coming uppance
by david barnett

the below text was originally written by david barnett for the coming up tour program. ultimately, the band decided to go with different verbiage, but we are pleased to share with you this previously unseen nugget of prose.

suede
here they come, the beautiful ones . . .

ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the circus. come see the freaks and jugglers, the drag acts, drug acts and suicides, shaved heads and rave heads. and let’s not forget uncle ted and his legendary vests. welcome to the world of suede.

not just the best band in the world, it’s probably not too controversial to point out that you don’t know anything about suede until you have seen them live. 

coming up, replete with chunky guitars, satisfying rhythms and tight trousered choruses, is undoubtedly a brilliant pop record, a gleaming jewel in a desert of mediocrity. 

from the carefree springtime sound of trash, through the summery lackadasia of lazy, putting its slippers on for the autumnal picnic by the motorway and snuggling up round the fire for the frosty, almost christmassy saturday night, its an album for all seasons, bursting with infectious bits and shiny bobs.

it might well be suede’s best album. it might just be the best until the next one. for tonight at least, none of this matters.

live and unleashed suede go into overdrive with a full-frontal assault on the senses, the difference between monochrome and technicolour, whipping up an atmosphere you can touch, taste and smell – and not just because it tends to get a bit sweaty.

if you’re very lucky (and you will be) you’ll get to experience most of coming up in its live incarnation, beautifully segued with the cream of suede’s enviable, almost faultless back catalogue.

and somewhere along the line you’ll realise that the trash, the litter on the breeze, the barking mad kids of suede’s seemingly surreal twilight zone aren’t the inhabitants of some bizarre fantasy world after all. far from being the product of some warped imagination, the new generation, the freaky parade of beautiful ones are right here to see all around you, united by the five people on stage.

so prepare to have your expectations battered, your preconceptions pummeled. for suede live has something that no record, how ever great, can ever have.

every one of you.

brett anderson – singing
“there’s always been a heart to suede and i suppose that heart’s me.”

meet brett anderson, the undisputed leader of the band, a lithe, svelte karma chameleon who, as coming up proves, is at least twenty times better than anyone ever dared contemplate. the pied piper of the nuclear age, he inspires a rabid, almost religious devotion from his followers.

with the arrival of two new songwriting partners and a long overdue collaboration with mat osman, brett has shattered any illusions that his composing skills are limited to clever wordplay. anyone still in doubt should turn immediately to the entirely self-penned by the sea.

he’s duetted with terence trent d’arby, provided backing vocals (along with richard) on strangelove’s latest album, recorded in french with legendary chanteuse jane birkin, overseen the artwork for all matter of suede paraphernalia – many of the original ideas for record sleeves and videos are his – and mastered all manner of instruments that he’s just not letting on about yet.

yet despite all the accolades and attention brett anderson remains astonishingly down to earth, preferring a night watching ipswich town on the box to reading byron in some lofty ivory tower.

his dad really is a cabbie (albeit a slightly eccentric one with a penchant for liszt and a habit of raising the union jack on his three heroes’ birthdays – the others being churchill and nelson). his best friend really does work in a chip shop.

from his haywards heath classroom days when he wore a yellow suit in emulation of david bowie, brett anderson has had his feet in the gutter and his heart in the stars.

not surprisingly he has been offered an endless parade of film and television roles but so far remains to be tempted. “it’s not really my thing.”

so what is your thing?

“singing.”

at this he really is without equal, switching effortlessly from baritone ballad to falsetto rabble-rouser, every word ringing rich and true. whether he’ll ever be tempted to hang up his singing trousers and tread the boards as an ac-tor or run for prime minister remains to be seen. for now he’ll stick to what he’s best at – writing and performing suede music.

brett anderson’s childhood hobby was collecting fossils. he has never, ever worn a feather boa.

mat osman – electric bass
brett’s trusty lieutenant and co-founder of the band, whose friendship stretches back to even before suede’s multiple false starts when they called themselves things like geoff, suave & elegant and (prophetically) the pigs.

often gleefully trumpeting his unenviable status as “least popular member of the band”,  mat is without doubt suede’s intellectual wing (and not just because he reads more than one book a year). he studied something clever at college and is ever ready with a colourful quote or surreal soundbite. asked for his opinion on the royal family, he once sparked; “they’re cheaper than a trident missile.” it’s probably not too shocking a revelation to disclose that mat has deputised as brett’s gob on more than one occasion.

already widely respected as a fluid, melodic and inventive bass player, especially on the slower numbers where he uses a fretless model (© guitar wanker magazine), the lazarus-like arrival of trash unveiled the previously hidden talent of mat the composer: he co-wrote the brooding atmospheric b-side, europe is our playground.

it wasn’t the first song he and brett had ever written together (mat once came up with the lyrics to a ditty called perpetual, back in the days when suede were, well, not quite as fab as they are now). but it was the first to make it to record and was instantly voted a favourite among suede fans, taking place alongside the formidable arsenal of classic suede b-sides like my insatiable one or killing of a flash boy. europe . . . has also proven to be one of the surprise highlights of suede’s current live act.

