Thanks so much to Jim Williams for the interview. I wrote about The Rainhorns some time ago after discovering their 1991 cassette album “Facefull of Tears”. I was very curious about the band, there were no details about the band online. To my surprise Jim got in touch and told me that there are many more songs!! Hope we get to listen to them someday!
++ Hi Jim! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?
Very good thanks. Taking a break from some mixing today. Yes I’m still involved in music. I work as a recording & live sound engineer and also mastering. I’ve never stopped writing songs. After The Rainhorns original line up ended, I did another album as The Rainhorns with Dave Tudor on drums and another friend Helen Morris on percussion and backing vocals. That then morphed into Additional Moog. Additional Moog started as a psychedelic/somewhat avant garde Syd Barrett inspired project – we recorded a wacky album called A Chemist’s Philosophy – before I mutated the project into an indie rock sound a la Pavement/Trumans Water/REM. One of the songs from it was a 60s style trippy pop style song called Doughnut which ended up being played on local radio in Mid Wales on a regular basis. I later gave a new name to the ‘band’ behind A Chemist Philosophy – The Gene Wilder Experience. That stuff didn’t really sound like what Additional Moog turned out to be, hence the rebrand. After more than 30 years it has to be time to release that stuff haha. Meanwhile, I took Additional Moog forward as a live band for a few years, recording a couple of critically acclaimed albums and doing gigs up and down the country. Around 2007 I started working as a touring sound engineer and started a new solo project Hall Of Ghosts. One of the tours I was opening as Hall Of Ghosts for the Grammy winning guitarist Albert Lee. Hall Of Ghosts sounds quite a lot like Additional Moog, a little more Americana maybe. Then I started another project Good Captain which saw me get back to electric guitar. I’ve released a few things but most of the album was shelved because the final line up of Additional Moog reformed during lockdown and started doing remote recording again before we finally got back together at The Forge Studio in Oswestry to lay down the bed tracks for what will be our long overdue third album aha. The first fruits of that reformation was the single Let’s Eat Out which is on all the streaming platforms right now. Hoping to finish the new album this year…finally. As an engineer I work with lots of singer/songwriters and local bands, some touring acts but haven’t toured for a few years. I need to get back to that. Last year I was one of the live sound mixers at the Olympics in Paris. My favourite gig I mixed was Albert Lee at Cadogan Hall in London where he was joined on stage by The Shadows for his 70th birthday. Albert played the Hank Marvin parts and when they launched into Wonderful Land I couldn’t contain my blubbing at the mixing desk. It’s one of my favourite 60s singles because my dad always talks about how it reminds him of his dad. Another good gig I mixed was on tour with Albert Lee in the US. His band played a club in Chicago and Vince Gill joined the band along with Elvis guitarist James Burton. That was a fun show to mix. James Burton is a lovely guy as well.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?
It’s all down to Simon & Garfunkel – The Concert In Central Park. I started playing a tiny acoustic guitar aged 7 and went for lessons. Paul Simon was my hero, followed by Jeff Lynne and later Johnny Marr and Morrissey.
++ Had you been in other bands before The Rainhorns? What about the other band members? Are there any songs recorded by these bands?
No, this was the first band for everyone, I think (?!) .
++ Where were you from originally?
From Oswestry. As were most of the other lads in the band – or at least this general area. Dave was from Liverpool and moved to our school.
++ How was Oswestry, Shropshire, at the time of The Rainhorns? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
It was definitely a backwater for live music at that town. I’m aware of one or two heavy rock/metal bands in the area at the time – one of the guys ran one of our local music shops. I seem to remember The Crown used to have bands on then, a bar called Champagne Charlies. When we did our first gig as part of a school revue for parents and pupils it was like a mini Beatlemania haha. Other pupils used to cram to watch our rehearsals and I remember signing quite a few autographs hahaha. I don’t think that mania lasted longer than a fortnight lol.
++ How was the band put together? How was the recruiting process?
