Fact #156370
When:
Short story:
Having completed their third album, The Queen Is Dead, UK indie quartet The Smiths are plunged again into disputes with Rough Trade Records about when it will be released.Full article:
Johnny Marr (guitarist, The Smiths) : We'd finished the LP in November and were pretty frustrated about that not coming out. Nothing was happening.
I only remember it being a hassle for a couple of weeks. It wasn't a six month frustration. It got sorted very quickly, I think: once we realised that it was an insane idea to think this record and the next record weren't Rough Trade records - basically, when the lawyers stopped bullshitting and said, ‘well actually guys, this contract isn't over - then it was like 'drama over, let's get the record out'. It was a nonsense drama.
Me and Phil, the roadie, even went on this midnight jaunt from Manchester to Guildford to try and steal the mastertapes of the LP, it got really silly. We drove all the way down in the snow, but they caught us and said we couldn't have them - not surprisingly, I suppose.
Yeah. In two feet of snow. We were round my house on a Friday night, and we got talking. ‘We should own those tapes'. We thought it'd be a great adventure and a cool thing to do to go and get our album back. We got in the car, and we got about as far as Knutsford and I thought, ‘Wow - this is going to take a long time'. It took us about five hours to get down there.
I got in the studio when it was just getting light. I went in the kitchen door and started snooping around the studio, and one of the owners of the studio got up and was like, ‘Oh, hi Johnny'. I realised how stupid I was; how pathetic, and said, 'Oh, I've come to pick up the album'. At half five in the morning. With no authority. He said, ‘We haven't had any authorisation, and we haven't been paid - I don't think we can do that'. We were really into roadtripping, anyway - load up the car with cassettes, off you go.
(Source : not known)
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I only remember it being a hassle for a couple of weeks. It wasn't a six month frustration. It got sorted very quickly, I think: once we realised that it was an insane idea to think this record and the next record weren't Rough Trade records - basically, when the lawyers stopped bullshitting and said, ‘well actually guys, this contract isn't over - then it was like 'drama over, let's get the record out'. It was a nonsense drama.
Me and Phil, the roadie, even went on this midnight jaunt from Manchester to Guildford to try and steal the mastertapes of the LP, it got really silly. We drove all the way down in the snow, but they caught us and said we couldn't have them - not surprisingly, I suppose.
Yeah. In two feet of snow. We were round my house on a Friday night, and we got talking. ‘We should own those tapes'. We thought it'd be a great adventure and a cool thing to do to go and get our album back. We got in the car, and we got about as far as Knutsford and I thought, ‘Wow - this is going to take a long time'. It took us about five hours to get down there.
I got in the studio when it was just getting light. I went in the kitchen door and started snooping around the studio, and one of the owners of the studio got up and was like, ‘Oh, hi Johnny'. I realised how stupid I was; how pathetic, and said, 'Oh, I've come to pick up the album'. At half five in the morning. With no authority. He said, ‘We haven't had any authorisation, and we haven't been paid - I don't think we can do that'. We were really into roadtripping, anyway - load up the car with cassettes, off you go.
(Source : not known)