Ocean Colour Scene

Scootering speaks to Ocean Colour Scene frontman Simon Fowler about the album that became the toast of Cool Britannia and the swigging Nineties…

Frontman Simon Fowler reflects on the 21st anniversary of the band’s Moseley Shoals album.

Britain’s ‘alternative’ pop culture of the mid-Nineties was so indebted to the sounds and styles of the Sixties, there’s a metaphorical trail of IOUs stretching all the way from Camden Town to John o’Groats – and back again.

Oasis scanned the Beatles; Blur wanted to be the Kinks, while Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker pointed a bony finger toward the sweeping melodrama of Scott Walker. Yet it was Ocean Colour Scene, with their Small Faces/Traffic/Rolling Stones/Who inflections that suffered most by comparison with their heroes. As far as certain sections of the music press were concerned, the Brum-based four-piece could do no right. Their albums sold by the millions, yet dissenting voices claimed OCS’s suburban blues/rock brought nothing new to a musical era – even one defined by its derivativeness.

Sceptics were further aroused by the suspicion the band had somehow been given a free pass to Britpop’s top table on account of the eminent company they kept – the brothers Gallagher and mod daddy Paul Weller.

Reflecting on their meagre reputation nearly 20 years later, singer/songwriter Simon Fowler is past caring. “Some of the press didn’t like us ’cause they saw us as a retro band, when they didn’t see Oasis as a retro band. But…so what?”

Bag vibes

The road to ‘Moseley Shoals’ began in 1989 with the amalgam of two young Birmingham bands. Fowler fronted the Fanatics, which also featured drummer Oscar Harrison and bass player Damon Minchella, while Steve Cradock was guitarist with the Boys. The four fled their respective camps for a singular, new adventure – Ocean Colour Scene.

Released in 1992, their eponymous debut album was a spacey, psych-pop product of the baggy-esque Roses/ and Mondays era, which peaked two years earlier. The band hated the album, blaming record company interference – three producers had a hand in its troublesome birth – for a record they claimed totally misrepresented their sonic aims. Their record deal ended soon after. “It never sounded like us,” Fowler rued. “It was over-produced. I haven’t listened to it since it came out, to be honest.”

Mod for it

Without a record deal, Fowler might’ve resurrected his pre-music career – he was a journalist at the Birmingham Mail – which would’ve meant a return to “being told what to do by short, bald people”. However, the singer said the band’s three-year label-less hiatus was the making of them. “We never really contemplated splitting-up – we learnt how to become a band.”

The group used their dole money wisely, setting up at a studio near their Birmingham home to write the album they’d always wanted to record. “I’d write every night so we’d have songs to do every day, which is how ‘Moseley Shoals’ transpired,” Fowler recalled.

OCS were also busy building a new image. Out went the accruements of their baggy past – bowl-shaped barnets, beads and Breton sweaters; in came a look that was vintage Ready, Steady Go! – tunics, button-down Ben Shermans, blazers and ‘dessie’ boots. The band’s frontman, it surprisingly transpires, wasn’t fussed about the sartorial change of direction. ”I was never a mod, I’m not fastidious enough,” Fowler said. “It was Steve’s thing – I can’t be arsed to iron suits. I was more into the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. One of the catalysts for our style were the Stone Roses. They seemed to mix-in a lot of the things we liked.”

Solid bonds

The band were also forming useful alliances with the musical Brit-erati. In 1993 a support slot was offered with Paul Weller, with Cradock and Fowler joining him in the studio that same year as guests on ‘Wildwood’, the album that returned Weller from the pop wilderness and made him ‘Modfather’ to the new beat generation. The five-star friendships did wonders for the band’s cache. Through a shared loved of music they were moving in the right circles – touring with Oasis in 1995 – bringing them to the attention of execs that sign cheques. Fowler said: “It was us who introduced Paul Weller to Noel Gallagher, so that became our gang – ourselves, Paul and Oasis.”

With the proceeds of a publishing deal signed with Island Records in 1994 the band bought their own studio, naming it Moseley Shoals in homage to Muscle Shoals, the Alabama recording home of late-Sixties ‘deep soul’ artists, and Moseley, the Birmingham suburb of their birth. It was here Brendan Lynch – producer of Weller’s first five solo studio albums – tweaked the band’s earlier demos to bring to light their four-years-in-the-making, follow-up LP.