To be honest it wasn’t really a band to start off. We were all friends and Monty Python fans in school. We used to do some sketches for other pupils and then one summer we started making a terrible racket in my parent’s garage on a break from trying to record some kind of film I’d written. I still have pretty much all of those atrocious sounding tapes. That was the summer of 1989. I’d been buying Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets singles after hearing them on John Peel. But there wasn’t much of that in our sound to start off. The early ‘songs’ – I use that term in the loosest of senses – were more influenced by The Wedding Present, U2, Sex Pistols, The Smiths, The Housemartins and Pixies’ Doolittle album.
++ Was there any lineup changes?
Pad Williams joined on bass. He was one of my best mates at school and had started learning bass. We used to go record shopping together. I remember him learning the bass parts for the Facefull of Tears songs in my bedroom. Before that we didn’t have a bass player. Pad left the band in 1992 I think, and Tom Partridge took over on bass. And Matthew Shepherd on keyboard only played with us in 1991. After that I did a few gigs with me playing organ and singing (I didn’t enjoy that – much preferred the guitar !) Another school mate Tom Jones was with us for our very first rehearsal tape but didn’t do any more with us.
++ What instruments did each of you play in the band?
We basically had very instruments. I had an electric guitar and an acoustic and a small Yamaha keyboard and was the main singer and songwriter. We didn’t have any real drums to start. Mike Jaffrey and Dave Tudor fashioned old buckets into tom toms. Eventually Mike did get a floor tom, a snare and a couple of cymbals after a visit to Shrewsbury’s Salop Music Centre and Dave had a set of bongos I think. I quite liked we had two percussionists and that the early stuff had that trashy drum sound a bit like Mo Tucker from The Velvet Underground – she didn’t play a full drum kit either. Anthony Whyton had a red Strat copy. When he wore a long coat he looked a bit like The Edge. Tom Partridge shook maracas, did BVs and danced. He later switched to bass. Pad Williams was on bass in 1991. Matthew Shepherd was on organ. He had a Casiotone I think which sounded quite like a Farfisa which Clint Boon was using in Inspiral Carpets and it also made us sound a little bit like The Doors with that organ sound. Matthew was more into Guns N Roses than The Stones Roses, I seem to recall. He didn’t play on anything after the Facefull Of Tears album but he was a good keyboard player for sure. I should’ve said, some of us took jokey pseudonyms for a while. I can’t remember them all. Mine was Tom Hape. Quite embarrassing.
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
For quite a while we rehearsed at a big dusty barn out in the sticks and sometimes we recorded demos in Anthony’s parents’ garage. I used to borrow a Yamaha 4 Track cassette recorder from the school music department. The teachers had no idea how to use it. It looked like something from Star Wars with all of it’s knobs and sliders. I loved it. Still, no internet in those days, nobody to help me learn how to use it properly and we had a really cheap set of mics. It’s a wonder I got anything down on tape. Eventually my dear nan bought me an Amstrad 4 track with a record player on top. One of Alan Sugar’s. It was dreadful. Eventually I bought a Shure mic (which got stolen at a later gig) – I think the first album had only 3 or 4 mics on it because we had nothing else. The Inspiral Carpets demo tape Dung 4 was a really big inspiration for the sound of the tape. I sent Graham Lambert (Inspirals’ guitarist) a copy of the tape and he was very complementary. In 1991 we got a Teac 144 4 track to record Facefull Of Tears – but that turned out to be faulty. I remember spending a lot of money (for me, at least) trying to get it fixed by Tascam, to no avail. The only effects we had for the recording was a Boss BF2 flanger which I’d got because I heard Johnny Marr used one and a Realistic/Tandy delay unit which wasn’t great. Any reverb was the sound of the youth club hall which we repurposed as our ‘studio’.
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?
We used to be called The Sheds. As far as I remember, that name came from Anthony – I think one of his relatives had a band called the Sheds. If said in an East End of London accent The Sheds sounds like The Shitheads. We thought it was funny. When we started trying to be a bit more serious about the band I came up with The Rainhorns. No idea how the name came to me I’m afraid.
++ As far as I know your only release was a 1991 tape titled “Facefull of Tears“. I have many questions about this release. But let’s start with Farm Records. Who were they? How did the relationship with the band and the label start? Was it a good relationship?
Farm was just us trying to be independent. We printed our own cassette inlays using photocopiers and those rub out letter sets they used to sell in WH Smiths.
