Many articles have been written on the history of All About Eve, some of which have been
very factual and precise, others have proven to be somewhat misleading and inaccurate.
Most, unfortunately, end up nothing more than a cold clinical Captain's Log of dates and
events. This one is not. My aim was to be informative where events are concerned, but
above all else I wanted it to be personal. This is the band's story...It is as accurate as
their memories allow....As honest as their days are long.
Julianne's words sum it up: "I think it's about time something really definitive was written, especially for the people that will be reading this," she says thoughtfully. "This is probably the one time it's going to be done properly."
And so it was to be, so sit back, put your feet up and enter the enchanting world of ALL ABOUT EVE...
It would appear almost obligatory to begin any Eves story with Julianne, probably following the old adage "ladies first" but for once we'll break the mould and put "age before beauty" by beginning with Mark.
THE PRICE OF FAME
Mark Gerard Price was born on the 10th of August 1959 in the small town of Nelson, near
Burnley in Lancashire, and has always shown a love of music, even at a very early age.
"I used to hit settee arms with knitting needles or lock myself in the pantry and hit
the spin-dryer and pans, but I didn't think at that point that I was going to become a
drummer", Mark reflects with a smile. "My first real involvement in music was
during the summer school holidays of 1973. My friends all had guitars and things and they
used to mess around at one of the lad's houses, but one day this lad, who had a small drum
kit, couldn't be there so they asked me to join in. So I did. We couldn't really play or
anything, but I sort of hit everything at the same time and really enjoyed it."
By the time Mark's fourteenth birthday had been and gone, he and a few mates who had stuck together formed a band. "One of my mates' stepdad was a guitar/vocalist in the Working Men's Clubs" Mark remembers, "And he was the one who took me to buy my first kit 'cause he had a car. He used to say to us about getting a few bookings in the WMC's but we thought it was a bit scary, although we eventually did."
"They have these sort of auditions every Sunday afternoon where bands go and play in front of all these concert secretaries who book the acts for their clubs, so it's a bit of a cattle market really. If they like you they book you for various dates throughout the next few months."
"We had a novelty 'cause we were all fifteen and had a little girl singer, we could play a bit," Mark says, "but we had to play stuff that was pretty easy like 'Billy don't be a Hero', but that's what people wanted in those clubs."
"My personal choice in music at that time was Quo. I had just got their album 'Piledriver' and thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard, so we used to learn a few of the songs and sneak them into our set. It was that which started me really wanting to do it properly, y'know?"
"The band was called 'Exodus' and it lasted about three years in total, although we did split for a while, reforming as 'Exodus II'." Mark chuckles. "How pretentious can you get at fifteen?"
Eventually the band members either left the area or did something else, so the band folded. Mark managed to get a place at Manchester Polytechnic, but his involvement in music ground to a halt, as he reflects. "I played a bit with a couple of lads but only in someone's front room. It wasn't until I moved to London in 1980 that anything serious started to happen. I was supposed to get a job in advertising having studied graphic design at college and the idea was to slog around these studios with my potfolio, but I did it for a day and thought 'sod this.' I just didn't want to do it so I began going for auditions instead and the first band I tried gave me the job. This was the end of 1980 and the band was called 'The Motives' though the only thing we really did was make loads of demos."
It was during this period that Mark first worked with Tony Phillips who was later to become sound engineer on the first Eves album, as Mark explains, "Tony had a little demo studio that we used in Ipswich and we made us of his services loads of times over the next two years as well as playing small clubs and pubs, but despite our manager spending about £12,000 on us, we just didn't get anywhere. By 1983 I was on the dole and thinking "What am I going to do?" I couldn't practice or anything so I wasn't exactly brilliant and despite going for a few auditions I failed to get anywhere"
Then Mark's luck changed, and so did the tone in his voice which was understandable when you hear of the events that were to follow.
"Just before Christmas 1983, I went for an audition with a band called 'Downbeat', who had the same management as Nik Kershaw, and was offered the job. Kershaw had just begun to make a name for himself having recorded his first album and just released the single "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down". I went home that Christmas to my parents and on my return made a call to the manager. Immediately he said, "Actually I don't want you to play for the Downbeats....How do you fancy playing for Nik Kershaw?"
