An Interview with Rick Witter
York’s finest indie-rockers Shed Seven are celebrating an incredible 30 years of being an important part of the British music scene this year.
And, as well as embarking on their traditional, lengthy, bi-annual Shedcember tour they release Liquid Gold on 27th September. An orchestral-infused re-working of 12 of their greatest hits, it’s an incredible record and one that’ll sit proudly alongside the rest of their discography.
Ahead of the album launch, and the forthcoming tour, we caught up with frontman Rick Witter who, as always, was happy to chat candidly with On: Magazine…
Congratulations on 30 years of Shed Seven. How does that phrase ’30 years of Shed Seven’ make you feel?
Well, it’s actually 34 years since we actually formed. It’s 30 years since becoming recording artists, releasing records. And it’s a bit mad, really, because it seems to have gone in the blink of an eye. Even though we’ve done so much over the years, I’m just looking forward to the next 30, you know. I’m looking forward to speaking to you again in 30 years’ time, on our 60th anniversary! And then we will officially be the new Rolling Stones when we get to that point.
When you were writing songs and designing album covers with Paul in your bedroom or bursting onto the scene in the mid-90s, did you ever think that you’d be doing what you do for 30 years, and showing no signs of stopping?
No, not really, but you just never know what’s around the corner, do you? I mean, it’s one of those things, isn’t it, where you just latch onto something and don’t let go and hope for the best, really. As you’ve rightly said when me and Paul were kind of 12, and we were designing record sleeves for the songs we hadn’t written yet, it’s just a passion we’ve always had. So, to be able to do it for so long and still be kind of relevant so long into our career with new material and going down so well, it’s an amazing thing. And, you know, I’m probably guilty, certainly in the 90s in our first phase of success, of probably taking that for granted and being in my young 20s, thinking it’s all expected. “Yes, this is exactly how it should be” you know. Without realising through youth, that it is very fickle and anything can change at any time. Which, of course, it did towards the end of the 90s when Britpop kind of lost its flavour. So, to have this second bite and to be probably more popular now than we’ve ever been, is something that we’re all acknowledging and not taking for granted. And we’re trying to keep the momentum going and putting everything we possibly can into it without being too like overkill and being too much in people’s faces. I know it’s our 30th anniversary, so we are hammering the point home, and we’re doing as much as we can to celebrate everything that’s happening. But we’re also quite savvy, and we will kind of exit stage left for a few months and give people a little bit of breathing space from my face, which I think everybody needs, to be perfectly honest! But we’ll be back, believe me, we’ll be back.
image: Barnaby Fairley
“I’m singing songs I’ve not sang for about 30 years”
So you’re marking the 30 years with a tour. I’m seeing you in Halifax in November, but you’ve got a lot of dates packed into this one, and the tour starts with your in-store shows?
Yeah. So we are repeating what we did for A Matter Of Time. We’re going to go out and visit two record stores a day for the whole of the week of the release. Which last time was great fun. I mean, it’s just a great thing to be able to go out and meet the people who are buying your record, shake their hands, get their picture taken with them. Thank them for doing it. Because there is so much stuff out there people can buy. So, for people to choose to spend their hard-earned money on what we’re doing is a thrill, and it’s much appreciated. So again, it’s a way of thanking people, really. I mean, we’re in a room with people. I’ve noticed more and more people like it when we’re just in the room with them, you know? I used to get offered to go and DJ, and I think the DJ side of it was just an affront for actually me being in the room and being present and having chats with people and having a picture. I totally understand that and I get it. So yeah, we’re doing that, and then we’re revisiting our debut album, because it’s 30 years old this year. So we’re doing six shows playing that in its entirety, and we’re not really the kind of band that does that as a rule. It’s different for us, which makes it exciting. We’re doing six shows like that. We’ve spent the last weekend rehearsing that because there are certain songs we probably haven’t played off that debut album since it came out 30 years ago, and that was a bit weird! I’m singing songs that I’ve not sang for about 30 years…and I’m realising as I’m singing them, that I was a bit of a horny bugger way back in the day, lyrically wise! It’s a very it’s a very sexually frenzied kind of attack that album lyrically. And I’m wondering…will I get away with it as a 51-year-old singing, singing some of those songs? But we’re doing it, and I’m sure people will love it. It’s going like a celebratory hits kind of tour, just to round off the 30th anniversary.
So you’ve not played at Victoria Theatre in Halifax since April 17th, 2001 long time returning to that one. But are there any other venues you’re particularly looking forward to playing on this tour?
Well, I am really looking forward to going back to Halifax for that very reason. To be fair, there’s a lot of venues around the country that we go to regularly every other year, and they’re always just an amazing experience. And the funny thing is, I don’t know what it is about us…we’ve got a really good, strong fan base, and no disrespect to any cities or towns around the country, but we could find ourselves at Brixton Academy in London on a Saturday night, and it’s just an amazing gig. But then equally, we could be on in Blackburn on a drizzly Monday night, and the atmosphere is exactly the same in the room. I think it’s just us in a room playing our songs to people who really love us. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around us. It’s just all about that time in that space and it’s amazing. You know, none of us are getting any younger, so to do gigs on a Monday and a Tuesday night in areas of the country and people in that room…they’re forgetting about the fact they’ve got to get up for work the next day. They’re just in the moment and enjoying themselves. And, I do honestly think that’s the power and the quality of music. It takes you away from your everyday chores, you just forget about everything for a few hours and just listen to some great music, or go and see a great band. So there’s so many, so many venues that I’m looking forward to going back to for that very reason. And that goes for the top of the country in Aberdeen. We always go down, really great up there, right down to Margate. So there you go, all of it.