++ One thing I am curious about this label is that your release has catalog number 4, but I couldn’t find any other releases for this label. I would suppose there would be a 1, 2 and 3. Maybe you would know?
Farm 1,2 and 3 were all cassette EPs. A few good songs on them but not very well performed or recorded. They had vaguely Smiths-style covers using black and white photos of people. I wouldn’t dream of inflicting those tapes on the public again.
++ How many copies of the album were released? How was it distributed? I ask as I’ve never seen a copy!
The Facefull tape was me trying to get a better sound and some attempt at properly arranged songs. We sold it in the local record shop Cobweb, around school, at some gigs, I’m sure we sent one to John Peel of course and a few live venues. I saw that a copy had gone for something like £60 on the internet? I doubt we would have made more than 100.
++ Where was the album recorded? How long did it take to record? Did you work with a producer?
It was recorded at Centre North West, a youth centre. We took over the main hall for 5 days. 12th, 17th, 22nd, 24th and 25th July according to the tapes. I finished bits at home. We didn’t have a producer. I was the one putting up mics, trying to get sounds and recording. There was a recording studio in Oswestry called The Tannery which we’d hired as rehearsal room once but just didn’t have the money to be properly produced there. We did take the 4 track there once and recorded a cover of I’ll Be Your Mirror by The Velvet Underground. Systems Workshop in Oswestry sold pro audio gear and had a small studio upstairs too. Would’ve been good to have had the opportunity to record there. It later moved to another building behind and become The Forge Studios. I ended up doing some producing there a few years back when it re-opened after lockdown. We were all students. Could barely afford guitar strings let alone studio time. I wish a producer could’ve heard the demos back then and helped me with the sonics and the arrangements. It’s why I always pay attention to young bands I come across now and try to help them if possible. There was a lot of potential in The Rainhorns. A producer would’ve helped us massively and got everyone to rehearse properly.
++ The tape was titled “Facefull of Tears”. From what I understand the title has a a typo. How did this happen? No one noticed until it was printed?
That’s my fault. I never even thought of it at the time. And I was a decent English student so I should’ve realised. To be honest, Face Full Of Tears would’ve been unsatisfying. If it’s ever reissued, I’ll sort the typo!
++ And why did you choose Rita Tushingham on the cover of the record?
I was a drama student. We’d been doing A Taste Of Honey and that photo is from the film. And Morrissey had referenced the film in a few Smiths songs – that was good enough for me. It’s a really unflattering photo, though isn’t it! See the attached artwork of what it might’ve looked like. I’m sure getting the rights to use the photo now would be a bit costly.
++ The album as mentioned came out on tape. I do wonder why not on vinyl? Was there no interest to release it that way?
That just wasn’t on the radar. We all loved vinyl but we would’ve had to have pressed at least 500 copies. Tape was the way demos were done in those days. Would’ve loved to see it on vinyl.
++ Was there any interest by other labels at any point? Maybe big ones?
I don’t think we ever sent it out to any other labels. We wouldn’t have known where to start. I definitely sent it to John Peel and possibly 4AD who I’m sure would’ve taken one look at thrown it in the bin.
++ From what you were saying there are even more recordings by the band, demo tapes and 4 track tapes. Do you remember how many demo tapes you put out? The songs on them? Any chance to do some sort of demo-graphy?
I’m not counting the tapes we made in 89 as The Sheds as they were just for laughs. These are some of the songs we recorded as demos between 1990 and 1992 as The Rainhorns : I found Farm 1,2 and what I think was 3….Farm 1 was an cassette EP called You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone with Jack Lemon on the cover. Farm 2 was called Roger Moore for some reason and features a young Ayrton Senna on the front. Farm 3 was, I believe, the Trainspotting EP but I can’t place what was on the cover and I only seem to have a session tape for it. These cassette EPs would’ve been sold only though gigs and the local indie record store and given to friends and family. I wouldn’t want them commercially released now hahaha.
Fairground – we made a video for this at our local college. It was alright actually. I don’t have a copy anymore but somewhere I do have a Betamax video of one of our gigs. Maybe the Fairground video is on that tape.
