The day Suede almost bagged one of their heroes, Mike Joyce
What is essential in the ultimate recipe for a Britpop band? Good guitar hooks? An attitude? Witty lyricism? No, it’s influence.
In order to create the ultimate Britpop band, you need the best of the British, a lineage of inspirations, and Suede almost took that literally.
When the band was starting up, primed to be arguably the first Britpop band when their debut single, ‘The Drowners’, would be the first to grant that label, Brett Anderson had a vision. It was less a vision of himself, though, as he never once claimed the desire to be a complete original or something totally and utterly new. Instead, the vision was an amalgamation. It was a cut-and-stick collage of his heroes.
“Young guitar player needed by London-based band. Smiths, Commotions, Bowie, Pet Shop Boys. No Musos. Some things are more important than ability. Call Brett”. That was the ad the singer had placed in the October 28th, 1989, issue of NME, and that was the blueprint. The classics were all there as Anderson would talk at length about the impact of the likes of Bowie, T Rex, Roxy Music, The Cure and more. But in the vision he had for both himself as a frontman and for the band he was seeking, it was always the influence of The Smiths that came first and foremost.
Maybe this is what set Suede apart. While Blur and Oasis were both obviously also influenced by the best of British, it seemed to go back further to the likes of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, back to the original rock and roll the country created. But Suede embraced modernity by including the 1970s and ‘80s impact of early post-punk in their deck of inspirations. It gave them the darker edge that would make them famous, but when merged with a hooky rock and roll, the impact of the Morrissey and Johnny Marr partnership becomes strikingly obvious.
All of this led to one moment when a pipedream almost came true. Suede launched after that NME advert found them Bernard Butler. They struggled to find a drummer, though, at first just using a drum machine and then eventually bringing in Justin Welch, before swiftly kicking him back out again. It was the one missing piece keeping them from having the full package, and nailing their sound and their merge of that cast of influences. So they put out another ad, once again listing The Smiths as a key influence and looking for someone influenced by them too, and then the phone rang.
It was Mike Joyce, the actual, literal drummer from The Smiths, enquiring about an ad looking for a The Smiths-inspired drummer.
Obviously, they offered him the spot there and then; no audition necessary. But after hearing the band play, Joyce actually turned it down, but only for their own sake. He feared that for a new band just on the cusp of their story, his presence, plus the obvious Smiths’ influence in their music, might hinder them, making them seem like nothing but a copycat act. So he said no, telling them to go off and forge their own path instead, promising he’d be watching and supporting.
And he did. The band found Simon Gilbert and finally got started, launching in 1992 with ‘The Drowners’ and in turn, launching Britpop. But before that, hype spread through word of mouth, partly through NME, where the ad had first been placed, and also partly through whispers of the A-list names that showed up at their gigs, like one Steven Morrissey.
