| Mansun | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Chester, England |
| Genres | Alternative rock, Britpop, indie rock |
| Years active | 1995–2003 |
| Labels | Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Recordings Regal Recordings Parlophone |
| Website | www.myspace.com/mansunspace |
| Past members | |
| Paul Draper Dominic Chad Stove King Andie Rathbone Carlton Hibbert Mark Swinnerton Julian Fenton |
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Mansun were an English alternative rock band formed in Chester in 1995. The band comprised vocalist/rhythm guitarist Paul Draper, bassist Stove King, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Dominic Chad, and drummer Andie Rathbone.
The band broke up in March 2003 whilst in the process of recording what would have been their fourth album and was announced by Dominic Chad in May 2003.
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Paul Draper and Stove King met in the early-mid 90's whilst working in the printing industry as photo retouchers for rival companies situated opposite each other on the same industrial park in Little Stanney on the outskirts of Chester[1]. Through their shared love of 80's new wave bands such as Duran Duran, ABC and also David Bowie[2] they started socialising together at weekends, going to gigs in Liverpool and playing along to drum loops together in their bedrooms with the desire of forming a band together.[3]. Whilst King was a relative newcomer to playing bass, Draper had previously been in electronic band Grind with programmer-keyboard player Steve Heaton and (future Mansun) drummer Carlton Hibbert[4] who released one 12" single in 1991 on the small "Whats In It For Me Records" label[5]. The band played mostly around London at venues such as The Rock Garden and The Brain and also supported Beverley Craven at the Mean Fiddler. Following the split of Grind, Draper, funded by a grant from The Prince's Trust, set up a music company called "Ambiance Productions" who produced relaxation tapes[6]. In early 1995 the duo enlisted Maidstone expat Dominic Chad, who was the bar manager at the Fat Cat pub on Watergate Street in Chester opposite the office where Draper would go and see former Grind member Steve Heaton[7]. Chad had previously played with "Floating Bear"[8] formed whilst at Bangor University in 1990/91, where he had been studying French and Russian but was kicked off the course due to lack of effort. Chad would later admit that his routine during university was "get up at three, go down to the union bar at four and stay there until it shut"[9]. With the aid of a drum machine, the trio began rehearsing at Crash Rehearsal Studios in Liverpool, where the band were quickly discovered by passing A&R scouts Mark Lewis and Alan Wills (who later went on to form Deltasonic Records)[10] who were there to see Cast and overheard the band through their rehearsal room door. The band were offered a publishing contract with Polygram Music Publishing four days after reluctantly handing over a demo tape of 4 songs that cost £150 to record at a local studio featuring "Take It Easy Chicken", "Skin Up Pin Up", "Moronica" and "She Makes My Nose Bleed".
The band were initially called "Grey Lantern", after Draper's DC Comics influenced alter ego which he created to help overcome his nervousness on stage[11], but soon changed their name to "Manson", after the cult leader Charles Manson. The band's self-financed debut release "Take It Easy Chicken" in September 1995 on their own "Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Recordings" label soon attracted the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJs Steve Lamacq and John Peel and the band found themselves, despite later admitting that they couldn't yet play together as a band very well, at the centre of a record label bidding war[12]. This resulted in the band, having not played a single gig, signing with Parlophone offshoot Regal Recordings, with whom they released the follow up single "Skin Up Pin Up" in November 1995, although this time under the new monikor Mansun as they were forced to change it due to threatened legal action from the Charles Manson Estate. The band gave several false accounts of this at the time, one being that they were named after The Verve b-side "A Man Called Sun",[13] and that "Manson" was simply a spelling mistake which accidentally went through to production. It was later reported that Charles Manson had started spelling his name with a "u", to which Draper joked that they should sue him in return.[14]