Mark's reply was the obvious one. So the Kershaw band was put together to tour and promote the new 'Human Racing' album with the initial gigs to be fairly small clubs, but the single flew into the charts at number four. Suddenly the style of venue changed to the Hammersmith Odeon scale as well as prestigious concerts like Wembley Stadium supporting Elton John to a crowd of 80,000 people. With the release of the classic album 'The Riddle' Kershaw's popularity went from strength to strength. European tours were followed by world tours taking in countries like the USA, Canada, Japan and Australia continuing right through until late 1987.
I asked Mark what it had been like. "It was a brilliant start for me, from being on the dole one week, to touring the world...and they were such a great bunch of people. We were all just like mates at school or something, y'know? We were all in it together...Brilliant!" Unfortunately all good things tend to come to an end and this was to be no exception.
"Nik's third album hadn't done anything much and his popularity was going right down and the last thing I did with Nik was a tour of Israel during April 1987. After that he just couldn't afford to pay our retainers anymore to keep the band together" Mark says with some sadness in his voice. "Nik wanted to take a long time off to write his next album, like a year...so we just had to call it a day."
Mark found himself out of work once again having been a part of one of the most successful bands of that era.
We'll pick up on the next stage of Mark's career after we have looked at the background of the other Eves members, beginning with Andy.
ANDY KICKS OFF
Born "just plain" Andy Cousin (how he can describe himself as plain with a taste
in shirts like his, I'll never know) on 28th June 1963 in Lincoln, which Andy is quick to
point out, is a little known fact. "Everyone thinks I come from Huddersfield, in fact
I've even said it myself in interviews for some reason, but I guess having moved to
Muirfield at the age of six, and thinking nobody will have heard of Muirfield, I've said
Huddersfield instead..."
I started by asking Andy whether music had been a subject of any interest to him during his educational years?
"Actually no", Andy replied. "I didn't really discover music until quite late on as I was really into football having been led that way by my Dad. He managed a local team when I was in my teens and I just loved playing. I wasn't really interested in girls or anything, I was just football mad."
"Music was an afterthought really... Having left school, I went on to Huddersfield Technical College to take a foundation course in graphic design, but eventually dropped out when I met Tim."
Timothy John Brickeno, born on the 6th of July 1963, was a local lad who had played in a band at the age of fifteen at his school, having begun on an acoustic guitar which cost him the massive sum of £20, and then moving up to a Woolworth's 'Raver' electric guitar along with the almost compulsory Fuzzbox. Punk had been his main influence, working on covers of songs by such bands as the Sex Pistols and the Clash. As soon as Andy and Tim's paths crossed they became great mates, Julianne describing them as "being tied at the waist for years". Andy picks up the story. "I played guitar when I first got together with Tim, but I was sort of forced to play bass. Tim was a better guitar player than me and we did need a bass player, so I took it on and it worked out."
"My first bass was a catalogue job, a Hondo out of Kay's catalogue...I've still got it to this day and in fact it was that bass that was used for all the early Eves gigs. I couldn't afford back-up amps, " he explains, "so I used to borrow old WEM amps and the likes...anything I could get my hands on. We used to practice in my front room, during covers of Dire Straits' songs and other chart stuff."
Tim, it's reported, left the area for a while and moved to Brigh/p>
What was the line-up at that time? "There was Rob Moles on vocals, a guy called Rob Stroud on
drums who had previously been with the Sex Gang Children, Tim on guitar and myself,"
explained Andy. "That was my first contact in London as Rob Stroud had lived down
there before moving to Colne. We all stayed together for a couple of years in total before
it all fell apart. Rob then moved back South to Essex, and I followed not long
after." Once down there Andy joined up with Rob and his girlfriend, Michelle
Yee-Chong, in a band called Pink and Black What was the line-up at that time? "There was Rob Moles on vocals, a guy called Rob Stroud on
drums who had previously been with the Sex Gang Children, Tim on guitar and myself,"
explained Andy. "That was my first contact in London as Rob Stroud had lived down
there before moving to Colne. We all stayed together for a couple of years in total before
it all fell apart. Rob then moved back South to Essex, and I followed not long
after." Once down there Andy joined up with Rob and his girlfriend, Michelle
Yee-Chong, in a band called Pink and Black THE JOURNEY OF A JOURNALIST A DEMO AND IVO OK, quick recap....All About Eve were armed with their first single
'D for Desire', a short set of material to perform live as a way of promoting the single
and not a lot else.... Julianne explains. "Basically we were broke...the old sob
story...if we couldn't afford strings, too bad, we couldn't afford strings. That had been
the main reason for not having a drummer in the band. The drum machine was cheap and
handy, and it also meant we could rehearse in my room. Anyway we really didn't want to
wait around trying to find a drummer...we had taken things as far as we could and now it
was a case of let's get out and play it." ©Eden
Andy casts his mind back to that period: "It was totally different music to anything
I'd ever done before...totally Pop and commercial. I'd had enough of that Goth sort of
stuff and I just wanted to try something different, something new, y'know? This was round
the time of Duran Duran and the likes, but Pink and Black didn't use guitars at all...just
keyboards.
