Thanks so much to Kevin for the interview! Very happy to finally publish this interview that I think we started back in 2009! The Raw Herbs is a favourite band of mine of course, they released top records, on classic labels, in the 80s. I still believe a retrospective compilation by them is due. I hope it happens soon, it would be great for popkids to rediscover their music! In the meantime check this interview and visit their website!

Why do you think the Raw Herbs never got the popularity it deserved? It’s hard to believe, honestly. I’ve listened again all your tracks, and I can’t  believe how underrated you’ve been.

I think it’s down to a matter of luck and we weren’t lucky. At the time we always seemed to be on the periphery of things. We knew the Creation folk, Stephen (Bass Guitarist) and I used to hang out with Andy and Bill from The Loft, but we were never one of the cool bands that garnered all the attention. Janice Long, the BBC Radio 1 DJ, was good to us but we couldn’t seem to get noticed.

How did the band come together?

Stephen and I grew up together and had been in bands since we were 15. We’d gone down to London to the Polytechnic of Central London and had formed a group called the Trees. Joe Foster from Creation produced a demo for us but it didn’t interest anyone and we called it a day. Our next move was to put an ad in Melody Maker for band members. Derek replied but, it seems odd now, he wasn’t our first choice. Thankfully the dude we initially picked buggered off, so we asked Derek to join. It’s so long ago I can’t remember why we didn’t pick him first. I love his voice so that part of our history is a mystery to me now. We knew the June Brides and asked for the number of Brian their old drummer. Initially they warned us off him as he’d had a run in with one of them, I don’t know how anyone could get on the wrong side of Brian as he was such a mild mannered bloke.

Were any of you involved in bands before forming The Raw Herbs?

Like I said Stephen and I had been playing together since school and Brian had been in a few London Bands. I can’t remember whether Derek had played with anyone else.

There wasn’t many guitar pop bands at the time that combined country music with indiepop. What made you choose that road? What were the main influences for you?

I loved the Byrds and from them Gram Parsons. I had a soft spot for bands who would throw in the odd Country tune, like The Only Ones song “Fools” or “Rockville” by REM. Derek was also into Country and I think had grown up with more traditional stuff playing in his house like Jerry Lee Lewis. He had a great Don Everly Lp called Sunset Towers with a song I still love on it called “Did it Rain”.  I guess it just came out in the music.

What do you think was the biggest highlight for the band? was it reaching the 19th spot on the UK Indie Chart?

Were we number 19? Getting the BBC Radio session and hearing the band being played on John Peel were great moments as was Robert Foster from the Go-Betweens coming to see us in Islington. I really liked rehearsing and hanging out, being in a transit Van going to gigs was always fun. Stephen and I lived in a condemned house in the east end of London, the front room had been badly converted into a rehearsal room (we put up a few egg boxes). The neighbour was an artist from up north who thought it was cool to have a band next door which was pretty luck for us. Up the road were The Jack Rubies and Kill Devil Hills and a few streets away The Loft

Your first release was the Old Joe flexi and came out on the Medium Cool label. How did you end up in Andy Wake’s label? Were you Cool Trout Basement casuals? Who was this Old Joe?

I can’t remember how Andy heard about us but he got in contact. He was full of energy with an attitude that was unassailable, he was hard to resist so we threw in our lot with Medium Cool. I have a feeling that David Payne, who had a fanzine called Trout Fishing in Leytonstone, may have been involved. He lived down the road from us and we all hung out together. Myself, Arch and David got The Cool Trout Basement club going on Portland Street in Central London which we obviously played.

The Old Joe lyric is Derek’s, On most of the songs I wrote the music and Derek the words. Sometimes a working tiltle would stick like Don’t Bury me yet which I picked up from a line in an old western.

Thanks to your second release, the “She’s a Nurse” 7″, Janice Long invited you to record a session for her. That must have been thrilling! But tell me how did it happen? There was no emails back then!

We’d booked The Pale Fountains to play The Cool Trout Basement with The Herbs supporting. They pulled out on the night and we ended up headlining,  Janice pitched up to see them but saw us instead. The session offer followed that.

