I remember hearing John Peel playing ‘Wot’s For Lunch Mum’ all the way back in 1979. The next night, he played ‘Batman in the Launderette’ (or was it the other way around ?) I didn’t actually find a copy of the record for ages, but it had been worth paying attention. Years later, I also tracked down a copy of their second single, ‘Airline Disaster’. Just as wonderful ! But I never expected to see them play live because, quite simply, they vanished. This was before the internet came along, so you couldn’t just track down info about obscure bands unless you happened to bump into one of them. Which, strangely enough, eventually happened. Sorta. My old friend and legendary lurking-German, Annette, asked me one night if I’d ever heard of a band called The Shapes. I immediately launched into the chorus of ‘Batman’, though half-expecting she meant another band who just happened to have the same name. But, no, she had met a bloke in some dingy Camden pub who turned out to be their original vocalist, the wonderfully named Seymour Bybuss. I went on to enthuse about their two singles and she in turn informed me that Seymour had mentioned there was a bunch of unreleased material… Well, I thought, something needs to be done to rectify that ! Quick phone-call to John at Overground Records and, yes, he was interested. So contact details were passed back and forwards and ‘Songs For Sensible People’CD eventually came out in 1998 and very lovely it is too. But I still didn’t expect to see them live…
But in 2008, totally out of the blue, the original line-up announced a handful of gigs, including a spot on an all-day gig at The Forum. They were playing pretty early, but I certainly wasn’t going to miss it. I’m glad to say they lived up to expectations, but afterwards, it all went quiet again. But this time, the wait was not destined to be so long… it may have taken them 27 years to reform that first time, but they must have enjoyed it on this occasion, the wait was only six years ! Yes, they were back again and I was determined to make the most of it. I get in touch with Seymour and arrange an interview… Which is how I ended-up wondering down to the depths of Brixton on a ridiculously warm day, in search of some Shapes…
I have to wait a while as they finish their soundcheck, but once done, I’m joined by Seymour (Ben) and bassist Brian Helicopter (Gareth) in the beer garden (in Brixton-terms, a table by the side of the road) and we get straight into the conversation. Firstly, I wondered if all the band members had already known each other before the band came together ?
Gareth ; We all went to school together, although not necessarily in the same years. So we didn’t really know each other, it was just this Hellhole that seemed to be run by boy-fondlers trying to create fodder for the Banking industry. Both Ben and I were actually expelled from it !
Ben : Four of us were from the same school, but we really only came together after we’d all left… and then we tagged Steve on at the end.
Gareth : We actually got Steve from placing an advert in the NME. We got all these people wanting to audition, but we got tired of it after the second one, so we just said, He’ll do ! And he has done, for 37 years !
Ben : We’d had some earlier line-ups but this was the one that settled, around 1978-79. But, yeah, Steve was a stranger to us back then… and he still is !
Gareth : He fitted in very nicely, despite being shorter than the rest of us. The thing is, it’s a bit of a funny band, in that we’re all quite different, but at the same time there’s a thread that runs through all of it and Steve was able to tap into that.
But in 2008, totally out of the blue, the original line-up announced a handful of gigs, including a spot on an all-day gig at The Forum. They were playing pretty early, but I certainly wasn’t going to miss it. I’m glad to say they lived up to expectations, but afterwards, it all went quiet again. But this time, the wait was not destined to be so long… it may have taken them 27 years to reform that first time, but they must have enjoyed it on this occasion, the wait was only six years ! Yes, they were back again and I was determined to make the most of it. I get in touch with Seymour and arrange an interview… Which is how I ended-up wondering down to the depths of Brixton on a ridiculously warm day, in search of some Shapes…
I have to wait a while as they finish their soundcheck, but once done, I’m joined by Seymour (Ben) and bassist Brian Helicopter (Gareth) in the beer garden (in Brixton-terms, a table by the side of the road) and we get straight into the conversation. Firstly, I wondered if all the band members had already known each other before the band came together ?
Gareth ; We all went to school together, although not necessarily in the same years. So we didn’t really know each other, it was just this Hellhole that seemed to be run by boy-fondlers trying to create fodder for the Banking industry. Both Ben and I were actually expelled from it !
Ben : Four of us were from the same school, but we really only came together after we’d all left… and then we tagged Steve on at the end.
Gareth : We actually got Steve from placing an advert in the NME. We got all these people wanting to audition, but we got tired of it after the second one, so we just said, He’ll do ! And he has done, for 37 years !
Ben : We’d had some earlier line-ups but this was the one that settled, around 1978-79. But, yeah, Steve was a stranger to us back then… and he still is !
Gareth : He fitted in very nicely, despite being shorter than the rest of us. The thing is, it’s a bit of a funny band, in that we’re all quite different, but at the same time there’s a thread that runs through all of it and Steve was able to tap into that.
Had any of you been in any bands before The Shapes ?
