Opposition - Lost Album
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Ralph
on being in a band in the eighties.
The 80's - yes, stripy shirts and tight jeans.
Bouffant hairdos and make-up, and that's just the men. Don't forget the eyeliner and a touch of lipstick for the pout...
I remember when we got our first record deal with Ariola Hansa. They were looking for another Police, or the Beat... Haircut One Hundred maybe. I think we were so excited just to get a deal, although having 4 or 5 companies interested and us being a bit naive, we grabbed the money (we'd been without it for so long!). We didn't know exactly what our angle was or what our image would be. Playing rock mixed with reggae, we wanted to be taken seriously!
The funniest thing was the photo shoots - oh, and the Mike Mansfield video shoot (remember Cue the Music??). Yes, there we were with too much make-up thinking we were cool but we must of looked like a load of drag queens - young drag queens at least! If we did it now, we'd be ringers for Bet Lynch!
I'd love to see the video now - nobody seems to know where it is. I still have a very large poster which I got from the management's office. Yes, you guessed it, stripy shirts and all smiling - that MUST have been the record companies idea! My God, its the Bay City Rollers - how did we let that happen?
I must say, though, I was the only one that wanted to be a Pop Star - not that sort of smiley, cheesy ,corny one. No, a cool Pop Star - you know what I mean. Anyway, we all got caught up n the current of record company and management ideas, not knowing whether to go with it or fight. They organised a producer to do the album, Roger Lomas, who produced a lot of the ska/reggae stuff around then.
We weren't totally comfortable being that either. I remember us all arguing in the studio and being sent out like naughty little schoolboys by the producer who said "I'm being paid to do this". Surprisingly it turned out pretty well.
Perhaps we were too young and naive to know any better, but we thought we did at the time. When you're young, you do go for it and bash things down - if they don't work, they don't work, which can be a great thing. Sometimes, you find the older and more experienced you get, the more self-indulgent you become, and cautious. You end up disappearing up your own arse - I wont mention any of those bands who fell victim to that!
It was a big learning curve for us which ultimately lead me and Mark into the new Opposition line-up where we started to find our sound. We broke the silence, and the rest is history!
Ralph
Ps - I hope dungarees dont come back in - I never had any, honest!
NB - STRIPY SHIRTS!!!