Andy had joined that band just after they had recorded theiew small dives around the area."
Andy casts his mind back to that period: "It was totally different music to anything
I'd ever done before...totally Pop and commercial. I'd had enough of that Goth sort of
stuff and I just wanted to try something different, something new, y'know? This was round
the time of Duran Duran and the likes, but Pink and Black didn't use guitars at all...just
keyboards.
Andy had joined that band just after they had recorded their first single 'Sometimes I
Wish' which was released in 12" format with Andy on the picture sleeve. Andy makes it
clear he did not play on the recordings at all. This part of Andy's career lasted for
around eighteen months and is a good point in time to leave his story for a while whilst
we look at the early years of Julianne.
Born Julie Ann Regan on the 30th of June 1962, in the city of Coventry, she openly admits
to having little interest in music during her school days.
"In Junior school I learned the theory of music and how to play the recorder and I
did have a couple of violin lessons, but I was made to do it...I didn't really want to. I
just couldn't really be taught, so any skills I have acquired are as a result of teaching
myself...just banging away on the piano and tinkling away on a guitar to a standard where
you get to write things. The biggest factor," adds Julianne, "is you're doing it
because you want to...it's just for love."
Later on during Secondary School, Julianne specialised in the Arts and dropped music
completely, having also found a real passion for English. By the time Julianne sat for her
A-Levels it was clear she wanted a career as a journalist.
"I just wanted to write for the New Musical Express or something...that was my big
dream, y'know?" Julianne remembers. "I came down to London to do a course in
fashion journalism as this was the only course I could get with one A-Level, but I only
stuck around long enough to get a basic knowledge and meet a few people. I then dropped
out and did a few pieces for Zig-Zag magazine as was, which I really enjoyed. That was how
I met my first band...by interviewing them."
The band was Gene Loves Jezebel and the period was around February 1982. They were in need
of a bass player as Julianne explains. "After I did an interview with the band, they
kind of took a shine to me...we just had a lot of chemistry. We thought about and talked
about the same things...soap-box intellectuals we were at that time."
"They just said," Julianne continues, "Can you play bass?" and I said
"No", so I practised very hard and went along to the next rehearsal and got the
job. It was a very experimental band...very left field. A bit of a baptism by fire really,
but I did learn a lot about how songs were constructed...from doing nothing to that was
phenomenal. I think it was then that I knew that I wanted to do more than just play
bass...I really wanted to write and open my mouth...and sing."
Julianne remained with the band for the rest of the year before going into her
'wilderness' period. "This was a very cloudy time for me," Julianne comments,
"I mean, I can remember it all, but time seemed to flit by...eighteen months, maybe
two years where I fiddled around not knowing what I wanted to do. I had a nanny job and I
worked in a bookshop," she recalls, "but it was nothing to do with music. It was
still tugging at me though so I knew I had to do something with it, the only problem was I
had no musical friends at all."
"I went off and did a little project with the keyboard player from Gene Loves
Jezebel, a Belgian chap who now makes dance music...I think he's very successful now in a
band called 'The Weathermen'. We tried to do something that was a bit jazzy, a bit weird,
and I could do it, but it wasn't a passion so I dropped it".
"At around this time I begged my Mum to buy me a four-track machine...I really begged
her and she got into a lot of trouble with my Dad, but I got one. That's when I started
writing songs, some of which resembled songs, some were just me being very arty so nothing
very fruitful came out of it."