Gareth : I had, but I’d virtually given-up, because I’d been in a few bands where the only thing I can remember is the reek of patchouli oil ! Everything else about them just bored me to tears. They’d be into things like Yes, which, to this day, I still can’t stand. I was into T-Rex and The Sweet and I was considered only a minor talent because of that. There was a large amount of musical snobbery back then, so it wasn’t until punk and new wave came along that I was re-energised to start playing again. I know that’s a cliché and I’m sure you hear it from a lot of people, but that really was how it was. I think a lot of Punk grew out from the disaffected kids who’d been into that earlier Glam movement. They wanted something that was more fun and encapsulated their lives.
Ben : I started going down to London and went to the Kings Road a few times. I ended up seeing the Pistols in November 76, which was the big revelation for me, seeing my generation getting up onstage, singing and playing for themselves. Before that, my only musical involvement had been cello lessons !
Gareth : Ben was really my conduit into the wider world of punk, because we came from a town that was a nice place to come from, but was also very safe and conservative. I got to meet Ben from the motorcycle community…
Ben : Weeelll…. moped community…..
Gareth : We knew each other to chat to, occasionally, and I remember after we started getting into this new music, he cut my hair and I cut his hair, so we were the only two visible Punks in Leamington Spa ! He shared his record collection with me, cos he was a few months ahead of the curve, and that got me up to speed. That’s where it all started for us, but then we seemed to spend forever trying to put a band together, despite the gales of indifference and discouragement from everyone around us.
Ben : We started to put The Shapes together, but then there was a bit of a hiatus, as Gareth went off to university. While he was away, I sorta kept it going and I think that was when I thought up the name for it, but I was only really doing it with short-term personnel who were later jettisoned. It wasn’t until Gareth came back that we managed to put-out the ‘Part of The Furniture’ EP, by selling his motorbike ! I have to credit Gareth with that because although we’d played around Leamington a lot, that got us onto John Peel, and without that, nothing else would’ve happened.
Gareth : But I’d also have to credit Ben with having the vision of how The Shapes should look and sound. I mean, any number of bands were putting out their own records around that time, and they were great little documents of the time, but Ben created the general aesthetic of what we were doing. We sorta staked out our own little territory and drew people into it, rather than just sounding like everyone else.
There was certainly something very unique about The Shapes, an almost graphic image, in some ways similar to the way Devo created an integral image to accompany their music and lyrics…
Ben : I came up with those heads, and that was very successful for us.... the NME even printed that picture on their back page.
Brian : I remember people seeing that picture and asking if we were like The Residents ? No, we just had access to cardboard and scissors ! But I think the thing was, there was a brief period before all the pretenders started coming along, cutting their hair and affecting cockney accents while singing about being on the dole… We would never have been able to do that, because we were really privileged, middle class children, and much that we thought that sucked big time, there was no way we could pretend otherwise. There was a lot of fraudulence going on, as there still is, but there was no way me and him could ever stand up there singing about how hard it was to be on the dole, when we were actually living in quite nice houses… So we had to sing about things we knew, which were stupidity, Daleks and Batman, the things that had sustained us during our youth. I mean, some of the bands around at the time, they may have sounded good, but you also got the feeling that there was going to be a test about the lyrics after they finished ! To be fair, that had it’s place, but it just wasn’t us. We didn’t have those interests.
Gareth : I had, but I’d virtually given-up, because I’d been in a few bands where the only thing I can remember is the reek of patchouli oil ! Everything else about them just bored me to tears. They’d be into things like Yes, which, to this day, I still can’t stand. I was into T-Rex and The Sweet and I was considered only a minor talent because of that. There was a large amount of musical snobbery back then, so it wasn’t until punk and new wave came along that I was re-energised to start playing again. I know that’s a cliché and I’m sure you hear it from a lot of people, but that really was how it was. I think a lot of Punk grew out from the disaffected kids who’d been into that earlier Glam movement. They wanted something that was more fun and encapsulated their lives.
Ben : I started going down to London and went to the Kings Road a few times. I ended up seeing the Pistols in November 76, which was the big revelation for me, seeing my generation getting up onstage, singing and playing for themselves. Before that, my only musical involvement had been cello lessons !
Gareth : Ben was really my conduit into the wider world of punk, because we came from a town that was a nice place to come from, but was also very safe and conservative. I got to meet Ben from the motorcycle community…
Ben : Weeelll…. moped community…..
Gareth : We knew each other to chat to, occasionally, and I remember after we started getting into this new music, he cut my hair and I cut his hair, so we were the only two visible Punks in Leamington Spa ! He shared his record collection with me, cos he was a few months ahead of the curve, and that got me up to speed. That’s where it all started for us, but then we seemed to spend forever trying to put a band together, despite the gales of indifference and discouragement from everyone around us.