Following the release of "Skin Up Pin Up", the band were moved onto the main label Parlophone and released several EPs, including an expanded re-release of the debut single. The first lineup of the band alongside Draper, King and Chad had featured drummer Carlton Hibbert and drum machine programmer Mark Swinnerton. Following 5 months of touring, starting with the bands first gig in August 1995 at The Lomax in Liverpool and support gigs with Heavy Stereo and The Charlatans, Swinnerton left the band in January 1996[15]. As a four piece, the band continued touring including support gigs with Cast, Audioweb and Shed Seven until Hibbert was sacked from the band in May 1996 following a series of rows with an inebriated Chad that resulted in a bizarre incident that involved a pineapple being thrown onstage at Chad's face at a gig in Cambridge supporting Shed Seven[16][17][18]. Throughout the early days of the band, Chad was involved in a string of alcohol fueled violent episodes including punching his own reflection in a hotel mirror, throwing pint glasses in Sheffield, drop kicking bars, getting himself banned along with the rest of the band from all Holiday Inns in the UK after breaking a statue of the Venus de Milo[19] and other drunken incidents leading to the band also being banned from every location of the now defunct roadside restaurant chain Happy Eater and all Hard Rock Cafe's worldwide[20]. Ex-Kinky Machine drummer Julian Fenton was temporarily drafted in for gigs and featured in the promo videos for "Take It Easy Chicken" and "Stripper Vicar".
In August 1996 Andie Rathbone joined, a well known drummer on the Chester scene who had been playing with several bands including "DNA Cowboys"[21], "The Wandering Quatrains" and "Jonti". After auditiong over 100 drummers without success, the band decided to take a break at a local pub where "there was the best rock drummer we'd ever seen, playing with this really dodgy band"[22], but the drummer initially turned the invitation to the join the band down, as he thought the band played "Britpop shite". Rathbone's first gig with the band was playing Stripper Vicar on TFI Friday, having missed the previous nights gig in Brighton having accidentally got the train to Bristol Temple Meads and having to check the gig guide in the NME after being unable to locate the gig[23].
February 1997 saw the release of critically acclaimed debut album Attack of the Grey Lantern. Although the band had finished recording most of the album prior to Rathbone joining the band, they went back into the studio to record new songs Taxloss and Mansun's Only Love Song and re-record several drum tracks[24]. The album appeared to contain a conceptual storyline which Draper referred to as "small town weirdo observations"[25], whilst ending with hidden track "An Open Letter To The Lyrical Trainspotter" proclaiming sarcastically that 'the lyrics aren't supposed to mean that much'. The band's debut LP knocked fellow Parlophone act Blur's self-titled album from the top spot of the UK album chart after only being released the week before. Radiohead were quoted as saying, at that year's Q Awards, that the album was "a real musical achievement". Draper stated that a lot of the lyrics from this era were written when he was a kid and influenced by The Goon Show and Monty Python.[26]
During the early period of their career, Mansun were noted and derided for their ever changing fashion styles. Such styles ranged from punk, new romantic, baggy "Madchester" clothes, army fatigues, A Clockwork Orange style boiler suits and even women's clothing. When pressed as to why they did this, Draper responded "It's probably overenthusiasm, seeing people like Bowie's different guises and thinking, 'Great! Let's try that..."[27]
Following the release of the standalone "Closed For Business" EP in October 1997, the band found themselves short of songs going into the studio sessions at Olympic Studios for second album Six. A lot of the musical ideas were put together during soundchecks on the previous US tour[28]. Chad admitted that the band "had all these ideas that we came up with on tour, but we didn't have any complete songs. For the album, we simply recorded all the musical snippets, and then figured out key and tempo changes that would link the sections together"[29]. The only lyrical ideas Draper had were fragments of the song "Six" and "King Of Beauty", which didn't make the album but was released as a b-side to "Negative". Draper took inspiration from books Chad took out with him on tour, including 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade, The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne and Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard by quickly scanning them to get the gist of the books and then forming lyrics based on them. Due to the lack of complete songs, Draper set out to write enough material at the weekends in the bands rented accommodation in Barnes so that there was enough material each week for the band to work on. Through constant touring, the band were now confident to record as a band in the studio and set out to replicate their live sound and make the album heavier and more guitar based in contrast to the more commerical sounding drum loop and synthesiser based sound of the debut. On the Chad penned "Witness to Murder Part II" the band enlisted former Doctor Who actor Tom Baker to perform the monologue, with King stating that "The whole band are big fans of Dr Who and Tom Baker, so we thought he'd be ideal. Tom heard the track and immediately agreed to perform on it"[30]. The track was intended as an interlude between two sides of the album, as if it was a vinyl album[31], but Chad later stated he regretted putting it on the album[32].