"I banged my head against a brick wall for an awful long time," says Julianne,
"but I eventually sent a tape to a friend called Ivo of 4AD Records, quite a patron
of the arts, who I had befriended during my G.L.J days. He said, frankly, 'Oh dear,
Julianne! I had hoped for great things...you have gone down a strange path here!' I think
he felt he needed to throw me a line which he did in the form of Manuella's address and
phone number." Manuella Zwingman had recently split from her previous band and was
looking to get straight into a new venture.
"It was around February 1984 that I met up with Manuella and we just got on really
well," Julianne remembers, "although we were poles apart musically, but we were
just desperately pleased to have met someone who was a musician...and a female one...it
was quite inspiring. We had great dreams and plans, but not an awful lot of musical
ability between the pair of us. A drummer and a singer can't really get very far, so we
made plans to be augmented by a chap or chapess who could play."
"We met up with this very garrulous Scotsman called Gus Ferguson who is now in a band
called Test Department, a very respected band in Europe but very left field, a kind of
bangy dustbin lids band! We met him through the 4AD set, a great bass player and quite a
catalyst of a person....and there we were...three of us all in need of a guitarist."
Now if you've been paying attention and making notes of all this, things begin to come
together around about now, so try and keep up...please....
"I knew a girl," says Julianne, "who's boyfriend, Rob Stroud, had been in a
band with Tim and Andy, but I had never met either of them at this point. We had already
tried a couple of guitarists, none of which had really turned our heads when we received
the tape off Tim, who had been in touch with Rob. We thought it was very good, and he came
down for the day and we rehearsed together. To us he was brilliant, definitely the most
talented out of all of us. He was very heavy and played Gothic guitar 'cause that was the
kind of stuff he'd been playing."
Julianne remembers back and laughs. "So there was this weird punch of people...an
ex-Xmal Deutschland, a dustbin lid hitter, Tim the Goth and a singer who couldn't really
sing! That really is the most accurate description ever come up with for that
line-up." The laugh continues...
"We just bashed about in the studio, the Solid Light in Camden every week. I can only
describe what we were doing as Art Rock...I didn't know any chords...I couldn't write
anything, in fact there wasn't a writer between us. We just loved making a racket but
there was a lot of passion (there's that word again) and it was all somehow really
exciting."
Eventually the bassist decided he wanted to go far left field, whilst Julianne wanted to
make it more musical, so they shook hands and parted company. Tim also left for a while
finding it "difficult to deal with these two women" but as Julianne recalls:
"We tempted Tim back with a chicken dinner...that's how cheap he was..." Again
we both laugh, something the band members do a lot of...great sense of humour.
Gus was soon replaced by a new bassist, James Richard Jackson, another friend of a friend
from the 4AD circuit.
"A really nice guy", Julianne recalls, "and an excellent player, but he
didn't stay long. He just had a career going in engineering or something and had to spend
more and more time at college."
It was during this line-up though that a demo tape was made and accepted by Red Rhino
Records of York and the finance was raised to produce their first single on their own
label, Eden Records. Incidentally, it was also at this time that the name "The
Swarm" was adopted, but only for as long as it took to post the demos. It had been
used only as a name to put on the tapes and after about four weeks was never used again.
Recording time was made available for the band at the London-based Southern Studios, and
the skills of Mel Jefferson were employed as engineer. Julianne had heard some of his work
through a band called 'And Also The Trees', a favourite of hers at the time, and had been
suitably impressed. The result was to be their now rare 'D for Desire' 12" single,
backed by the song 'Don't Follow Me (March Hare)' with the catalogue number of Eden 1, but
upon completing the sessions the band folded.
Julianne explains, "sadly Manuella and I fell out straight after we had gone into the
studios, it wasn't a horrible fall out but the sessions brought things to a head. We were
going in different directions and she was very disappointed. It had come out in her eyes
as too mainstream, which shows you how left field she was, and I really wanted to be more
melodic, not the other way...cold and industrial. So she left, staying in music for a
while, and then met someone and started a family.
We are still friends to this day...
So suddenly Manuella and James were no more....and then there were two.
"For the first time, Tim and I began to write together," recalls Julianne,
"they weren't exactly classics, but they sounded more like songs than anything we had
done before. We worked together for a couple of months on the Portastudio and we got
enough material together to start gigging really, but with a machine...so we needed a bass
player. Tim put forward the idea of his old mate Andy who I had met once through a friend,
Michelle, who was in the band Pink and Black with him."