Ben : We started to put The Shapes together, but then there was a bit of a hiatus, as Gareth went off to university. While he was away, I sorta kept it going and I think that was when I thought up the name for it, but I was only really doing it with short-term personnel who were later jettisoned. It wasn’t until Gareth came back that we managed to put-out the ‘Part of The Furniture’ EP, by selling his motorbike ! I have to credit Gareth with that because although we’d played around Leamington a lot, that got us onto John Peel, and without that, nothing else would’ve happened.
Gareth : But I’d also have to credit Ben with having the vision of how The Shapes should look and sound. I mean, any number of bands were putting out their own records around that time, and they were great little documents of the time, but Ben created the general aesthetic of what we were doing. We sorta staked out our own little territory and drew people into it, rather than just sounding like everyone else.
There was certainly something very unique about The Shapes, an almost graphic image, in some ways similar to the way Devo created an integral image to accompany their music and lyrics…
Ben : I came up with those heads, and that was very successful for us.... the NME even printed that picture on their back page.
Brian : I remember people seeing that picture and asking if we were like The Residents ? No, we just had access to cardboard and scissors ! But I think the thing was, there was a brief period before all the pretenders started coming along, cutting their hair and affecting cockney accents while singing about being on the dole… We would never have been able to do that, because we were really privileged, middle class children, and much that we thought that sucked big time, there was no way we could pretend otherwise. There was a lot of fraudulence going on, as there still is, but there was no way me and him could ever stand up there singing about how hard it was to be on the dole, when we were actually living in quite nice houses… So we had to sing about things we knew, which were stupidity, Daleks and Batman, the things that had sustained us during our youth. I mean, some of the bands around at the time, they may have sounded good, but you also got the feeling that there was going to be a test about the lyrics after they finished ! To be fair, that had it’s place, but it just wasn’t us. We didn’t have those interests.
I read that EMI took an early, if dubious, interest in The Shapes, even prior to the first EP…
Gareth : That was probably the turning point for us. The record industry had resisted Punk at first, but once it became clear that it was going to be lucrative, they leapt-in and tried to co-opt it. Basically, anyone with spiky hair was getting signed-up and we got propositioned by EMI. But they tried to put us through the wringer… they gave us their own writers, which we didn’t want, and then we realised that they didn’t actually want us to record at all, they just wanted us to front some horrible act, you know, some bunch of horrible old EMI muso’s having a laugh !
Not that the record industry tries to do that sort thing these days…
Gareth : Exactly ! Nothing ever changes ! Then we found out that they wanted us to change our name to ‘The Racket’, to put out this silly single they had planned. We would have been fools to go along with it, because we wouldn’t have been paid much at all and we would have been utterly destroyed as our own band. So we just couldn’t do it. The problem was that the other three who were in the band with us at that point got really mad with me and Ben because we refused to do it, and they quit. So the whole thing imploded and we were left just as a two-piece. That was when we said, screw it, we can either give up all together, or we can carry on with what we wanted to do in the first place. It was sheer bloody-mindedness, because we didn’t want to let these people stop us. So, we found new people, I sold my motorbike to finance our own EP, and we went on. Once we disengaged from the music industry and did it on our own terms, that was when we found that it really worked for us. So we just threw it out there to see if anyone else would like it.
Ben : And that worked as well, because the record got played by Peel, Kid Jensen and Annie Nightingale… for a few months it seemed like you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing us ! It always helped a huge amount if someone like Peel played your single, because it meant 3 million people had heard you and then they’d have an idea of what they’d be hearing if they came to one of your gigs. EMI just turned out to be a total waste of time but we found out that you just didn’t need that, because we started our own record label and ended up with people like Peel playing it on Radio One.
Gareth : We just became more committed to doing it our own way and putting it out, after all the rubbish with EMI.
Ben : We were also very lucky to have John Rivers in Leamington, who was a very good producer. He also did Swell Maps and even worked with The Specials later on. I think he did a really good production for us, even though it was only on four track. He really taught us how to record, as before then I didn’t know a thing about guide vocals or doubling-up and things like that. He taught us that stuff through studio work, and that’s what really helped us how to sound like The Shapes, to a great extent. We recorded those tracks back in February 79, and then, suddenly, we could hear them and say, Wow, that’s us !
What sort of reaction did you get when you first started to play more regularly ?
Gareth : At first, we got some negative attitudes, but I think that was just because people heard we were a punk band and expected us to be rolling around on the floor and spitting. Also, early on, we weren’t really very good, because we were still learning. Once the single was out, we started getting our own crowd and suddenly we weren’t playing to indifference or hostility. I mean, we had been attacked on a few occasions early on, but once the single started to be a bit better known, we started to get our own crowd which was a lot more pleasant.
Ben : I think we were a bit lucky because we ended up with some quite talented musicians. Gareth had been playing around for ages, Dave was a great drummer. Tim was a naturally talented guitarist and Steve could really play his licks. So after a short time, we could actually get up onstage and play pretty well. We’d still make a few mistakes, but it was all about the energy we put across, and being reasonable musicians, it’s a lot easier to do that.