with the recent expansion to a ten-legged monster, suede’s bass thing has been relegated to the back of the stage, shunted behind the new chap. but measuring in at not a great deal less than eleven feet tall, there’s still plenty of the man they call “moose” to feast your eyes on.

mat osman scored four per cent in the official suede information service members’ poll. his brother writes scripts for popular “light” comedy television shows.

simon gilbert – drums
“there’s only one simon gilbert” is a familiar cry at suede concerts as befits the man who rivals ringo starr as the most popular percussionist in the history of pop. he’s had his own t-shirt, badge and “simply simon” fanzine and after a spot as radio presenter, expect the tv chat show before the century dies to violent hands.

maybe maybe some of this popularity can be accredited to simon’s decision to come out during one of suede’s first major interviews. “before i said i was gay, i’d had about two fan letters. after that they didn’t stop.” 

simon has proved to be a well-respected role-model both through his petitioning for gay rights (he made a well-publicised speech during stonewall’s campaign for an equal age of consent) and in his challenging of segregation by sexuality. “i didn’t feel part of the straight crowd, but equally i didn’t feel part of the gay scene either.”  it’s this vulnerable humanity so many suede fans empathise with.

maybe maybe it’s his bon homie, joie de vivre and genuine lust for life which makes him such fun to be with, be that as part of a two-thousand strong audience dancing to his tribal rhythms, or in private conversation propping up the bar afterwards.

maybe it’s just the fact  that he’s an absobloodylutely brilliant drummer, his heartfelt beats being the very first moments of suede music on record, equally adept at lilting ballads and powerhouse punk-fests.

but whatever it is, it works. simon is also easily the musical veteran of the band, his experience stretching back through the mists of time to a pre-teen punk school outfit called plastic blood. he was the first member of suede to make a record, appearing on a punk compilation album as drummer with dead to the world at the age of 14.

simon gilbert has a dog called george. his favourite record is complete control by the clash.

richard oakes – guitars
“best band in the world seeks guitarist. apply within.”

it seemed ridiculous. absolutely ludicrous. but if suede have had one consistent theme throughout their long and winding history, it’s about battling against the odds – and coming out triumphant. not just winning, but shattering every possible pre-conception.

432 and a half people applied for the highly-publicised surprise vacancy of guitarist-cum-tunesmith with suede. four guitarists were auditioned. but the successful applicant wasn’t a freelance celebrity guitar slinger, or even a well respected session player. he was richard oakes, an unknown 17 year old school boy from poole in dorset. the first band he had ever seen live was suede. not much more than a year later he was in suede.

sure, he had played bass with his school dixie-land combo and even delighted the aunties with renditions of such catchy family favourites as the cure’s pornography and pil’s under the house. but the mccartney to brett’s lennon?

after some unsettlingly assured warm up dates, the detractors had to admit that the lad sure could play. but, hey, anyone can copy someone else’s guitar patterns, right?

but suede hadn’t put their faith in richard as some kind of perverse practical joke. and they knew something we didn’t: the boy could write. and how.

when richard offered together from his audition tape as something the band might be interested in using as a b-side, it was instantly promoted to double a-side status. and when, shortly afterwards, he and brett gave birth to what would become the epic picnic by the motorway, the band’s recruitment policy was more than vindicated. this wasn’t just a great suede song. it was probably the best suede song so far.

now a practically pensionable 20 years old, richard oakes looks likely to replace cliff richard as the peter pan of pop, so often have his tender years been splashed across the music press. he is also entitled to the title of “man most allowed to feel a bit chuffed with himself”.

trash, richard’s first single proper, has become suede’s most successful hit to date and the album, of which he co-wrote the lion's share, is already well on its way to surpassing the considerable success of its predecessors too.

richard oakes wears spectacles when no one’s looking. he is well on the way to becoming the greatest guitarist of his generation.

neil codling – keyboards
despite having effortlessly installed himself as a just seventeen and smash hits readers’ fave, the man they don’t call molly remains something of a mystery. we know he’s simon’s cousin, hails from the land of shakespeare, plays everything from kazoo to flugelhorn and used to be in some kind of weird jazz-punk outfit under the moniker of the fit drunks.

he appears to have joined suede completely by accident, making a nuisance of himself by humming along with brett at rehearsals until someone gave him a piano to play with. then before anyone could shout  “robert is your mother’s brother”, neil plucked two beezer tunes from nowhere and suggested that his new found chums should give them a listen.

the songs were tiswas and gbh which respectively became the spittle-flecked starcrazy and swoonsome chemistry between us. here was someone who could sing, play and compose, with the added benefit of being young enough to keep the band’s average age on the right side of thirty.

suede had become a five piece.

neil codling lives on a diet of brown rice. he is the proud owner of the finest cheekbones in pop.

© 2004 suede fanzine.  All rights reserved.