I asked Julianne and Andy what their first impressions of each other had been like?
Andy replied first. "She looked like a typical student. Her dress style has stayed
pretty similar...all lace...studenty...Heaven knows what she thought of me...I had short,
spiky blond hair and some sort of fancy shirt. I don't know what she thought...you'll have
to ask her..."
So I did..."I thought, God! What a tart," as she began to laugh jokingly,
"his hair was dyed to death and crimped...lots of jewellery and scarves, y'know,
quite glamourous. I was kind of hippyish so we didn't really make much of an impression on
each other. Tim was the same, a pair of glam boys really..."
They set about getting a tape to Andy, as he recalls, "Although I only had the single
to hear, I really liked what I heard, so when they asked me to join I said yes. We began
to rehearse at Julianne's flat on the Carleton Road, Tufnell Park in London, using her
drum machine and Portastudio to write songs on."
They also now agreed a name for the band, taken from a Bette Davis film of the same name,
All About Eve.....
Before taking to the road, an old friend of Julianne's came on to the scene and took on
board the role of acting manager. Jake Jacob was a man of many talents, as Julianne
recalls: "I had first met up with Jake when I moved down to London, having lived in
the next road to me and being really into music. He ran a fanzine called Artificial Life,
and as a result knew a lot of bands and about the gig things, so we thought 'God, Jake
knows a lot more about this than we do', so we asked him to manage us."
THE FIRST PROPER GIGS!
As a result of Jake's efforts, the band's first gig was lined up. The venue was the
downstairs room at the Pindar of Wakefield pub in Kings Cross, London and the date was the
5th of September 1985...a day the band would never forget. Andy casts his mind back to
that eventful day.
"We were supporting a band called Chatshow, and had attracted a crowd of about thirty
people. I remember the PA stack to the left-hand side of the stage fell on Tim's effects
and smashed his WEM Copycat. We thought that was the end of the world."
Julianne added, "Suddenly our sound was gone. Panic...As it happened, I had a Boss
digital relay pedal which Tim then used and we made it through the set. I did the whole
gig with a piece of paper in front of my face pretending to be reading the lyrics because
I was so nervous...the crowd of thirty people seemed like Wembley Stadium to us. Although
it was a scant occasion, and the crowd hadn't really come to see us, it all went really
well. It was the first gig out of the way."
The main act, Chatshow, were another Goth band, and it was as a support to the other Goth
bands that the Eves would learn their trade. Jake worked hard at securing the band further
gigs at such venues as the Clarendon Hotel, Hammersmith, the Fulham Broadway and Oxford
College. The Clarendon gig was as support to the band Fifteenth, a band Julianne helped at
that time by singing back-up vocals for them on stage, as well as performing on their demo
session, producing such songs as Time Stood Still and the beautiful Walk in the Garden.
The crowds at each of these early gigs continued to show their pleasure and the band's
following grew.....
except at one gig, which Julianne fondly remembers..."It was the Red Rose Labour
Club....Oh Lord! It was awful. A nightmare. We were supporting 'And Also the Trees' and I
was in the worst mood of my life. There were around fifteen people in the audience and no
PA at all....and no bar. These people wanted a drink and they were taking it out on me...
Mmmm, I remember it well!"
Both members stressed how hard Jake was working at this time, above and beyond the call of
duty as no money was changing hands. This was solely done for love on his part, and that
love ensured they worked two or three times a month over several months right the way
through into 1986.
The band ended '85 with a demo session which eventually produced four tracks worthy of
distribution to record companies, those being Suppertime, In the Clouds, End of the Day
and Another Door. Once again it was Red Rhino, who gave their support in the form of
finance for the band's next single , and so during a snow-covered February in 1986 the
Eves recorded a number of tracks at the Chapel Studios in Lincoln, then owned by the
ex-Motors member Bram Tchaikovsky.
THE DRUMMER
The band had decided that, at least for these sessions they wanted to drop the drum
machine and use the sound of a real drummer, the spot being filled by the studio engineer
Matt Kemp.
"We really wanted Matt to join," Julianne recalls. "But once again he was
torn, as he had a career as an engineer. Bram really wanted to manage us. He was a very
nice guy, but he was too forceful and not the kind of person we could have got on with for
the rest of our lives, y'know. So we didn't pursue that."