Gareth : That was one of the really exciting things about it. You had bands like the Buzzcocks who were totally different to the Banshees, who were totally different to the Stranglers, who were totally different to The Damned… But it was all under this general heading of ‘Punk’, and there was this beautiful period of about 18 months when anything went, before it all clamped down.
Gareth : That was probably the turning point for us. The record industry had resisted Punk at first, but once it became clear that it was going to be lucrative, they leapt-in and tried to co-opt it. Basically, anyone with spiky hair was getting signed-up and we got propositioned by EMI. But they tried to put us through the wringer… they gave us their own writers, which we didn’t want, and then we realised that they didn’t actually want us to record at all, they just wanted us to front some horrible act, you know, some bunch of horrible old EMI muso’s having a laugh !
Not that the record industry tries to do that sort thing these days…
Gareth : Exactly ! Nothing ever changes ! Then we found out that they wanted us to change our name to ‘The Racket’, to put out this silly single they had planned. We would have been fools to go along with it, because we wouldn’t have been paid much at all and we would have been utterly destroyed as our own band. So we just couldn’t do it. The problem was that the other three who were in the band with us at that point got really mad with me and Ben because we refused to do it, and they quit. So the whole thing imploded and we were left just as a two-piece. That was when we said, screw it, we can either give up all together, or we can carry on with what we wanted to do in the first place. It was sheer bloody-mindedness, because we didn’t want to let these people stop us. So, we found new people, I sold my motorbike to finance our own EP, and we went on. Once we disengaged from the music industry and did it on our own terms, that was when we found that it really worked for us. So we just threw it out there to see if anyone else would like it.
Ben : And that worked as well, because the record got played by Peel, Kid Jensen and Annie Nightingale… for a few months it seemed like you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing us ! It always helped a huge amount if someone like Peel played your single, because it meant 3 million people had heard you and then they’d have an idea of what they’d be hearing if they came to one of your gigs. EMI just turned out to be a total waste of time but we found out that you just didn’t need that, because we started our own record label and ended up with people like Peel playing it on Radio One.
Gareth : We just became more committed to doing it our own way and putting it out, after all the rubbish with EMI.
Ben : We were also very lucky to have John Rivers in Leamington, who was a very good producer. He also did Swell Maps and even worked with The Specials later on. I think he did a really good production for us, even though it was only on four track. He really taught us how to record, as before then I didn’t know a thing about guide vocals or doubling-up and things like that. He taught us that stuff through studio work, and that’s what really helped us how to sound like The Shapes, to a great extent. We recorded those tracks back in February 79, and then, suddenly, we could hear them and say, Wow, that’s us !
What sort of reaction did you get when you first started to play more regularly ?
Gareth : At first, we got some negative attitudes, but I think that was just because people heard we were a punk band and expected us to be rolling around on the floor and spitting. Also, early on, we weren’t really very good, because we were still learning. Once the single was out, we started getting our own crowd and suddenly we weren’t playing to indifference or hostility. I mean, we had been attacked on a few occasions early on, but once the single started to be a bit better known, we started to get our own crowd which was a lot more pleasant.
Ben : I think we were a bit lucky because we ended up with some quite talented musicians. Gareth had been playing around for ages, Dave was a great drummer. Tim was a naturally talented guitarist and Steve could really play his licks. So after a short time, we could actually get up onstage and play pretty well. We’d still make a few mistakes, but it was all about the energy we put across, and being reasonable musicians, it’s a lot easier to do that.
Gareth : That was one of the really exciting things about it. You had bands like the Buzzcocks who were totally different to the Banshees, who were totally different to the Stranglers, who were totally different to The Damned… But it was all under this general heading of ‘Punk’, and there was this beautiful period of about 18 months when anything went, before it all clamped down.
You got to play with bands as varied as The Cure, The Fall and The Killjoys… they were all bands doing their own thing within that initial scene…
Gareth : We were the perennial support act. These bands would show up to play somewhere and when they came offstage from their soundcheck we’d be standing there saying ‘Hello’ because we’d basically invited ourselves along to play ! We were at that point where people sorta knew about us, but we weren’t big enough to headline.
Ben : I had a bit of a turning point after we played with the Killjoys, because Kevin Rowland came up to me after we’d played and said I was a really good frontman. It changed things for me, to get that kind of validation from someone like him. Of course, he went on to do a lot more stuff, but it was really great to get something like that from him. I mean, I only really ended up as the singer by accident, just because we needed someone to do it. I’d just crazy-coloured my hair at the time and looked kinda punky. But I appreciated that, because it does take some effort to be a front person, and you do have to carry a lot of stuff on stage.
Lyrically, your songs were very narrative and seemed to have a ‘comic’ approach, rather than being a ‘comedy band’…
Gareth : Well, we were very much in our own little sphere. There weren’t really many others doing that sorta stuff, although later on we kinda got lumped-in with that sort-lived ‘punk-pathetique’ hype, you know, bands like Splodge and the Toy Dolls. But we were nothing to do with that. I don’t know about the others, but I certainly didn’t want to be called ‘pathetic’ after the amount of work I’d put into the band ! Some bands were happy to grab onto it like a lifebelt, but it always annoys me when people try to lump us in on it.
