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THEAUDIENCE

THE HISTORY

theaudience were a britpop-indie-rock group in the 90s, which were founded by guitarist Billy Reeves, who had formely worked as a press officer at Fire Records and also took part in another indie group called Congregation. The band actually started from a drunken bet. As Billy Reeves had worked for Fire Records, an indie label, he knew the Camden scene well and the staff at the NME and Melody Maker, both music magazines.

At that time, bands used to be signed by labels because they had pretty girls singing or simply guitars. So Billy thought it'd be easy to start a band and while he was having a conversation with two friends from Melody Maker, he placed a £100 bet with journalist Everett True, saying that he could create a band and that he would be signed.

All he need was: a pretty girl who could sing and everyone dressed in black. Then he started putting ads in the NME, The Stage and all replies were from models, about 70 tapes - all demos were really, really bad. It took long for Billy to find the right girl. Then, a friend introduced Sophie Ellis-Bextor to him in 1996 at Uncle's Bob Wedding Reception, where Billy used to DJ.

"I thought it was actually someone's wedding reception and I was really confused, wandering around and I suddenly found myself in the DJ booth. Billy was DJing that night. It was fate, I suppose", said Sophie.

When he first saw her, he thought she was too fantastic to be good, so she was bound to be shit. Sophie gave him her demo tape and Billy gave her his. When he got into his car, Billy put the demo tape on and he almost couldn't believe that she could sing like that. As soon as he heard her, he knew she was the one. After finding the singer, it was easier to find the other band members. He nicked the drummer from The Sundays, Patrick Hannan (Patch), hired a good-looking bass player, Kerin Smith, the guitarist Dean Mollett, who used to work at Fire Records, and Nigel Butler (Nyge), keyboards player.

Most members had already played in a band before. Patch's previous experience was with The Sundays, Star 69, Robyn Hitchcock, Homer, Arnold and Bennett.. Dean had been in various small bands, including one signed by Fire Records. Nyge's experience had included working with Eartha Kitt, Nina Hagen, Bananarama, Jason Donovan, The Charlatans, B*Witched and Travis. And finally Kerin, who nearly auditioned for Sleeper and had just graduated from Queen Mary Westfield University, where Sophie had a place reserved for the Drama and English course.

"I actually have a place to do a degree in English and Drama at Queen Mary Westfield, but I'll have to tell them I'm not coming - I've got an album to promote! If I went, I'd only be biding my time before getting into a position where I didn't have to do a proper job, anyway. So if I can bypass that, then fine."

At that time, Sophie never wanted to be in a band and that's why she applied for the Drama and English course. She was planning to go into theatre and act or do some presenting after university. Thankfully, she decided to give it a go.

Having found the band members, Billy sold all his records: Echo and The Bunnymen, New Order, Teardrop Explodes and rare Jazz LPs. He got £458. It was a great sacrifice to him, which marked the birth of theaudience. According to Billy, his wife, Hellen taught him to play the guitar and he started writing lyrics, all of them completed in two weeks, even though he had never written a song or made music.

Then they recorded their first demo for £100 and by that time, they had played seven gigs and had been offered nine record deals . They didn't accept the very first deal they were offered. Instead, they decided to wait until Sophie's 18th birthday, and Billy played each record company against each other. They signed on Sophie's birthday with Polygram.

However, one of Billy's demands was that the band released all their material under their own label called eLLeFFe - a phonetic representation of the initials of the late Leo Finlay, formerly Music Week A&R editor of Music Week. This was Billy's homenage to Leo who was the first person to write about the band.

The album was supposed to be recorded in four weeks. However, it took the band almost a year to get the whole album done. The band started recording their first demos in June 1997 at the Blah St Studio, which was built by Patch Hannan's brother Nick Hannan. During the Blah St session, one significant track that survived intact from these sessions was How's That?. They liked it so much that they didn't even remix it. During September and October, they recorded I Got The Wherewithal. They recorded and released it as a single in October 97, their very first single. In October, they also tried to record the album with Billy as the producer, only two songs survived the sessions, If You Can't Do It When You're Young; When Can You Do It? and Bells For David Keenan.

In November 97, they went to Mike Hedges' Studio in Normandy and recorded I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough) and You Get What You Deserve. This version of "I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough)" didn't end up as the single version and was only released as a bonus track of the limited-edition album. Then at the Red Bus Studios, they recorded other three songs: Harry Don't Fetch The Water, A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed and Running Out Of Space. According to Patch, these tracks were done pretty much as totally live, as they had been playing live quite a lot.