Since we last spoke before Bingley festival in 2018 we’ve obviously all been through Covid and lockdowns. You’ve had a number-one album. You sold out the FD arena. You’ve also had a lineup change as well. How has the band adjusted and adapted to Joe and Alan leaving for new things, especially Alan, who was part of the Shed’s furniture?
Well, Alan’s actually my brother-in-law as well, so obviously there’s a huge history there. Alan, over the past few years, has kind of been less and less enamoured about being in a band, regardless of what band he might have been in. You know, he had other irons in his fire, so he just kind of said “look, I’m not really that keen on it anymore” and you can’t make somebody do something they don’t want to do. So, you know, good luck with what you want to go on and achieve next in your life. But this is all I know what to do. Maxi and Tim have come in, and they’ve just been amazing. It’s given them a second wind in their life. It’s not really changed anything massively in that respect. We’re all professionals, we’re all getting on a bit. We understand that life is short and you’ve just got to cram as much as you can in while you’re eager. So fair play to anyone and what they want to do with their lives. But I just love standing on a stage singing those songs and it’s something I’ve always done, something that I always intend to do until I can’t anymore. So you know, you just roll with the punches of what you’re dealt with, really. And I think we’ve done that quite well.
“Revisit some of our hits, stick a big orchestra on it”
Liquid Gold. What a beautiful record. Where did the idea for an orchestral-inspired album come from?
RW: I think we had it in our heads a couple of years ago. We were thinking: Right…our 30th anniversary is coming up…we knew we were kind of on with a new studio album being A Matter Of Time, and we kind of knew that was going to come out at the beginning of the year. But we were a bit conscious of an ex-label wanting to re-release a greatest hits with different packaging. You know, we’ve already had two or three different Greatest Hits over the years, and we just thought that’s taking the Mickey really out of our fan base if another one comes out with different artwork. We wanted to counteract that so we thought, why don’t we go back in the studio, revisit some of our old hits, stick a big orchestra on it, not massively change the songs, but just have a look at the arrangements. Kind of bring them up to date, as in, if these songs never existed and we wrote them now, this is how we would have done it. So there’s slight changes to the arrangements, but nothing to really worry a Shed Seven fan who loves the original. Just solely so that we’re doing something different for our fans who don’t need to be buying the original recordings again. I mean, most of our fans will have two or three greatest hits, but they’ll also have the studio albums and the greatest hits were originally on and they’ll have the seven-inch singles. So this was our way of, kind of saying thank you to a lot of people who’ve spent a lot of money and time and energy and spent energy on us over the years, and the 30th year was the perfect time to do that.
How did you choose the tracks? Were there any songs you wanted to include but got shot down by the rest of the band? And are there any that were supposed to be included but just didn’t work?
RW: No, I think we all were on the same page. For example, ‘Going For Gold’ on there. And that was a big hit in the 90s, but there were no strings on it, and it was a big, big, quite a lot of brass-heavy, going for gold. So we knew we wanted to do that one, because adding strings takes the song off in a totally new direction. So to hear going for gold now, very string-laden, it’s still ‘Going For Gold’. It’s still the same song, but it just takes it off in a totally different direction. I’m saying that it’s got the feels. All these songs have got the feels. It’s like hairs standing up on the back of your neck, because the strings just bring so much to the party. So it was really great to hear that particular song. And then we thought ‘Parallel Lines’ which is an album track, but it was a great album track and we wanted to, kind of, we didn’t want the lush strings for that. We wanted to go a bit more Led Zeppelin/Cashmere, kind of string effects. And even ‘Getting Better’, the strings on ‘Getting Better’ are almost a bit Britney Spears‘ ‘Toxic’, you know. So we like to just throw everything into the pot and I think that’s what makes it a different kind of album, and throwing all of these different influences in there just kind of makes it a little bit more unique. But who knows? There might be a Liquid Gold 2 at some point, because we’ve got plenty of other songs in our back catalogue to dip into, and that’s the quality of having so many songs.
image: Andy Little
“Brings out all the feels”
Is there any particular track on the album that’s your favourite that you think has maybe worked the best on Liquid Gold?
RW: Well, I do favour ‘Ocean Pie’, which was our fourth single off our debut album. I do like that. I like the way we’ve kind of slightly shifted the arrangement. It just kind of seems to make more sense, and the strings in that are amazing. Again, it just brings out all the feels, I think, from after the second chorus to the end of that song takes you on its own little journey. So that is a very satisfying song for me.
Okay, last question. What’s the next milestone? And what can we expect next from Shed Seven?
RW: So we will go a little bit quiet at the beginning of next year, because we’ve hammered it this year, and we’ve been in everybody’s laps all year. I think people will probably appreciate having a little bit of time away from my face. So in that instance, we’ll probably just start toying with the idea of writing some new stuff for an album that we hope to maybe release in 2026. So we’re going to be busy, but behind the scenes busy, and then maybe through the summer of next year, we’ll do some festivals from that, put on one or two of our own outdoor shows. We’re going to still be around, but not as intensely, and the aim is to start writing some new material.
Liquid Gold by Shed Seven is out on September 27th, and the Shedcember tour visits Sheffield, Hull, Leeds and Halifax as part of an extensive UK tour – tickets here
Top image: Chris Little