The album was preceded by the singles "Legacy", which provided the band with the highest charting single and "Being A Girl". Several more singles followed the release of the album, including "Negative" and a re-recording of the album's title track, "Six" produced by Arthur Baker. Draper later admitted to placing the two main singles at the end of the album to be awkward and trying to avoid having choruses on the album and left most of those tracks to be released as b-sides, which he stated would have made a better rock album[33]. He described the album as being "commercial suicide".[34]
Mansun's third studio album, Little Kix (originally set be called Magnetic Poetry and later The Trouble With Relationships,[35]) recorded at Astoria, a houseboat-studio owned by Pink Floyd guitarist, David Gilmour with former XTC and Police producer Hugh Padgham, saw Draper and Chad decamp to southern Spain in March 1999 where they wrote and demo'd ideas for the album. Draper admitted following the commercial and critical disappointment of Six, that he didn't feel under pressure to follow it up and set out to go in a different direction with the new album. Prior to the writing trip in Spain, he had decided that the new album would be more "acoustic-guitary"[36] and also wanted to prove to himself that he could still write pop songs with choruses[37].
Chad would later state that the album "just didn't sound like us because there was lots of keyboards".[3] Despite initially stating that the album was "all about 'What do you want out of your life, what do you want out of a relationship?' And I didn't want to make another disillusioned, really dark record"[38] and that "Anyone who gets 'Little Kix' knows it's a good album"[39] Draper later refused to tour or promote the album[40] which, despite I Can Only Disappoint U giving the band their second highest charting single after Legacy, led to the album stalling at 14 in the charts[41]. Whilst reflecting on the album, Draper later admitted that whilst they were trying to make a "timeless record" he "just don't think we realised the record we were making until towards the end"[42]. Several years following the split of the band, Draper claimed that he was demoted as the band's producer as the rest of the band weren't comfortable with one of the band producing and the label reportedly wanted to ensure the band didn't go off on another tangent as with "Six", and was forced to work with an outside producer for the first time, stating that "the management wanted a soft rock album made behind my back for some reason and I got manipulated into releasing it"[43] and that the band were "steamrollered into doing a commercial sounding 3rd album"[44].
In January 2001, prior to the final single being released off "Little Kix", Draper informed the NME that the band were set to enter the studio in March or April of that year and that the band wanted to release new material as soon as possible.[45] In April, Draper informed fans through the official website that the band had recorded and mixed 8 new songs and would continue recording in May. The band were not sure what to do with the material - whether to release an EP or to hold the material back for a full album.[46] In August, Chad posted on the band's official website to inform fans that the band were halfway through recording their fourth album (therefore confirming that the idea of releasing an EP had been scrapped), which would be "harder" than "Little Kix" and that they planned to release a single in December.[47] The band's aim for the record was to make it as representative of Mansun as a live band as possible, that it sounded "like a live band playing in a room" but also that it had all the "creative sounds that 'Six' had".[3] In March 2002 and with no sign of new material, Draper stated that the delay in the new album was down to guitarist Dominic Chad injuring his hand after falling into a fire grate and therefore had been unable to play for four to five months, but confirmed that the band had so far finished fifteen songs.[48]
In April and May 2002 the band embarked on a low key UK tour, which was initially set to be secret and promoted under the pseudonym The Masons[49]. The band played short ten song sets at every gig, half old singles and the other half testing out tracks from their planned fourth album. One website prophetically reported that the tour would be the bands last, although this was denied at the time[50]. In the following October, Chad revealed that a planned studio session for that month had been abandoned as they had wanted to continue writing[51].
