

For Zoo, I wanted to follow up Submarine with something more spontaneous and loose, focussing on the voice and song with minimal colouring and decoration. One of my happiest memories was being told by Andrew Weatherall that Zoo was a favoured record of his for come down parties in hotels around the world. I love the idea of my very personal, small-scale album soundtracking by stealth the rave revolution!

For Paradise, I worked with Neil Scott, who still plays guitar with me today. He was in Denim and Everything But the Girl, and helmed his own groups Horse Latitudes and Summerhill. Chris Clarke, who went on to become the bass backbone of both The Rockingbirds and Danny and the Champions of the World, played bass. Russell Lax, ex- of The Oyster Band and The Pop Rivits played drums. We were fortunate enough to be able to play all the songs on the Paradise album before we recorded it, which gave the record a really natural and flowing feel, aided by Brian O’Shaughnessy’s production at Bark Studios in Walthamstow.

God and Other Stories continued this series of records, again being made in some kind of contrast to Paradise, focussing less on live band performances and re-engaging with using the studio as part of the creative process, expanding the palette of a band and taking in some more instrumental and extended songwriting. For this Neil Scott was again a mainstay on guitar, while Chris Clarke continued on bass while on drums I was rejoined by the estimable erstwhile Weather Prophet Dave Morgan.