How did the session go? how was she? how many songs did you play for her? did she talk or interview you

The session took place over a day. We were very lucky to have Peter Watts producing it (he produced all our other stuff after that). He was very good at keeping things very relaxed. We did 4 songs: Bless This Day, Syd’s Late Night (a version of Syd Barrett’s Late night that we extended with bits we wrote – the nerve!),  Holland and Don’t Bury Me Yet. We didn’t get interviewed, All are dealings with Janice were great, she’s a really nice person. Same for John Peel who took Stephen and me out for a beer, I got so drunk I lost my coat.

The third release is my favourite, I admit. Is it for you too? Don’t Bury Me Yet is a classic, an indiepop classic. It’s hard to believe that in the CD86 they chose another song, but well… maybe they are more right than me? Anyways, how did this song happen? What was the inspiration behind it?

I’m very proud of the song. I had the chords and riff written and saw an old Western (I think it was Johnny Guitar with Joan Crawford) where the phrase was used. Derek wrote the lyrics around that. Stephen had a work colleague who played banjo which really sets the track apart from the stuff that was around at the time.

On the front cover sleeve, your guitar appears. A Burns Black Bison guitar. It must have been really important for you, right? was there any reason to choose this particular guitar?

The Burns was beautiful, a real work of art but a bit of a pig to get a good sound out of. How could we not use it as the cover? I sold it shortly afterwards and bought a Dakota Red Jazzmaster, almost as pretty but a 1000 times more usable.

You also recorded a video for this song! Really enjoyable, especially for Derek’s haircut! Is there any good anecdotes about it? Why there’s photos of Stuart Sutcliffe, the original Beatle, all over the walls?

The venue for the video was The Cool Trout Basement club which we used one Sunday afternoon. The Stuart posters were part of a Medium Cool promotion so we stuck them up. Andy Wake had more than a passing resemblance to him, the prettiest man I knew. We made a rotating platform that we stood on which was rotated by the person lying at your feet – that explains the laughter during the rotating head scenes.

After that you released two songs on the Edge of the Road compilation. After that there was an album scheduled, what happened?

We pulled all of our tracks together and had plates made for an American label which promptly disappeared (I have one of 2 test pressings). We then got a little too up ourselves and left Medium Cool because we wanted more spent on our covers and more attention from Andy. A very bad move.

Your song “Hopelessly” appeared on the Everlasting tape. I don’t know much about this compilation, do you remember anything about it? Were you part of any other compilations?

The Everlasting tape was a surprise, we weren’t asked for our permission  but at least it’s out there. The rights to the songs we recorded for Medium Cool were sold to Cherry Red even though we owned them. Andy says a friend of his scammed him when he was touring with another of his bands. We’ve reached an accommodation with Cherry Red as I’d rather that the music was heard. They’ve put tracks on a couple of compilations.

How involved were you guys with the fanzine culture of the time?

Not at all apart from knowing David.

“The Second Time” was your last single and you released it in your own label, Rooster Records. How was the experience of doing label-stuff during that time? Was it easy to distribute / promote the record? How did that go? You even did a video for it! 

We signed a deal with Revolver in Bristol to have our own label, Rough Trade were also interested but the deal wasn’t so good. We were awful at running the label, had no budget control, couldn’t do publicity and had a couple of managers who we shouldn’t have. Revolver handled the distribution. The video was fun to do as we did it in the crypt of a Church by Waterloo Station (I was coordinating a Counselling project from the belfry and borrowed the keys). Unfortunately our manager went on holiday when the record was released and didn’t send out the videos or do much publicity – the curse of The Herbs strikes again!

Why did you decide to call it a day? What happened to the band members after that?

The scene was passing us by, gigs were getting worse and no one was interested in the band. I met someone in Bath and moved from London and Derek and Stephen packed it in shortly after. I’m happy with what we did together and suspect that anything else would not have been as good as we were drifting apart musically.

We all  carried on playing but with no commercial success but like the Burns we left something special behind and almost as pretty.

Anything else you’d like to say to the guitar pop fans that are reading this?

If you like the Herbs, thanks. You are part of a very secret but special club. Keep strumming!

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Listen
The Raw Herbs – Don’t Bury Me Yet