Four other songs were recorded during February 1998 and mixed by Jeremy Wheatley. Now That You Are 18, Shoebox Song, Mr. Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Keep In Touch had to be re-produced by Patch and Dean, so they redid the drums and guitars, but kept the vocals and keyboards. Patch also added some Beach Boys backing vocals on Shoebox Song. From March to April, Jeremy Wheatley mixed the whole album. And the final touches were given in May with the re-recording of I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough) and in June with the additional production of The More There Is To Do.

During the whole production of the album, theaudience released four singles: I Got The Wherewithal in October 1997; If You Can't Do It When You're Young; When Can You Do It in February 1998; A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed in April 1998; and finally I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough) in July 1998. The last two singles were the ones that got higher chart positions. Four videos were made, all directed by Sophie's father, Robin Bextor.

"The only person who gets annoyed is my dad, because he directs our videos which I always mention, but it never gets printed - so he thinks I'm neglecting him". Sophie on if she used to get annoyed when asked about her mother, former Blue Peter presenter.

The album was only released in August 1998. The album cover was taken from the video to I Got The Wherewithal. The back cover, reminiscent of Blondie's Parallel Lines indicated one of theaudience's influences: six members, five boys and a girl, dressed in black and stuck on a white background. The album had some good reviews as well.

"When they are - like the Blondie blast of "Running Out Of Space" - they bit you square between the eyes. Best of all though, you never know what a song's going to do next" - Melody Maker

"This eponymous debut is crammed with a bevy of bubbling pop songs, none better than the wonderfully-titled A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed, with its bulging bassline and hints of Toni Basil's Mickey. Filing them under a single category is an impossible job. Round one to theaudience - and not a Blue Peter badge in sight" - BBC

Melody Maker even elected Sophie as the 5th Sexiest Person In Rock in 1998. According to them, she was the ideal girlfriend: "poshest young lady in the Top 10, Sophie's bound to make a good impression on your parents, she knows that doing it when you're young is a good idea, and she makes a living out of being told what to do by men".

Everything was just perfect for theaudience. They did lots of gigs and took part in many festivals. However, an incident at the Glastonbury festival revealed major problems between the band. Billy Reeves "flipped out completely", rowed with the rest of the band and went home to bed for three days. He then forgot a photoshoot and an interview that week and the band assumed he had left.

Billy apologised publicly and said that he was not leaving the band. He felt embarrassed and said he "needed a break from everything, to just switch off for a while". The band and its management tried to deny that Billy had left the band by saying that he was ill or that he was writing new songs or simply that he was taken a well-earned break. Then, the band started performing without him: on the ULU show on August 18, 1998, Billy didn't show up and the band had to perform without him, neither did he show up on NME Stage for both performances at V Festival 98.

In that same month [August], Billy finally confirmed he had left "I've got other fishes to fry". The future of the band became uncertain. "It depends what Sophie and the record company want to do. But I have to have control of it, and I don't feel I do", said Billy on an interview. The band did try to carry it on. They started writing new songs and Sophie was also writing. There were even rumours that the band would release a fifth single in September 98, Keep In Touch, and had even recorded its b-side, which should be an A-Ha's cover Hunting High And Low. But that remained as rumour.

The other members spent months recording and writing songs for their second album, which was supposed to be released in June or July 1999. They had a list of 30 songs that they had written and recorded and even the possible tracklistings of the album. Unfortunately the band lost their record deal and could not get another, so most of these songs haven't seen the light of day. One of them, Out With The Old School, did appear on the Wicked Woman compilation of 1998. It was not until 2005 that four more unreleased songs leaked onto the internet: Day And Night (Day Or Night), So Clever, Twilight Of The Teenage and Headcase.

Little by little, though, the band disbanded and they started doing their own stuff. Billy Reeves signed to Sony Records with his new band Yours in 1999. His performing career was cut short by injuries sustained in a near fatal car accident in 2001 and he's currently a travel presenter on BBC London 94.9. Dean and Nyge also had their own project called PMFf.

Sophie really suffered with the band's split. She thought that the band would go on for years, but the band crumbled and there's nothing she could do to stop it from happening. She started eating less and got really close to anorexia. She also started thinking of a lot of ways to make money, such as modelling, writing a novel, writing music to television, but none of them worked out. She then realised how much important the band was and that singing was what she really wanted to do for living. Little did she know that she would receive a proposal to co-write a hit - Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) - and later would have such a successful solo career.

THEAUDIENCE WERE:

Billy Guitar	Sophie Vocals	Patch Drums
Kerin Bass	Dean Guitar	Nyge Keyboards