You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone – Title lifted from a 13th Floor Elevators song. Music more like The Smiths meets The Seeds. This was on one of the first tape EPs.
Slow Suicide – I swiped the title from an Inspiral Carpets demo song I’d never heard, so ultimately I never took it any further. However, I really like the melody and chords and am planning to repurpose this as a future Additional Moog track with a different title. This was on one of the tape EPs as well.
Fifteen – among the first proper songs I wrote and probably my favourite of The Rainhorns songs. See below…
Shine Right Through Me – uptempo indie pop, sounds like a train about to derail to me.
Swirl – noisy, a bit baggy but it was meant to sound like Ride.
Kitchen – our attempt at The Doors. The main part of the song isn’t bad but the long instrumental section is just a silly mess. If Faceful ever gets remixed, this song is first to be edited down to 3 minutes!!
Merry-Go-Round – I think we closed a few gigs with this. Quite fun to play. I enjoyed Tom’s backing vocal and I seem to remember we used to crack up singing this live.
Hillside Heroin – we opened our first gig at school with this. A favourite. Could’ve been a single. “I’m way out of here…I’m nowhere near…”
Miserable Town – thrashy, punky 2 minute garage song. A good one.
The Summer’s Come – a romantic ballad. Probably the most accomplished song we had. Reminds me of the summers of 1989 and 1990.
Waiting For The Sun – title pinched from a Doors album. The song was a nice summery bittersweet ballad.
Keep Me In Mind – another sad song. I like the chords and the melody
How Can I – I might be wrong, maybe this song – rather than
Fifteen – was the first ‘proper’ song I’d written. We had done a rough version as The Sheds in the barn I think. No organ on this. I was trying to channel Paul Simon, Johnny Marr and the House of Love.
647 – A long jam that was inspired by The Charlatans’ Indian Rope EP and I’m A Man by Spencer Davis Group. Pad had played me the Spencer Davis track at his house I think. The next rehearsal we taped our interpretation of these two tunes with a hint of Happy Mondays thrown in. Apparently Steve Winwood was only 16 when he sang that song!! I think a couple of our school mates also joined in this session shaking various percussion.
Sea Monkey – just before the original line up of The Rainhorns split up I brought them this harder edged, somewhat psychedelic track which we probably did a quick demo of while rehearsing. I remember playing it at a couple of gigs. It felt we were getting quite tight as a live band then. But the taste for teenagers playing indie hadn’t really overwhelmed Oswestry at that time.
Past Your Eyes – another post Faceful song which we had been working up. I recorded this on the second Rainhorns album ‘Themes From A Garden’ with Dave and Helen.
Make Up Your Mind – haven’t heard this in years. Off ‘Garden’. A vaguely uptempo indie rocker.
No Broken Bones – recorded for the ‘Garden’ album. I need to listen again but this was a moodier, Doors like track I think.
Sleeping – an acoustic style ballad which was quite good
Theme From Life – a somewhat 60s sounding song. Quite mysterious sounding and with a good chorus. We should’ve recorded this for Faceful. I think it was on the Trainspotting EP
Oversensitive – One of the very first tracks demoed for The Rainhorns but didn’t get a ‘proper’ recording until Themes From A Garden. The original demo was very much inspired by the likes of Pale Saints, The Sundays and The Field Mice.
Your Love Was My Only – another bittersweet ballad from ‘Garden’ – The Summer’s Come Part 2.
Last September – a pretty good song which we may have played live before the original line up split. This was also on ‘Themes From A Garden’ in 1992.
He’s Not There – along with Fifteen, my favourite Rainhorns track. Pretty fast, scratchy and funky. I can’t remember if I rehearsed this with the first line up but it was the first song on ‘Themes From A Garden’.
++ You were saying that you are planning to re-release the album. Do you have a timeline for that? Will you try to release any unreleased songs as well?
I’m in the middle of repairing a Tascam 4 track in order to transfer what I can from the original 4 track tapes. I’d love to at least get one song ready as a demo this year. Using technology it ought to be possible for me to get a drier mix, improve the EQ etc – unfortunately the performances can’t be altered haha and I wouldn’t dream of using AI for anything. I think the stuff we recorded as demos before Faceful is largely left best locked away in our memory banks. If I find anything surprising that’s up to par I would definitely look to release it. I’d also definitely consider releasing Themes From A Garden properly too as the recording quality is better on that to start with.
