About Me
"We’d tried loads of different names, but we couldn’t come up with one we liked," explains Anet. "Then one day an A&R guy rang me about a tape we’d sent him, and asked what he name of the band was. I didn’t want to make us look so stupid that we couldn’t even think of a name, so I glanced at the tape in my hand - on which we’d recorded a song called Cool As You - and I just took the first letters of the song title, and blurted out ’Cay’!
And so Cay was born. Anet originally comes from Holland, Nicky and Tom from London and Mark from Northern Ireland, yet this disparate quartet created a storm with their first few performances in Camden at the beginning of 1998, with A&R folk and journalists alike flocking to see them tear through their gigs - after only their third gig, a London listings magazine described them as "Seattle coming to Grays Inn Road via Camden, with singer Anet oozing like Sonic Youth or Nirvana never could - London’s answer to Hole, but with better lipstick".
The band recorded a demo in March, which soon found it’s way to Xfm where Ian Camfield started to play it, soon followed by The Gary Crowley Show, where it won the Demo Clash three weeks in a row. It was here that legendary independent Org Records first heard them - and promptly offered to release the demo as a single.
Better Than Myself was released as a limited edition single by Org Records in the summer of 1998, and the band started to get serious press attention, from Steve Lamacq’s Music Week column and Sean Hughes in The Guardian to Kerrang! and Metal Hammer ("the future of British rock"), with rave reviews in the NME and Melody Maker along the way. And radio listeners beyond London were getting their first taste of Cay, with Mary-Anne Hobbs, Steve Lamacq and John Peel all championing the band...
Then, in September, In The City in Manchester beckoned. Cay were voted one of the three best unsigned bands at the event and were invited to play at the closing party. Industry magazine Music Week put a photo of Anet on the front cover, declaring Cay "the only true stars to emerge from In The City". The following month the band recorded a track for Fierce Panda’s double-7" The Joy Of Plecs, and in November EastWest finally won the race for their signature. The signing was soon followed by the first airing of the band’s Peel Session, they recorded a session for Steve Lamacq’s Evening Session...then repaired to the studio to commence recording the debut album.
The band kicked off the year with their first UK tour, supporting 3 Colours Red - "It was great," laughs Anet, "because with those guys around you were never short of a drink." - and earned themselves glowing live reviews and articles in Kerrang!, Melody Maker, NME ("Cay throw everything in, turn it all up and wait for sparks to fly - stand well back and watch the reaction!") and Metal Hammer, as well as features in Dazed + Confused and Select.
April saw the release of their debut single for EastWest, the limited edition Neurons Like Brandy (Single Of The Week in The Independent and Kerrang!, with The Times commenting "Cay have made the kind of explosive record Hole never will...Neurons Like Brandy is monumental"), and June saw the release of the another limited edition single, Princes & Princesses, while the band played more dates around the country, culminating in a sell-out show at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall supporting Stereolab at the personal invitation of John Peel.
Nik Moore (July 1999)
Best New British Band (1999) - Kerrang! Magazine
