For most of Shed Seven’s thirty-year career, they have been called indie’s underdogs. In the past ten years, their popularity has started to grow. The kids of Britpop have grown up and now stand shoulder to shoulder with those who lived through the heady days of the 90s. However, after festival appearances at Isle of Wight, Neighborhood Weekender, TRNSMT, Kendal Calling, and Tramlines (to name a few), something beautiful happened. They’ve broken through to generations without an immediate connection to their initial run.
This newfound adoration is reflected in the sales of their latest album, ‘A Matter of Time’. Yesterday, it was announced they are number one in the album chart mid-weeks. We caught up with Shed Seven frontman Rick Witter yesterday afternoon about the potential number one and discussed the new album:
Images & artwork courtesy of Cooking Vinyl
Hey Rick, how are you doing?
Rick: Good, thanks, you?
I’m good, thank you, a bit under the weather but I can’t complain. My daughter comes home from nursery determined to kill me these days.
Rick: Well, I'm quite fortunate; well, I say I'm fortunate. It’s only Tuesday, and we’re out on the road until Sunday with 2 record store performances a day, 2 cities per day, shaking 200 people's hands a day. I'm surprised I've not picked anything up.
So, number one in the mid-weeks. It’s all very exciting.
Rick: (tentatively) Yeah, I know it is, and I think we’re about nine thousand in front of Mr. Capaldi, but it’s such squeaky bum time. Anything could still happen in two and half days, so I keep trying to put it to the back of my mind.
I guess, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. But, over the years, you’ve always had an underdog status so you have earned this moment.
Rick: Yeah, it’s taken us thirty years to get us even having a sniff at it. It would have definitely been number 1 if we had released it last week (laughs). It would open us to so many new things, like playing at foreign festivals, which we’ve not done for a long time.
Does the promo trail differ a lot now from when you started?
Rick: Everything moves on, doesn’t it? The music industry is hugely different, even from when our last album (Instant Pleasures) came out six years ago. I’m constantly learning, but we just do what we want to do. We’re not tied down; we don’t have management. We get offers, and we accept the ones we wanna do or turn down the ones that are not worth our while.
The week the album is out, I’d much rather be out and about, seeing people buying it rather than sitting at home doing absolutely nothing. It’s great to be able to phone my mate Chris Moyles and say, “Have us on your show, mate”, and to get Sunday Brunch was great for us. Plus, we’re doing lots of in-store acoustic performances. Getting to sign people's vinyl and see the whites of their eyes has been relating to the people who are parting with their hard-earned money.
Image courtesy of Cooking Vinyl
Yep, well, I am sitting with my copy in front of me, and my dad got one for his 73rd birthday on Sunday.
Rick: You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a cooler 73-year-old man than your dad.
It’s been six years since ‘Instant Pleasures’ was released. Was this album difficult to make?
Rick: Weirdly not. So ‘Instant Pleasures’ was a little bit of an accident. We didn’t set out to write new music. I think with two band members leaving, it put us in a predicament. What do we do now? Do we call it? Do we have a bit of rest, leave it a few years, and come back again or do we try and carry on? And I’m so pleased we chose the carry-on version. It’s actually breathed new life into us. I think we all feel like we’re 18 again. So, me and Paul did sit down and discuss writing a new album, and we started the process in March 2022, and we had it all by Christmas 2022, which is kind of a bit unheard of.
Oh wow, that is quick.
Rick: Yeah, I could just sense that everything we were considering was working when we were writing it through those months. There just didn’t seem to be any problems with any of it. Even the lyrics just flowed out of me. It was a really positive and brilliant time. Then we went to Spain to record it last February, and I think you can hear the joyousness of it coming out of the speakers.
Yeah, definitely.
Rick: We did a song a day and were all in the live room to get the drums down, so it felt like we were all being recorded as a live band, and it felt great. I’m just so pleased now that it can be given to people. Well, it's not given; you have to buy it (laughs).
It’s funny you say you felt like 18-year-olds. Tracks like ‘Throwaways’, ‘Let’s Go’, and ‘Let’s Go Dancing’ have that teenage sense of us versus the world feel and a lot of defiance coming through.
Rick: Yeah, there’s definitely that. Obviously, with age comes experience. So yes, there is stuff on there that you could only write as an early 50s gentleman but yeah. With ‘Starlings’…
That’s a heartbreaking song.
Rick: Yeah. I had this idea of someone being with somebody all their lives, and one of them dies. Then the other one is just waiting to die so they can be reunited, which isn’t the happiest of subjects, but it does happen in life, so I wanted to broach that.
Even ‘Real Love’, that’s all about how badly we’re being treated by those in charge of us. You know what I mean, come on, you’re supposed to be looking after us. I’ve never really gone down the political route but I wanted to vent my spleen after covid and all that.
We can all relate to that. Well, most of us.
Rick: Well yeah (laughs). I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there's an awful lot of references to birds in the songs. I guess, subconsciously, with what happened a few years ago and not being able to go anywhere, I've been writing songs about going places. I noticed 6 songs into the writing process, I’d mentioned a bird. After that, I was trying my hardest to do that for the entire album, but I failed as I missed out on two songs. I would say the keywords for this album are love, sex, death, drugs, recreation, stalking, and ornithology.
Ticking all the boxes there. There are three collaborations on the album. How did they come about? Especially the Pete Doherty one. Upon hearing it, I was expecting to see a split songwriting credit (it’s 100% Shed Seven) as it ebbs and flows from your sound to Pete’s easily.
Rick: So, we had them all recorded and ready to go, and, in a nutshell, we didn’t have any plans to get guest vocalists on it. During the writing process, at some point, Paul sent me the guitar chords for what became ‘In Ecstasy’. I am sitting at home listening to the guitar part, trying to think of a melody. When I came up with the melody, I immediately thought that sounds like something Rowetta would sing in the Happy Mondays circa 1990. I thought that was interesting and then pushed the thought to one side. Then when I got the words to the chorus “stand with me, in ecstasy, cover me in ecstasy” I again thought that is something Rowetta would sing. So, I thought, I’m thinking this too much now so I reached out to her and said “we’re making this album do you want to get on board with it? We’ve written this track that has you written all over it”. Thankfully, she heard it and loved it and wanted to be involved, which was lovely.
Fast forward a couple of months, and we’re playing the Bingley Festival, and The Libertines are headlining. As I’m singing my set, I keep looking to the side of the stage where my family are standing, and there’s Peter Doherty singing every word. I was thinking I’d no idea he even knew who we were. So I went and introduced myself after the set, and he told me as a kid, he would sit in his bedroom learning Shed 7 songs on his guitar. Which is always great to hear. So I said, “Look, we have Rowetta on the album. Do you want to join in?”. And he replied, “I’d absolutely love to”.
So, without even hearing the song, he agreed. He recorded his bit remotely, and it was pretty amazing. I said to him, “If you want to take over the second verse and add some harmonies in there. Just do what you feel you wanna do”. It was amazing. To get a song I’d written sung back to me in a Peter Doherty style was quite an amazing moment for me. Fingers crossed, at some point, he might come to join us on stage.
The York Museum Gardens shows are shaping up very nicely, then?
Rick: Fingers crossed. Time will tell; at our 30th-anniversary shows, it would be quite the moment. If we do hold on to number one in the charts, I might get the keys to the city, and I can do whatever the bloody hell I want.
Grand Old Duke of York beckons.
Rick: About time (laughs).