++ My favourite song of yours is “How Can I”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
I was trying to channel some kind of Velvets’ Sunday Morning via Johnny Marr and The House of Love and of course the intro on the drums is Be My Baby, one of my favourite singles of all time. I’ve always played arpeggio style, melodic guitar. That comes from liking Paul Simon as well. Quite a lot of these Rainhorns lyrics are clumsy, naive or a little overtly sentimental but I was a teenager writing love songs so I have to forgive myself for some of the lyrical faults aha.
++ If you were to choose your favorite The Rainhorns song, which one would that be and why?
Fifteen. I love the chords, the melancholy. I was writing a story-style song, from a third person perspective. I was 15 but not writing about me but from the point of view of a teenage runaway. I’d re-do some of the lyrics now if I could.
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
Not many. Probably a dozen. A lot of them had quite a nice vibe, lots of school friends coming to watch and some getting on stage with us at the end. One of our last gigs was a pub gig in Oswestry as a four piece. We played the best we’d ever played to a bunch of blokes talking at the bar. To be fair, that was one of our first exposures to playing a gig in ‘unknown territory’. I think if we’d stayed together and rehearsed hard we could’ve done well – but we needed a producer in hindsight.
++ When and why did The Rainhorns stop making music? Were any of you involved in any other projects afterwards?
Pad had already left the band. I think he started his own band in college around that time with him singing. I was quite surprised but remember them being pretty good. From what I remember, Anthony, Tom and Mike had become very interested in Nirvana and wanted to play heavier stuff so that’s how we split up. I was quite upset for about 4 hours. I seem to recall attending a gig a few months later in Oswestry where they were playing together with another singer. One of the first songs they did was my song ‘Waiting For The Sun’. I was quite put out when I heard them play it. Then I realised it was quite a nice thing to do and I went up and played bongos during the rest of their set, sitting on the floor. I’m sure it was exactly like when Syd Barrett walked in on Pink Floyd recording Wish You Were Here hahaha. I liked Nirvana but preferred Pixies anyway and was still trying to develop the indie pop sound of The Rainhorns which is why I recruited Dave back to play drums. We recorded the whole of Themes From A Garden on a 4 track in my parents’ garage in one day – 6th June 1992. 10 songs in about 6 hours. That’s pretty good going. I only released it to family and friends on tape, though. It wasn’t sold in independent record shops this time. I was quite happy with that album. The cover art was a still from the film Last Year In Marienbad. I didn’t move forward with promoting the tape because I was starting to get into other musical avenues
++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV?
We only ever had BBC Radio Shropshire and commercial radio around here back then and John Peel never called us for a session. A bit more spit and polish on our part and that might’ve changed aha.
++ What about fanzines?
I think there were one or two articles in the local papers and some Shropshire music scene fanzines. One said we had shown loads of potential with Facefull of Tears and they gave it a ‘one to watch’ – they would’ve made it demo of the month but said it sounded like it had been recorded in a toilet ! Haha. I mean they’re absolutely right to a certain extent but I’d argue that some of the aesthetic was to make it on the murky, garagey side on purpose with a nod to the reverb of Phil Spector.
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
Obviously after 32 years we’ve all gone different ways in life. I’ve not seen some of the guys since 1992 but it was all a lot of fun many summers ago. Sadly, we lost Mike to a car accident when he was young. A few of us keep in touch on Facebook. I bumped into Tom in Aldi recently, quite unexpectedly – especially as he lives in the Far East. It would be a lot of fun to briefly get back together to rehearse a small set of Rainhorns songs and play a few gigs but I’m not sure how feasible that is – or if they have all maintained an interest in playing music but I’m sure it would be a true Spinal Tap moment to step out onto stage as the Theme from M*A*S*H plays and we strike up into a manic version of Hillside Heroin one more time whilst strobe lights attack the crowd 🙂
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Listen
The Rainhorns – How Can I