Ben : It’s as bad as calling us ‘whimsical’…
Gareth ; We all had our little obsessions… I was really into The Rezillos, Steve was into Deep Purple and The Shadows ! But there weren’t really many bands we were influenced by. There’s been bands since then who have done similar things, but there weren’t really any bands doing those sorta songs in that raw, Buzzcock-style that we did. I expect you could pick out some of our influences, but it’s nice that the end results are more than just the sum of them.
Your second single, ‘Blast Off’, came out on Good Vibrations (making it the second release on Terri Hooley’s label from an English band, following Watfords’ finest, The Bears…) How did that come about ?
Ben : He came to Leamington to see us…
Gareth : We’d been shopping the second single around, trying to get someone else to put it out for us, because by then we were gigging so much that we just didn’t have enough time to do it properly ourselves.
Ben : The first EP had problems because we couldn’t press them as quickly as the demand that was happening. We were pressing them at 1000 a time, but once John Peel started playing it, we could’ve probably done 5000 each time and still sold them, because the distributors were screaming for it. But we just didn’t know… So when Terri Hooley came along, we thought it would be a bit more like a proper record company. We decided to take a back seat to let him deal with it, so we could just concentrate on the music. Of course, Good Vibrations probably wasn’t as organised as we thought at the time, but in retrospect, it didn’t really matter, because it was still a part of the fabric and the culture that we were in. We ended up being able to go to Belfast to play with The Saints at the Ulster Hall, and it was just an absolute thrill. We’d all grown up watching the news, telling us it was such a troubled place, but we met some really lovely people in Belfast. Really good-hearted people, even though we’d be talking to them as armoured-cars rolled past. To me, it didn’t matter that Good Vibrations wasn’t massively successful, it was such a great experience and it was very enriching. I think that’s the thing that people forget. Music has become such a money-machine, but back then, you could still slip through the net and do it for the experience, just for the Hell of it.
You also recorded a third single which was lined-up to be released by Good Vibrations, but the band came to an end before it saw the light of day…
Gareth : Well, by then, there just didn’t seem to be much interest in us. We were still based in Leamington Spa, which is only nine miles away from Coventry, and all of a sudden, Two Tone exploded and it seemed like everyone had a pork-pie hat. The writing was on the wall for bands like us… I remember we played a gig at Dingwalls and I thought it was one of the best gigs we’d ever done. We got called back for several encores and everything, but then I read a review of it that just said, ‘Shambolic’. I mean, we were shambolic, but in a good way ! But it quickly became clear that the knives were out for bands like us. It really felt like we were swimming against the tide, playing smaller venues and going back to supporting other bands… We didn’t want it to end like that, so we just put it on stand-by.
Ben : And we went our different ways. I’d put my interests in Art on hold while we did The Shapes, but then I ended up getting a place at Goldsmiths and I fucking loved it ! Tim also went to Chelsea to study painting, Steve moved to Andover and working with horses…
Gareth : I stayed in the music business and ended up in a couple of quite successful Heavy metal bands… although that’s only successful in as far as, they made money for other people. And after that, I emigrated to the United States and I’ve been living there for 22 years…
Gareth : We were the perennial support act. These bands would show up to play somewhere and when they came offstage from their soundcheck we’d be standing there saying ‘Hello’ because we’d basically invited ourselves along to play ! We were at that point where people sorta knew about us, but we weren’t big enough to headline.
Ben : I had a bit of a turning point after we played with the Killjoys, because Kevin Rowland came up to me after we’d played and said I was a really good frontman. It changed things for me, to get that kind of validation from someone like him. Of course, he went on to do a lot more stuff, but it was really great to get something like that from him. I mean, I only really ended up as the singer by accident, just because we needed someone to do it. I’d just crazy-coloured my hair at the time and looked kinda punky. But I appreciated that, because it does take some effort to be a front person, and you do have to carry a lot of stuff on stage.
Lyrically, your songs were very narrative and seemed to have a ‘comic’ approach, rather than being a ‘comedy band’…
Gareth : Well, we were very much in our own little sphere. There weren’t really many others doing that sorta stuff, although later on we kinda got lumped-in with that sort-lived ‘punk-pathetique’ hype, you know, bands like Splodge and the Toy Dolls. But we were nothing to do with that. I don’t know about the others, but I certainly didn’t want to be called ‘pathetic’ after the amount of work I’d put into the band ! Some bands were happy to grab onto it like a lifebelt, but it always annoys me when people try to lump us in on it.