Following extended delays in the band delivering the new album to Parlophone, rumour spread in December 2002 that the band had been given an ultimatum that if they didn't complete the album by early in the new year, they would be dropped[52]. In January 2003, a posting on the bands official Yahoo list claimed that a member of the band had left "amid massive animosity"[53], later elaborating that "a member of the band had quit, did not want to rejoin and the remaining members did not want him back"[54].
Following weeks of speculation, the band's split was officially announced on 2 May 2003, with the press release claiming that the band decided to call it a day after realising that "the life of the group had come to an end"[55] It was later revealed the announcement had been delayed as Draper had unexpectedly gone on an extended holiday to the US with no confirmed date of return[56][57].
With news of the split being confirmed and with the knowledge that most of the fourth album, which was set to be self titled, had already been recorded, an online petition was set up to try and persuade Parlophone to release the material. The tracks intended for the album were then released in 2004, along with the non-album singles and a selection of B-sides (chosen by Draper from a top 20 voted for by fans on the band's official website) and rarities, which summarized Mansun's career in a three-CD box set entitled Kleptomania.[58] Draper later admitted that after Parlophone contacted him to ask whether he wanted to be involved in putting together the album sessions for release, he tried to reform the band to properly finish it but no one else was interested. In the press release for the album, Draper claimed that when recording the new album, none of their hearts were in it, but in an interview in 2008 went on to blame Chad for the split, stating that the guitarist "wasn’t happy with the working method of writing and recording, but didn’t want to implement his own writing and recording method so we simply had to go home and end the band".[34]
Legacy - The Best Of Mansun, a greatest hits CD compilation, was released on 18 September 2006, with a limited edition CD/DVD release also issued containing promo videos for every single plus a documentary and other bonus material. The CD also provided access to download the previous unreleased "South Of The Painted Hall", which was originally set for release on Kleptomania, but the multitrack was incomplete, missing the lead vocal. The free download version is sourced from a reference CD-R which featured an unfinished rough mix with a guide vocal.[59]
In March 2008, on the prospect of a Mansun reunion, Draper stated that whilst he and drummer Rathbone were interested, it would never happen as "Dominic Chad would never do it so it can't happen"[60].
An article in The Guardian newspaper on the 24th December 2011 entitled "The Guide's guide to the next 12 months" claimed that the band were set to reunite in 2012 with a new album planned[61].
Following the split, Draper worked with ex-Skunk Anansie singer Skin on songs for her Gordon Raphael produced album Fake Chemical State,[62] and recorded demos for artists such as Komakino[63] and Catherine A.D. In 2009 he worked with The Joy Formidable on their free download-only single "Greyhounds In The Slips".[64] In 2011 Draper continued work with unsigned Catherine A.D and produced her debut album which is due to be self-released in Spring 2012[65]. Draper has claimed to be working on solo material since the band split and encouraged fans to set up fan sites in return for online Q&As and new photos, but despite repeated promises of sending out new material via his mailing list, nothing has yet been heard from this proposed project.
Rathbone has continued working with bands including Liverpool band Amsterdam, The Jokers and briefly Blondie tribute band "Into The Bleach",[66]. He formed the short lived "Seraphim" with Jonti Thackray with whom he was in a band with prior to joining Mansun.[67] He has gone on to become a drum teacher.
Neither Chad nor King have been involved in the music business since the split, though in 2004 in a press release for "Kleptomania", Draper announced that he had started writing with Chad again,[68] but later suggested that he was only helping him build up backing tracks and also admitted that Chad had stopped turning up for sessions and that he doubted the partnership would continue.[69] King had reportedly begun a career in Speedway racing.[70]
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