OK, so it wasn't the biggest comeback in the history of pop music - that distinction must go to the Meat Loafs and the Tina Turners of the world - but for a band which had been all but washed away in the tide of Britpop, Suede have made a pretty smart, stylish re entry into the forefront of the 1990s pop scene.
Three years ago, Suede seemed destined for the scrapheap when guitarist and main music composer Bernard Butler suddenly quit the band on the eve of the release of their second album, Dog Man Star, leaving singer Brett Anderson, bassist Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert with a near masterpiece on their hands and a world tour on their appointments diary, not to mention a lot of bad vibes all round. Butler had been the band's Johnny Marr figure, its musical genius, while Brett Anderson was seen as a mere fop, a flashy, egotistical frontman who liked to experiment with drugs and write lyrics about kinky sex. Popular opinion had it that Suede would simply cease to be, in much the same way that The Smiths were negated by the severed alliance between Morrissey and Johnny Marr.
To everyone's surprise, however, the remaining members of Suede announced that they were looking for a guitarist to replace Bernard Butler, and that they hoped to have their new recruit ready to go on the road ASAP. A tall order, even for an accomplished, mature musician, so imagine the complete gobsmacking shock when Subdue revealed that their new wonder boy was an unknown 17 year old named Richard Oakes, a classically trained guitarist from Poole, Dorset, and a fan of the band. Jaws dropped - the general consensus was that Suede were clutching at straws, and flimsy, teenage straws at that. Dog fan Star finally came out near the end of 1994, but it was soon eclipsed by the debut album of an exciting new band which would grab our undivided attention for the next couple of years - Oasis.
Eighteen months later, just before Oasis were due to make their historic appearance at Knebworth, Suede released Trash, the first A side co written with Richard Oakes, and suddenly we had to bin all our preconceptions about this strange, unique band.
Trash was a glorious, glam tinged celebration of low life and high gloss, as immediate as Bowie's Rebel Rebel or Roxy Music's Street Life, and far classier than Blur's Country House. It went straight in at Number 3, proving that Suede had hit on a pop cocktail which tickled record buyers' tastes. Trash was three mascara - stained minutes of sheer sleaze - in other words, it was perfect pop. The Number One spot didn't deserve it. The band's third album, Coming Up, which followed soon after featured 12 songs co written by Brett Anderson and Richard Oakes, and it must have been feeling generous, because it went straight in at the top of the charts on the week of its release.
"It's weird, because I was very proud of it when we finished it, I thought it was a great record, but I had no idea how it was going to be received," says bassist Mat Osman. "When the first single came out, we really knew it was great, but at the same time our record company had a sweepstake on how high it would go in the charts, and some people were betting Number 5, and other people were betting as low as 25. We actually had no idea that it would tap into the public right away, so it was a cool thing."
YOU could forgive Suede for setting their expectations a little lower than usual - after all, they'd gone through a confidence shattering bust up which stopped them in mid swagger and forced them to turn tail and retreat. With all the stories surrounding the split, not to mention the intense media interest in Brett's alleged drug habits, it must have distorted some perceptions about the music of Suede.
"Oh, yeah, when we were releasing the last album it was like a circus show, and one of the nice things about this new album is that the first album was the `Suede hype' album, the second was the `Suede split' album, and this one just happened to be `album'. I think it's the first time in the band's life that we've had reviews about the album itself, and, not just a bunch of scare stories.
So did the image, the glamour and the drama, all the accessories which Suede liked to drape around their music, threaten to smother the band?
"Totally," agrees Mat. "When the first album came out, were probably more people who'd read about us and had an opinion. about us than had heard a record by us. And it just got to a ridiculous stage, because when the second album came out, everyone I spoke to had an opinion about what we should do and where we had gone wrong - and most of them hadn't even heard the album. And if there's one reason got into this, it was to make records. I have no interest in being a media star, or a kind of guru, so it was a very strange position to be in.
After the split with Butler, the band closed ranks.
"We got back to the very simplest things about being in a band." says Mat. "For six months we played live pretty much every night, and got that kind of mental link where we're not just five musicians stuck in a room, you are a band, you feel like a band you play like a band. And then we spent probably another four months just rehearsing every day and not being particularly precious about it, playing new songs, playing old songs, playing other people's songs, and no one was watching us, and no one was writing about us, and it felt like being 16 again, you know what I mean in a garage somewhere, just doing it for the love of it. And I think it was really good for us, I think it's the reason the record sounds like it does. I mean, when Richard joined, he was writing immediately, and he could play anything, so we could have just gone and recorded an album straight away just to keep our faces out there. But we wanted to kind of get back to basics, I guess, and start again as a band."
Notice that Mat says five musicians together in a room - surprise number two was sprung when the band announced the addition of a fifth member, keyboard player Neil Codling, cousin of drummer Simon Gilbert.
"It was very strange, because we kind of unveiled him at a fan club gig, we kind of just pulled the sheet off him and didn't tell anyone about it. I think the fans love him."
Love him? They absolutely worship him, so much so that there now exists a bona fide "cult of Neil".
"The only thing that's a bit of a shame about that is that there's a lot of stuff written about Neil and said about Neil, and they forget that he's a f---ing great musician. You know, he wrote two songs on the album straight off the bat, having just joined the band. He can play anything, you know, he played a bit of guitar on the album, he played keyboards, he sang - he's an all-rounder."
So now Suede are five, a true gang in a very Enid Blyton sense.
"We tend to be pretty tight together. Which you have to be, because you rely on each other a lot, you know, there's a lot of people who are part of the music scene, and hang out with other musicians and all that stuff, and if you don't have that, you've got to be pretty tight in yourselves, to keep your standards up."