Ben : It’s as bad as calling us ‘whimsical’…
Gareth ; We all had our little obsessions… I was really into The Rezillos, Steve was into Deep Purple and The Shadows ! But there weren’t really many bands we were influenced by. There’s been bands since then who have done similar things, but there weren’t really any bands doing those sorta songs in that raw, Buzzcock-style that we did. I expect you could pick out some of our influences, but it’s nice that the end results are more than just the sum of them.
Your second single, ‘Blast Off’, came out on Good Vibrations (making it the second release on Terri Hooley’s label from an English band, following Watfords’ finest, The Bears…) How did that come about ?
Ben : He came to Leamington to see us…
Gareth : We’d been shopping the second single around, trying to get someone else to put it out for us, because by then we were gigging so much that we just didn’t have enough time to do it properly ourselves.
Ben : The first EP had problems because we couldn’t press them as quickly as the demand that was happening. We were pressing them at 1000 a time, but once John Peel started playing it, we could’ve probably done 5000 each time and still sold them, because the distributors were screaming for it. But we just didn’t know… So when Terri Hooley came along, we thought it would be a bit more like a proper record company. We decided to take a back seat to let him deal with it, so we could just concentrate on the music. Of course, Good Vibrations probably wasn’t as organised as we thought at the time, but in retrospect, it didn’t really matter, because it was still a part of the fabric and the culture that we were in. We ended up being able to go to Belfast to play with The Saints at the Ulster Hall, and it was just an absolute thrill. We’d all grown up watching the news, telling us it was such a troubled place, but we met some really lovely people in Belfast. Really good-hearted people, even though we’d be talking to them as armoured-cars rolled past. To me, it didn’t matter that Good Vibrations wasn’t massively successful, it was such a great experience and it was very enriching. I think that’s the thing that people forget. Music has become such a money-machine, but back then, you could still slip through the net and do it for the experience, just for the Hell of it.
You also recorded a third single which was lined-up to be released by Good Vibrations, but the band came to an end before it saw the light of day…
Gareth : Well, by then, there just didn’t seem to be much interest in us. We were still based in Leamington Spa, which is only nine miles away from Coventry, and all of a sudden, Two Tone exploded and it seemed like everyone had a pork-pie hat. The writing was on the wall for bands like us… I remember we played a gig at Dingwalls and I thought it was one of the best gigs we’d ever done. We got called back for several encores and everything, but then I read a review of it that just said, ‘Shambolic’. I mean, we were shambolic, but in a good way ! But it quickly became clear that the knives were out for bands like us. It really felt like we were swimming against the tide, playing smaller venues and going back to supporting other bands… We didn’t want it to end like that, so we just put it on stand-by.
Ben : And we went our different ways. I’d put my interests in Art on hold while we did The Shapes, but then I ended up getting a place at Goldsmiths and I fucking loved it ! Tim also went to Chelsea to study painting, Steve moved to Andover and working with horses…
Gareth : I stayed in the music business and ended up in a couple of quite successful Heavy metal bands… although that’s only successful in as far as, they made money for other people. And after that, I emigrated to the United States and I’ve been living there for 22 years…
Overground Records released the ‘Songs For Sensible People’ CD in 1998, compiling the singles and other original recordings. Had there ever been any other interst in re-issuing the old material ?
Ben : No… but we were actually very lucky, because Gareth had stolen all of the old master tapes and we had all 47 minutes of original music… No, I don’t mean stolen, I mean, he took them to keep them safe…
Gareth : Yes, I’m a bit OCD like that ! Even though I’d moved around, I still had everything. All the tapes and acetates, and I could never bring myself to throw it away. So it was great, we could get it all re-mastered.
Ben : One of the things I really appreciated when Overground released the CD, was that we were able to get in touch with MCPS. It turned out that our old songs had been assigned to ‘unknown’, so it was really nice to get our names back on them. That’s where I’m very grateful, because the CD really helped to put the record straight. Even the booklet that came with it was great, because I was able to include all the old pictures and artwork.
But it still took another ten years before you decided to play together again…
Ben : One of the guys from the Rebellion Festival was coming down to Hastings, where I live, for a Crazy Golf convention, and somehow he got in touch with me. We met up at a pub and had a chat about The Shapes playing, and I said, Why not ? He offered us this gig in London and it was the kinda thing that we would’ve craved back then, you know, a big gig at a big venue, with a line-up of bands that we had grown up with… The Damned, 999, Johnny Moped… Once we decided to do that, we thought it would also be nice to do it again in Leamington, so we arranged to do a gig at a Community Centre and all the proceeds went back into that. But it was really just a case of phoning everyone and finding out that everyone was up for it.
Gareth : I was amazed when we all got back in the same room to rehearse. We hadn’t been together for 27 years, but within an hour, we were playing through the whole set. It all came back very, very quickly.
Ben : It’s as if it’s wired-in.
It certainly must have worked out, because between your original career and 2008, there was a 27 year gap, but there’s only been a 6 year wait for these gigs !