In February 1996, a single, ‘The Riverboat Song’, was released as an album precursor; its thrilling, furious opening riff sounding more like an invasion than an introduction, indicating a monumental statement of intent. A line with the past had been drawn and this was the sound of a band with its mojo rediscovered. ‘I see trouble up the road’, hollered Fowler, mid-song… but only good times lay ahead for OCS. Chris Evans, the decade’s one-man media empire, clamped ears on ‘Riverboat’ and made it record of the week – for two weeks – on his Radio One breakfast show. The track’s exhilarating opening salvo gained greater Nineties notoriety when it rung out as the weekly theme to TFI Friday, a live, ‘anything goes’ music and chat show, also hosted by Evans, that became the unofficial weekend party-starter for millions during its five-year TV reign.

Dream time

The ‘Riverboat Song’ gave the band their first top 20 single, peaking at 15, while ‘Moseley Shoals’ – which debuted in April 1996 – parked itself in the album charts for 92 weeks, thanks to the release of a further three hit singles, ‘The Day We Caught The Train’, ‘The Circle’ and ‘You’ve Got It Bad’. It went on to sell a mighty 1.5 million copies and was only kept off the top spot by Alanis Morissette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’.

The boys were not to be denied the following year, however, when their third album, ‘Marchin’ Already’, toppled Oasis’ coke-fuelled behemoth ‘Be Here Now’. OCS were no longer running with the Brit-pack – they were leading it. Success, as Fowler explains, was “everything you imagine it to be: staying-up all night, touring the world, getting to know really exciting people… it was amazing”.

Fowler said the band did “everything” in pursuit of a good time when London’s pop-tabulous party scene was reportedly covered in snow – even in summer. He maintains their accents helped keep their egos in check.

“If you’re from Birmingham, you’ve got a naturally low self-esteem,” he laughed. “With our accent you can’t pass yourself as a highfalutin dandy.”

He said at the band’s peak, bassist Damon Minchella was the only OCS member minded to move to London. “I was living in a place called Lapworth – between Stratford-upon-Avon and Solihull – and lived a very quiet life,” Fowler added. “My neighbours were Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath. I used to bump into Tony all the time. He’d be walking his three rottweilers and I’d be walking my beagle. ELO’s Bev Bevan lived up the road as well. It was like an episode of Stella Street round our way.”

Carry on marchin’

Five top-10 albums, and 17 top-40 singles into their career, OCS remain a going concern; some might say they’re even enjoying something of a renaissance. Last year, the band toured Australia for the first time – “It’s never been properly explained to me why we hadn’t been there before,” – as part of a Moseley Shoals 20th anniversary tour. They’ll visit there again later this year, along with New Zealand and Dubai. “The tour we did last summer was one of the most successful we’ve done in 20-odd years,” Fowler said. “We finished-up at the Hydro in Glasgow playing to 12,500 people. I didn’t think we’d be doing that again to be honest.”

These days, when they’re not ‘doing’ OCS, Cradock’s strumming with Weller and the Specials, Harrison’s drumming with the Beat and, having left the band under a cloud in 2003, Minchella’s bassing-it with Brit-Pop collective Family Silver, which includes ex-Weller beat-boy Steve White. Raymond Meade, former lead singer and guitarist with Scots band The Ronelles is Minchella’s current OCS replacement.

As for Fowler, now 52, he has an on/off folksy side-project, Merrymouth, but other than that, he’s just living the dream. “I haven’t written anything for at least two years,” he said. “I’m just really enjoying my life now. I live in a little village near Stratford-upon-Avon. I know everyone in the village, I know all the pubs well and I like reading the Times and listening to Radio Four.”

Fowler insists he has no interest in listening to new music – “because it’s for kids” – preferring to stay loyal to what he knows and loves, perhaps displaying the same musical myopia that so irked his band’s detractors. How does he view ‘Moseley Shoals’ from across the decades?

“I think it’s lasted the test of time. When you play the songs back-to-back, every song is a really good song. Some of it’s quite unusual and there’s a breadth of styles on it. It meant a lot to an awful lot of people.”

Ocean Colour Scene’s success may well befuddle musical ‘scholars’ who value innovation over tradition, but with ‘Moseley Shoals’ the band delivered a dozen perfectly-crafted pop tunes whose soul and integrity continues to ring loud and clear with real common people. Words: Andy Gray

Album Images: Tony Briggs PR Shots: Karen Allen