The Story So Far

"SO! how did it all begin?"

The story so far.

Even before the demise of FM in 1996, Steve Overland and Pete Jupp had been discussing plans for a new project, and writing new material that would not have been suitable for FM. They wanted to get back to melodic 'hook laden' songs that stood up on their own right, without the need for the "kitchen sink" production techniques to bring them into life. When the FM split finally came in 1996 Steve & Pete ploughed straight in and started demoing the new songs that they had written.

They new exactly who they wanted to play bass and wasted no time in calling Bob Skeat, who had played with them both in the "Wildlife Days", many moons prior. Bob came round to Pete's flat, Steve whipped out his acoustic guitar and simply sang the songs to him. No pre-recorded backing vocals, drum beats or flash demo CD to play. Just one man & his Guild.

Bob was hooked. The first demos were recorded up at Chapel

Studios in Lincolnshire and from that session came "This time", "Too good to be true", "Silver lining" and "Follow in your

footsteps". Steve played all the guitars on the demos and they

enlisted the services of their old friend Charlie Olins on keyboards. They continued writing and went back into the studio, this time at their friend Sean Creasy's studio in High Wycombe. Again the same musicians were involved and with only pauses in recording to watch England's matches in Euro '96. The following tracks were recorded "Sometimes", "You call the tune", "Train", "Just like a woman" and "I believe in you".

In November 1996 it was decided that the band should

undertake a short club tour of the UK. Mark Birch (now in

Wishbone Ash), a colleague of Bob's was draughted in on guitar and Phil Mason joined them on keyboards. The tour of small clubs was an overwhelming success culminating in a sold-out show at London's Borderline club.

The band entered The Chapel Studios in the summer of 1997 to

record the album which became "Brass Monkey". Due to prior commitments Mark was unavailable and although Steve was

quite happy to play acoustic guitar, he wanted to find

someone else to play electric guitar and stamp their

personality on the record. SO! started what they thought would

be a long and frustrating search for "the right person".

Luckily a friend of theirs, Nigel Spennewyn, had heard a tape

of the demos and called Pete to say "when you hold auditions

I want to come down". In their FM days Pete and Steve were

regulars on a Friday at a pub called The Brook House

where Nigel's band played. They had heard the abilities of

Nigel. He became the first, and only person to audition for SO!

After just an hour of playing together it was obvious that Nigel

was the man for the job and all other applicants were called

and told "Sorry position filled".

Continues HERE