Ben : One of the weird things this time was that, because of all the new social media, we played out first gig and then watched it on Youtube the next morning, and it was strange to see that we were really doing it. This time around, it’s almost like having a holiday. We’re aware of what we have to do, from the last time, so we can just enjoy it. I think a lot of people would give their eye-teeth to be able to go around the country for a week, playing gigs for an audience.
Gareth : Looking back, we’ve got nothing to prove now. People who remember us are happy that we still do this, occasionally, and we’re happy to do it for them.
Ben : But even now, this year, we’ve had the two EPs reissued, we’ve had Soul Jazz release a track on one of their compilations, and Overground are releasing the LP on vinyl. So, it’s still rolling on. And for these gigs we’ve been very lucky, because we’ve been able to drag two old songs out of the closet, ‘We’re Not Very Famous’ and ‘Don’t Play Tennis’, which were both on an old rehearsal tape from 1979. We’ve managed to piece them back together and we can play them live again, which is another thrill, to add something new to what we’re playing now, and to know that they’re very much in the same spirit as to what we were playing back then. I mean, there are a few other things that we long-since jettisoned and I wouldn’t want anything to do with now, but these two just seem to work in that old, wacky, self-effacing way…
Ben : No… but we were actually very lucky, because Gareth had stolen all of the old master tapes and we had all 47 minutes of original music… No, I don’t mean stolen, I mean, he took them to keep them safe…
Gareth : Yes, I’m a bit OCD like that ! Even though I’d moved around, I still had everything. All the tapes and acetates, and I could never bring myself to throw it away. So it was great, we could get it all re-mastered.
Ben : One of the things I really appreciated when Overground released the CD, was that we were able to get in touch with MCPS. It turned out that our old songs had been assigned to ‘unknown’, so it was really nice to get our names back on them. That’s where I’m very grateful, because the CD really helped to put the record straight. Even the booklet that came with it was great, because I was able to include all the old pictures and artwork.
But it still took another ten years before you decided to play together again…
Ben : One of the guys from the Rebellion Festival was coming down to Hastings, where I live, for a Crazy Golf convention, and somehow he got in touch with me. We met up at a pub and had a chat about The Shapes playing, and I said, Why not ? He offered us this gig in London and it was the kinda thing that we would’ve craved back then, you know, a big gig at a big venue, with a line-up of bands that we had grown up with… The Damned, 999, Johnny Moped… Once we decided to do that, we thought it would also be nice to do it again in Leamington, so we arranged to do a gig at a Community Centre and all the proceeds went back into that. But it was really just a case of phoning everyone and finding out that everyone was up for it.
Gareth : I was amazed when we all got back in the same room to rehearse. We hadn’t been together for 27 years, but within an hour, we were playing through the whole set. It all came back very, very quickly.
Ben : It’s as if it’s wired-in.
It certainly must have worked out, because between your original career and 2008, there was a 27 year gap, but there’s only been a 6 year wait for these gigs !
Ben : One of the weird things this time was that, because of all the new social media, we played out first gig and then watched it on Youtube the next morning, and it was strange to see that we were really doing it. This time around, it’s almost like having a holiday. We’re aware of what we have to do, from the last time, so we can just enjoy it. I think a lot of people would give their eye-teeth to be able to go around the country for a week, playing gigs for an audience.
Gareth : Looking back, we’ve got nothing to prove now. People who remember us are happy that we still do this, occasionally, and we’re happy to do it for them.
Ben : But even now, this year, we’ve had the two EPs reissued, we’ve had Soul Jazz release a track on one of their compilations, and Overground are releasing the LP on vinyl. So, it’s still rolling on. And for these gigs we’ve been very lucky, because we’ve been able to drag two old songs out of the closet, ‘We’re Not Very Famous’ and ‘Don’t Play Tennis’, which were both on an old rehearsal tape from 1979. We’ve managed to piece them back together and we can play them live again, which is another thrill, to add something new to what we’re playing now, and to know that they’re very much in the same spirit as to what we were playing back then. I mean, there are a few other things that we long-since jettisoned and I wouldn’t want anything to do with now, but these two just seem to work in that old, wacky, self-effacing way…
How would you feel about writing or recording anything now ?
Ben : Actually, I was talking to someone about that and they said it usually doesn’t work. But we did talk about going into a studio during this tour, although it hasn’t happened, because I’d like to prove that wrong. I wanted to record a couple of the old songs and make them still viable. But as far as brand new songs, I’m not sure if we’ll ever go there…
Gareth : But who knows ? We never thought anyone would want to hear from us again, but Overground got in touch and the CD came out. And we certainly never thought we’d play again, but that’s what happened in 2008, and here we are now. So, I’d never say ‘never’… it might happen because, recording nowadays, you don’t even have to all be in the same studio. You can do it with Pro-Tools and stuff... So it might happen… we’re not going to make any promises, but if it does, we’ll see how it goes.
Ben : I work primarily as an Artist these days, so I concentrate on that, but The Shapes are always going to pop their heads up from time to time.