The session produced a number of excellent tracks which would sty with the band for a long
time, as Andy pointed out. "They included the first version of Shelter From the Rain
and an early rendition of Dram Now which I have always loved. It was probably my fault it
ended up on the second album as I've been asking the band for years to do that song. It
was like a son of In the Clouds and was written at the same time, but I could never
understand why no-one wanted to do it as I thought it was a classic. Eventually it got
done which was great for me."
Having completed the recordings the band required some artwork for the sleeve, and this
was left in the capable hands of Tim's Mum who taught as Berrybrow Infants School in
Huddersfield. After playing the class a recording of the song, the children were asked to
produce a suitable picture, and Richard Mercer was the successful candidate with him
memorable 'Sun' painting.
And so, during April '86, In the Clouds was released in the 12" format only on their
own Eden label, catalogue number Eden 2, complete with poster. Immediately the media
picked up on it, as Andy recollects. "We got our first air-play on National radio
thanks to Janice Long of Radio One, as well as other DJs such as Gary Davies and Peter
Powell. They really stuck their necks out saying 'This is a good record and we've got to
play it. It doesn't matter if it's Top Ten material', but it's so hard to get played on
daytime radio because of the producers. They've got this list of records graded A, B, C
and D and unless you're on the A and B lists, you're not gonna get played."
Thanks to the support of these DJs, In the Clouds made it's way to No. 19 in the Indie
charts proving beyond doubt the growing popularity of the band.
THE MISSION TAKE AN INTEREST
Despite the success of the single, the group was desperately short of funds, and Jake,
being of a similar financial status, couldn't inject any capital to help keep the band's
equipment in service, so it became obvious that outside help was required. It was at this
point in time that fate played it's hand in a succession of events beginning with a chance
hearing of the band by The Mission's leader Wayne Hussey. Tony Perrin, who had already
become manager for The Mission explains what happens next. "Wayne came across the
Eves at an early gig of theirs in a 'low down the bill' support act at the Hammersmith
Clarendon. He had been so impressed by Julianne's voice that he asked her to sing backing
vocals on a track called Severina from The Mission's planned first album. I heard that
song down at the studio for the first time and asked who it was, and Wayne explained it
was Julianne Regan from a group called All About Eve and there was a connection then
because I remembered seeing a couple of demo tapes from the group lying around on The
Mission's booking agent's desk. At that time the agent Martin Horne and I shared an office
and I made a mental note to take the tapes home one evening and have a listen, but it was
probably a couple of months before I got round to doing it. The two tapes consisted of
about ten or eleven songs, effectively it was all of the songs which ended up on the first
album. I couldn't believe I was listening to this music. I had been aware of the band as
I'd seen their name cropping up in the Indie charts and knew they had been around for a
couple of years at that point, but to find they had music of this quality and no-one had
picked them up..."
So Tony became involved offering the band the financial support they needed to continue,
as well as offering them his skill as a successful manager.
In case you are wondering about the background of Tony, then here's a quick resume of his
career to date in his own words. "I had been a student at Sheffield
University....that was about 1978 when the punk thing was happening and, like a lot of
people at that time, got into playing in a group. Not that I could play an instrument or
anything, but it seemed like the right thing to do. From that I ended up with the groups
independent record label who were based in Sheffield, but when one of their groups left, I
left with them and over a period of time managed a succession of Indie bands. The band I
originally managed had as a member Simon Hinkler, the guitarist (or now departed
guitarist) with The Mission, and we stayed in touch and worked with each other for about
five years. At the beginning of 1986 Simon had joined up with the newly-formed Mission and
had recommended me for the position of manager and as I knew the other members in the
group it all just came together....so it was all just really circumstances....or fate or
destiny...call it what you will."
As for Tony's first meeting with the Eves...well I'm sure that had been an occasion they
may never forget. It would appear Tony had invited them down to the old offices of Golden
Dawn and on their arrival had gone down to the reception to greet them. He wandered
out...said hello...and asked them if they would like to come in...and they did. Sometime
after that meeting they told him how they had mistaken him for some "scruffy urchin
ushering them in to meet the big manager chap!", only to find when they got in there
that they were one and the same person...you only get one chance to make a first
impression!