Fact #152604
When:
Short story:
The Waterboys enter the UK Singles Chart with The Whole Of The Moon on Ensign Records. It will peak at No26 during a seven-week run on the chart.
Full article:
Nigel Grainge (founder, Ensign records) : We had a huge row with Island. They put the threats on me basically. They said that if Ensign didn't extend our deal with them for a further two years and at the same time extend our deal with (Waterboys founder) Mike Scott, they wouldn't promote The Whole Of The Moon in America. And when we wouldn't and couldn't play ball, they carried out that threat and didn't promote the record in the US which was disastrous for us. We had invested an awful lot of money in The Waterboys and we needed The Whole Of The Moon to be a major worldwide hit if we were to survive as a company. Everything was riding on it.
(Mike Scott meanwhile) was afraid of the rock persona that had started to grow up around him. He once said to me, after a gig in Nottingham, that he wasn't sure that he could handle the prospect of becoming public property. That the idea frightened the life out of him.
(Mike Scott turned down an appearance on Top Of The Pops) First he said he wanted to sing live and when the BBC agreed to that, he started asking for control of camera angles. Then he insisted that he be allowed to perform the song without an audience in the studio. His list of demands just kept getting longer and longer. He just didn't want to do it and I found that mystifying and extremely exasperating. Jesus, Ensign were about to go out of business and here was the one key to explode him as an act and have a big hit and he wouldn't do what was needed. It was enough to drive you mad. Up to then; I'd been giving Mike 90% of my time and still I couldn't convince him to do this one thing. And even now I think about that. Who knows how big the group would have been , and in what shape the company would have grown if that single had been a hit and This Is The Sea had been a huge seller?
I just got so sick of running a record company and worrying about how to fund it," he explains. "Especially when we had an act like Mike Scott who spent money like it was going out of fashion but wouldn't co-operate when it came to making money back. So I thought he's gonna have to do it with someone else's money 'cause I can't handle the grief. I was married and had kids and the whole thing had become a huge strain. I wanted out, so I decided to sell the company.
I definitely was leaning towards selling to Virgin, but Mike Scott had already had a negative experience with Virgin during his APF (Another Pretty Face) days so, with the help of his lawyer, he 'helped' me make up my mind to sell to Chrysalis. And as it happened, it turned out very well for us. We were lucky in that our first two albums with Chrysalis, Sinead's (Sinead O'Connor) debut and World Party's debut, were very successful and that put us in a strong position which we were able to build on.
After selling the (Ensign) label to Chrysalis in 1992, followed by its subsequent corporate absorption into EMI, I found the strictness of the major company especially in the U.S., far too suffocating and departed along with cohort Chris Hill in 1995.
(Source 1981 interview at http://www.hotpress.com/Nigel-Grainge/music/interviews/The-Hitman-An-interview-with-Nigel-Grainge/20315964.html)
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(Mike Scott meanwhile) was afraid of the rock persona that had started to grow up around him. He once said to me, after a gig in Nottingham, that he wasn't sure that he could handle the prospect of becoming public property. That the idea frightened the life out of him.
(Mike Scott turned down an appearance on Top Of The Pops) First he said he wanted to sing live and when the BBC agreed to that, he started asking for control of camera angles. Then he insisted that he be allowed to perform the song without an audience in the studio. His list of demands just kept getting longer and longer. He just didn't want to do it and I found that mystifying and extremely exasperating. Jesus, Ensign were about to go out of business and here was the one key to explode him as an act and have a big hit and he wouldn't do what was needed. It was enough to drive you mad. Up to then; I'd been giving Mike 90% of my time and still I couldn't convince him to do this one thing. And even now I think about that. Who knows how big the group would have been , and in what shape the company would have grown if that single had been a hit and This Is The Sea had been a huge seller?
I just got so sick of running a record company and worrying about how to fund it," he explains. "Especially when we had an act like Mike Scott who spent money like it was going out of fashion but wouldn't co-operate when it came to making money back. So I thought he's gonna have to do it with someone else's money 'cause I can't handle the grief. I was married and had kids and the whole thing had become a huge strain. I wanted out, so I decided to sell the company.
I definitely was leaning towards selling to Virgin, but Mike Scott had already had a negative experience with Virgin during his APF (Another Pretty Face) days so, with the help of his lawyer, he 'helped' me make up my mind to sell to Chrysalis. And as it happened, it turned out very well for us. We were lucky in that our first two albums with Chrysalis, Sinead's (Sinead O'Connor) debut and World Party's debut, were very successful and that put us in a strong position which we were able to build on.
After selling the (Ensign) label to Chrysalis in 1992, followed by its subsequent corporate absorption into EMI, I found the strictness of the major company especially in the U.S., far too suffocating and departed along with cohort Chris Hill in 1995.
(Source 1981 interview at http://www.hotpress.com/Nigel-Grainge/music/interviews/The-Hitman-An-interview-with-Nigel-Grainge/20315964.html)