SILVER SUN
London powerpop geeks Silver Sun might only have had the spotlight on them for a brief number of years, but the impact they made within that time has certainly been long lasting. Now 23 years on from their self-titled treasure trove of a debut, since I started ‘Indie Heaven’ I’ve been besieged with emails saying variants on, “do Silver Sun!” Hey guys, I didn’t need any encouragement. They were a band who were amongst the very first names on the list from the very moment I decided to do this website.
It’s extremely unjust that not enough people know that the London band never really went away. Now on their sixth album, their last - Switzerland - was released just last April. I’m extremely grateful to singer and songwriter James Broad for finding time to speak to me, especially since he’s currently very ill.
If you can afford it, please please please put some money the way of Macmillan.
NB: Since conducting this interview, I’ve since learned that James has sadly passed away. I wrote some words about him for The Guardian, here. May his music live on forever.
Hey James. You would not believe how many people have asked me to get you on this website. Let’s start right at the beginning. What do you remember about the band forming - then getting signed. That happened pretty quickly, right?
“It was all a bit lucky to be honest. Alastair [Cunningham], who became our manager, was scouting around looking for bands for some film or other that he was involved with and was just phoning ads from either Melody Maker or Loot - I can’t remember. So i drove over to his house and dropped a demo we had just done through his letter box - I think it had ‘Last Day’ and ‘High Times’ on it - and then buggered off. He then called me raving about it and wondering why I hadn’t rung his doorbell and spoken to him. I’m way too shy to have done that. When Richard [Buckton, bass] and I put together another tape with ‘Lava’ and some other stuff on it he said he’d become our manager.”
I mean, it seems like the songs were there right from the off. How did the other boys come into the fold?
“We auditioned Paul [Smith, guitar] and Richard [Sayce] and us being us, I think they were probably pretty much the first people we saw. Then [manager] Al started shipping the demo around to record companies and we did a load of terrible gigs in shitty dives in Camden where you could never hear anything you were playing and eventually for some reason Polydor, London Records and a couple of others came knocking. The London Records boss took us to the River Cafe in Hammersmith in his Merc playing our tape at top volume on the way - it was fantastic. I think we should have gone with them but for some reason Polydor - who took us to a burger place somewhere - won out. I guess from getting Paul and Richard into the band and getting signed probably took months. But my memory is a bit vague on that. It’s bloody ages ago!”
It certainly is. Sob. The first record was co-produced by Nigel Godrich, which I believe was his first ever job. Was it apparent he would go onto such big things?
“He was very good at trying to recreate the sound of the demos and he didn’t try to embellish stuff too much. He pushed me very hard on the vocals - they’re all double tracked and so matching them all up perfectly took ages. I think it took about an hour to do the first line of ‘Golden Skin’. He wasn’t at all showy. When we had to take a trip up to London from the studio in Farnham we all went in the back of his ancient red ex-Post Office Sherpa Van. Think he’s probably upgraded from that now.”
So I absolutely love Jeff Cummins illustrations, who did the majority of your record sleeves, but I don’t know all that much about him. Tell me more?
“He’s a balding man who is simply a fantastic chap and is an amazing illustrator. I think he could have been much - much - more successful if he’d maybe had a better agent or had more confidence in himself. But he’s great. Haven’t seen him for ages though. Lives in the countryside in Wales now I think.”
The shirt you're wearing in the 'Last Day' video. Where did you get that and/or can I have it please? Thanks.
“I have no idea what that is. Let me check… Oh, the Chinese dragon one! I think I would have bought it in Camden or Portobello. Can’t remember if we had stylists forced on us at that point. I don’t think so. It was probably me just trying to find something that would stand out a bit. Ain’t got it any more.”
It’s okay. It wouldn’t fit me anyway. So the first record comes out in 1997. Did you ever feel part of the Britpop thing?
“We were part of the second wave - where the record companies were trying to find the next load of bands and were just signing all sorts of random stuff that didn’t really sound anything like the first wave. So no, I didn’t feel part of it at all. I think we would have been better being part of the American indie powerpop scene. Probably would have done much more on the college charts over there than the normal charts here.”
Jumping forward a bit, your second album, Neo Wave, is the only record not to feature a sleeve by Jeff Cummins. What’s that about?
