The “mistake” Bernard Butler made in Suede’s ‘Animal Nitrate’
For how short his time was in the band, Bernard Butler will always be remembered for his stint in Britpop icons Suede. Across less than half a decade, Butler joined the band, helped them ascend to the heights of the British rock scene, and then jumped ship while making the follow-up. It all seemed to happen so fast, but the songs that Butler helped write live on.
That includes ‘Animal Nitrate’, the supercharged single from the band’s 1993 debut album. Most fans first saw Butler performing ‘Animal Nitrate’ as Suede stormed the 1993 BRIT Awards to perform the track. The song would eventually peak inside the top ten of the UK Singles Chart, helping to turn the tide in British rock music and signal the arrival of Britpop.
“We were rehearsing it for months and months, and Bernard kept asking me if I had any lyrics for it, and I wanted something special to say over the top of what he’s written,” lead singer Brett Anderson claimed in 2013. “I like the fact it’s a song about a dark, murky world that ended up in the Top 10.”
Despite the song’s success, Butler had one specific reservation about showing the song to the band. While sitting down with BBC Radio 6 for their ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ series, Butler gave a preface to showing off the song’s signature riff by explaining his regret about showing off the nascent riff that eventually became ‘Animal Nitrate’.
“I remember coming up with the riff for it – early ’92 it must have been – in rehearsal,” Butler explained. “[I was] playing it a few times over. I made the mistake of playing a song that was a complete piece of music. This is always one of those things that can go wrong with singers: you play a complete piece of music without them being involved in it. Because it can go wrong. I find people can be sort of overruled by that.
“It’s better when people are involved in an earlier stage, with the vocals and the lyrics and the melody, and the song develops together. But this is quite an odd one because when I played it, I remember Brett kind of not really getting it. I played it with the band in rehearsal. Lots of other tunes at that time were played to him before they got to the rehearsal room. But this one [I] played it around with the band, and for quite a few months, he just wasn’t into it, or he didn’t get it.”
Anderson eventually warmed to the ‘Animal Nitrate’ riff. Watch Bernard Butler discuss how to play ‘Animal Nitrate’ down below.
