They were the darlings of the music press, but somehow great sounds just weren't enough and House of Love never garnered the following their music deserved. Reformed and back on the road with a new album, Guy Chadwick tells Kevin Courtney why it's great to be back
It's easy to forget things after 15 years. I can't remember who won Italia 90 (I know we didn't) or who was the Minister for Finance, or where I lost that red jumper from Penney's (some things are best forgotten). And I almost forgot what a great band the House of Love were, and what a pity it was that they didn't achieve the success they so roundly deserved. But just to jog my memory, the London band are back with a fine new album, Days Run Away, and an Irish tour starting in Belfast next Wednesday. A decade and a half after their biggest hit, House Of Love are to shine on us once again. We're not worthy.
When they released their eponymously-titled second album in 1990 (the follow-up to their eponymously-titled 1988 début), House Of Love were already darlings of the music press, and every review read like an ode to a beloved sweetheart. Led by songwriting duo Guy Chadwick and Terry Bickers, and named after a book by Anaïs Nin, House Of Love took their cue from such bands as Velvet Underground and The Jesus And Mary Chain, but with added vulnerability and extra tunefulness. They signed to Creation records, and their début album (featuring the classic Christine) became essential bedsit furniture, alongside My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything.
Although they arrived during the apogee of shoegazing, House Of Love were looking towards a different horizon, somewhere between Echo & The Bunnymen's enigma and U2's stadium stomp. They signed to Fontana/Phonogram, and scored two Top 40 hits with the singles Shine On and The Beatles And The Stones, going from a small but perfectly formed indie band to wannabe rock monsters. With a wad of record company advance money in their pockets, and rave reviews showering down on them like ticker-tape, Chadwick and Bickers partied like Mötley Crüe, argued like Slash and Axl Rose - and lost the plot like Happy Mondays in Barbados.
"It was a circus," recalls Chadwick of that long-gone heyday. "It was just so fast. Maybe fast isn't the word - it was just the pressure that we put on ourselves by moving to a major label. I wanted to be in a popular group, we all wanted to be huge. Any group wants to be - it's an exciting business, and to play in front of a crowd, there's nothing like it. And if you get to play in front of 50,000 people instead of 5,000 people, you're gonna choose the 50,000 people. They're crazy dreams, but when you start to go into that process, it's quite contagious, and it's quite corrupting as well, and I definitely lost my nerve a bit. I found the pressure hard to take."
Chadwick's recollection of those heady days is, understandably, hazy, although acid-tinged tales of envelope-pushing excess abound. The party wasn't to last, however; Bickers quit, and the band stuttered on through 1992's Babe Rainbow and another album that sank without trace. Built on delicate musical sand and fragile foundations, House of Love eventually came tumbling down, but Chadwick regrets rien. "It was good fun, actually, I had a really good time, and I have some really happy memories, but I just wish it wasn't such a crash landing."
He released a solo album, but that also failed to stir up much interest, so in 1999 Chadwick decided to call it a day. "I just knocked it on the head, really. I thought, no, I'm leaving. I'm not doing this anymore. And I felt good for that decision."
Amazingly, his marriage survived the battle of the band, but it meant that Chadwick had to find another way to support his wife, their teenage daughter and their brand new baby girl. So he became a property developer, buying and selling houses on the London market and, for the first time since his record deal, trousering respectable amounts of money. So when a music biz acquaintance approached him to make another solo album, Chadwick replied: no deal. OK, said the persistent exec, what about a new House Of Love album? Sure, shrugged Chadwick, if you can get the band back together, I'll be up for it. To his surprise, the guy called his bluff - and called Terry Bickers, who agreed to return.
"It was a very acrimonious split at the time," says Chadwick. "But it just happened that this time was the right time. The whole thing about us getting together was not about reuniting just to do some sort of retro gigs. It was always about getting together to make a record, and we didn't know what to expect as far as our old audience was concerned, or who would come to the gigs."
Seems that the fans haven't forgotten, because the band have sold out many of their UK dates, and sales are brisk for their forthcoming Irish shows. And, most importantly, Chadwick and Bickers are once again feeling the force.
"It sounds great, and all our old stuff sounds really good," says Chadwick with nary a hint of smugness. "And it's funny, because we played the songs so many times all those years ago, I thought we'd have forgotten them, but they were just in us... I'd forgotten how good we used to sound."
House Of Love play the Limelight, Belfast on Wednesday, the Nerve Centre, Derry on Thursday, the Village, Dublin next Friday and Cyprus Avenue, Cork on Saturday. Days Run Away is out on Feb 28th.