“At that time everything was apparently needed almost immediately. I have no fucking idea why everything was always so last minute and i’m sure it didn’t need to be. I think our manager was a bit more friendly with Polydor than he should have been. He should have been telling them what to do rather than telling us what they wanted us to do. Therefore when the cover was needed I suppose part of it might have been me feeling we needed to make a change of some kind, because my head was so messed up by being in this constant whirlwind of decisions - which I regret now - and partly the stress of needing the cover quickly. I think we had the photo and then spent a late evening at the design company putting it all together. I really really wished we had used both Nigel [Godrich, the record was produced by Al Clay] and Jeff for Neo Wave.”
So here’s a question I’ve waited over 20 years to ask. What was a band who had as many brilliant original compositions as Silver Sun doing covering a Johnny Mathis song?
“I can’t really remember. I think we did it for fun as a b-side and then some fuckwit said, ‘Why don’t you do a covers EP!’ Not really my favourite thing we ever did. Although playing ‘Xanadu’ all the way through live in the studio was really good fun. And the Lincolnshire studio we recorded it at had excellent doughnuts.”
Also, on that very EP, you covered a song by one of my favourite bands, The Muffs…
“Excellent powerpop sung by a fantastic singer [Kim Shattuck], who will be sadly missed as she passed away this time last year of a horrid illness. She can scream as well as Ian Gillan. I have to thank my best friend Paul for introducing them to me back in the early nineties. They kind of sound like early Beatles being played by a female fronted Green Day.”
I’ve always wanted to ask, how much time did Silver Sun spend practicing harmonies? Dude, that shit was sweet!
“We all knew which harmony level we should be at. I was always singing the main line, Richard [Sayce] would sing the next one up and Richard [Buckton] did the high shit. It looks us ages to work out the arrangements. The ‘we built a fountain / it’s to wash our children in’ bit on ‘Service’. That took forever. Richard [Sayce] and I worked out most of the first album harmonies in my bedroom at home in Kingston. Used to drive my mum mad as she couldn’t hear the music we were trying to sing along to...”
Let’s get real for a second. All these years on, what do you think ‘Julia’ is doing?
“I don’t know if I have any idea about who she actually was. It was a collection of thoughts I had about holiday romances I think. She probably lives in Liverpool and has coronavirus.”
I thought it was extremely harsh when you got dropped by Polydor in 1999. What went on there?
“Money! We never made any for them.”
Fair, but it feels like you weren’t given much of an opportunity to really. How do you feel about Neo Wave with hindsight?
“Like I say, I wish we’d had Nigel [Godrich] produce it and Jeff [Cummins] do the artwork. I can’t really listen to any of our albums now so don’t really know how I feel about it apart from that. The songs are all pretty much as good as the first album I think. There’s a few changes I’d have made to ‘Sharks’. But everything else I’m proud of, in terms of the actual songs.”
This is another thing I’ve always wanted to ask. There’s a Lee Collard listed on a load of your songwriting credits. Who’s Lee Collard?
“He’s a friend from university who used to give me lyrics and I started using them for songs. He wrote most of the basic lyrics for the first album - apart from ‘Julia’ and ‘Far Out’ - although I did completely mangle them. Some are two songs joined together and some I added too. Same with Neo Wave, although I wrote more songs on that. Most of the stuff after that was all me.”
I guess that leads on to my next question. After the first two, some of the albums are all you. Some of them the band play on them. What informs that decision?
“Whether there’s any chance of them being able to. [2005’s] Disappear Here and onwards is all programmed drums as I didn’t really have the money or the time to go into a studio and record them. Plus we all started living miles away from each other so it was much harder to get together.”
Something that people might not know about you is that you sold bikes for a time. I think you sell t-shirts too…
“I imported some and sold them online for a time, but logistically it was a pain so I stuck with the t-shirts. It’s much more creative and a lot less hassle. The company is called Old Skool Hooligans.”
James, I was really sad to hear that you’re currently going through treatment for cancer. Firstly, sending you all the good health in the world. Secondly, how is it going?
“I have terminal cancer, unfortunately, so I probably have about four-years max left - unless someone comes up with something pretty impressive soon to fix me up. I am learning to live with that fact. It’s not easy. I don’t really worry about myself as such. It’s hard to worry about something you really don’t have any control over. I worry more about my wife, daughter and my mum who all kind of rely on me for various stuff. I’m doing all I can to try and sort all my shit out so they don’t have too much crap to do when I’m not around any more. Sorry to end this chat on a down note. I’m not walking around in a gloom all the time. I try and stay pretty positive. I haven’t done much recording as singing loud is quite hard, but I’m sure I’ll get around to some new stuff soon.”