Gareth : We’re never going to shake it, so we might as well embrace it !
Ben : If you read the booklet with the CD, we stated right at the end, we never actually split-up, we just disappeared…
Gareth : There was never any defining moment of betrayal or unhappiness that rent us asunder, so that made it a lot easier for us when we decided to come back. We’re all different people now, but at the core of it are still the same things that have kept us in each others’ orbits. We are all older, we’re all doing different things, but when we get together, we’re still The Shapes. The same stupidity emerges, the same banter, the same conflicts… and I wouldn’t want it any other way because without it, we’d be incredibly dull and this wouldn’t be any fun to do.
There seems no better place to end the interview and so, with plans for food on everyone’s minds, we all disperse in different directions. Myself, I head back down to Brixton station to meet Tom and Gaye, and then we wander around various backstreets before finding a really nice little place for a meal. It’s lovely to relax like this, especially on such a warm evening. Once done, we head back upto the Windmill, catch a little of the support set by Monkish (sounding good) and have a few drinks until it’s time for The Shapes.
There’s a reasonable crowd in attendance, a mixture of old friends, old fans and the curious. Starting out with ‘Let’s Go To Planet Skaro’, the band sound great from the outset. Playing all of the songs from the CD, plus the aforementioned ‘We’re Not Very famous’ and ‘Don’t Play Tennis’, we certainly get our money’s worth ! In fact, we even get two versions of ‘Airline Disaster’ when a temporary power-cut brings the first attempt to a premature end. Once the ‘leccy comes back up, they try again and get all the way to the end this time ! It’s a mix of punk, pop and humour that’s totally idiosyncratic, too smart and creative to be merely ‘comedy’, but also too uniquely eccentric to fit into any easy punk pigeonhole. And that’s exactly where there charm lays. ‘Blast Off’ ends their main set, while the encore teases the audience with ‘Alien Love’ before the inevitable ‘Wot’s For Lunch Mum ?’ Classic stuff, full of character and packed with great songs. If you’ve never heard them for yourself, it’s time to do so, now. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get a chance to see them live…
Ben : Actually, I was talking to someone about that and they said it usually doesn’t work. But we did talk about going into a studio during this tour, although it hasn’t happened, because I’d like to prove that wrong. I wanted to record a couple of the old songs and make them still viable. But as far as brand new songs, I’m not sure if we’ll ever go there…
Gareth : But who knows ? We never thought anyone would want to hear from us again, but Overground got in touch and the CD came out. And we certainly never thought we’d play again, but that’s what happened in 2008, and here we are now. So, I’d never say ‘never’… it might happen because, recording nowadays, you don’t even have to all be in the same studio. You can do it with Pro-Tools and stuff... So it might happen… we’re not going to make any promises, but if it does, we’ll see how it goes.
Ben : I work primarily as an Artist these days, so I concentrate on that, but The Shapes are always going to pop their heads up from time to time.
Gareth : We’re never going to shake it, so we might as well embrace it !
Ben : If you read the booklet with the CD, we stated right at the end, we never actually split-up, we just disappeared…
Gareth : There was never any defining moment of betrayal or unhappiness that rent us asunder, so that made it a lot easier for us when we decided to come back. We’re all different people now, but at the core of it are still the same things that have kept us in each others’ orbits. We are all older, we’re all doing different things, but when we get together, we’re still The Shapes. The same stupidity emerges, the same banter, the same conflicts… and I wouldn’t want it any other way because without it, we’d be incredibly dull and this wouldn’t be any fun to do.
There seems no better place to end the interview and so, with plans for food on everyone’s minds, we all disperse in different directions. Myself, I head back down to Brixton station to meet Tom and Gaye, and then we wander around various backstreets before finding a really nice little place for a meal. It’s lovely to relax like this, especially on such a warm evening. Once done, we head back upto the Windmill, catch a little of the support set by Monkish (sounding good) and have a few drinks until it’s time for The Shapes.
There’s a reasonable crowd in attendance, a mixture of old friends, old fans and the curious. Starting out with ‘Let’s Go To Planet Skaro’, the band sound great from the outset. Playing all of the songs from the CD, plus the aforementioned ‘We’re Not Very famous’ and ‘Don’t Play Tennis’, we certainly get our money’s worth ! In fact, we even get two versions of ‘Airline Disaster’ when a temporary power-cut brings the first attempt to a premature end. Once the ‘leccy comes back up, they try again and get all the way to the end this time ! It’s a mix of punk, pop and humour that’s totally idiosyncratic, too smart and creative to be merely ‘comedy’, but also too uniquely eccentric to fit into any easy punk pigeonhole. And that’s exactly where there charm lays. ‘Blast Off’ ends their main set, while the encore teases the audience with ‘Alien Love’ before the inevitable ‘Wot’s For Lunch Mum ?’ Classic stuff, full of character and packed with great songs. If you’ve never heard them for yourself, it’s time to do so, now. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get a chance to see them live…
