theaudience was a late 90s Britpop-indie-rock band, borne of a drunken bet. Founder member Billy Reeves, one time press officer for Fire Records and lead singer of the band Congregation ("a bunch of mates making a noise"), was in the pub with two mates from Melody Maker when he placed a £100 bet with music journalist Everett True, saying that he could create a band and get it signed. He had it all planned out: a pretty, female singer was needed and everyone would dress in black.So he sold his record collection for £458 and put ads in the "NME" and "The Stage" for the lead singer but it was London club night "Uncle Bob's Wedding Reception"(which he ran) which proved to be instrumental in getting the band together.The then 17 year old Sophie Ellis Bextor (daughter of "Blue Peter" presenter Janet Ellis)turned up to one of these club nights, armed with a demo tape after seeing Billy’s ad. Billy listened to her tape in the car on the way home and decided that she was the one to front his band. The other members were to be guitarist
Dean Mollett (a colleague of Billy’s from his Fire Records days), bassist Kerin Smith, drummer Patrick Hannan (Patch) and keyboard player Nigel Butler (Nyge), a childhood friend.They produced their first demo for £110, sent it to record companies and received instant interest. They got an offer for a record deal after their very first gig which then snowballed until, after eight gigs, they had eight offers. They eventually signed at Sophie’s 18th birthday party where each interested label had their chance to bid for the band. theaudience made their decision at the stroke of midnight – it was to be Mercury records."Music Week" A&R editor, the late Leo Finlay, was the first person to write about the band. Reeves stipulated that they would release all their material on their own sub-label, "eLLeFFe" (a phonetic representation of the editor's initials) as a mark of respect and gratitude.theaudience released four singles - "I Got The Wherewithal", "If You Can't Do It When You're Young, When Can You Do It?", "A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed" and "I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough)" - and one eponymous album.The singles got progressively higher in the charts, peaking at number 25 with the last one while the album peaked at number 19. Billy was the major creative force behind the songwriting and claims to have written the album in two weeks after his wife taught him how to play the guitar. The theme of the album was Billy at age 18 but reinterpreted as a vehicle for Sophie, the stated aim of the band being to bring intelligence, glamour and pomposity back into the charts. To some, Billy was theaudience, the brains behind Sophie's beauty, the chirpy, clownish extrovert who cleverly balanced out her more sardonic cool. To others, Sophie was theaudience, her glamour and sexuality overshadowing her band mates. Billy would say that that was deliberate.After the early, rapid success, cracks started to appear. The album, while a critical triumph, sold nowhere near enough copies to keep a major record label
happy. The band were also offered the chance to support Robbie Williams on a major tour which would have meant great publicity, guaranteed income and possibly the start of really big things for the band, but Sophie felt uncomfortable with the idea and vetoed it. This caused disharmony in the band, the first consequence of which was the catastrophic departure of Billy. Initially, the band were in denial that Billy had left, his absences at photo-shoots and gigs explained away as illness, time off for songwriting or a holiday. In reality, though, the stress of the perceived loss of control of his project meant that he would rather abandon it completely.The band carried on gigging and recording without him and recorded enough songs to make a second album. Songs from these sessions included “Out With The Old Schoolâ€(written by Dean and Kerin and featured on the "Wicked Women" compilation), "Headcase", "Twilight of the Teenage", "So Clever", "Day and Night" and two unused songs written by Billy - "If You Don't (Someone Else Will)" and "I Got No More School". Only the first of these was released officially since, while the new album was supposed to be released in summer 1999, it never was. The band was then quietly dropped by Mercury.And that was that. Sophie has obviously gone on to great solo success while the other members pretty much stayed in the background. Billy is still involved in music (as are the other members of the band) but his day job is now as a traffic reporter on BBC Radio London 94.9.theaudience’s music is currently out of print and therefore unavailable new until any reissue occurs. In the meantime, do yourself a favour and track the album down on Ebay – it’s a forgotten classic by a forgotten band who shone briefly but brightly.First single: "I Got The Wherewithal". Reached number 170 in the UK charts. "It will puncture your heart at 50 paces - a vertiginously adult orchestral drama that comes across like a Gothic Swan Lake. Its lyrics map out theaudience's emotional feng shui instantly: a poised yet visceral hatred of the beigeness that saturates most of the world, a fierce sense of ambition and a family-bucket-sized portion of revenge."Second single: "If You Can't Do It When You're Young, When Can You Do It?". Reached number 48 in the UK charts. "Lushly appointed with expensively languorous verses and a fizzing, frankly insane Theremin chorus."Third single: "A Pessimsist Is Never Disappointed". Reached number 27 in the UK charts. "Like Shakespeare's Sister interbreeding with Pulp."Fourth and final single: "I Know Enough (I Don't Get Enough)". Reached number 25 in the UK charts. " A radiant, propulsive pop gem like the Beautiful South could probably still make if they pulled their tongues out of their cheeks and remembered that some of them used to be in the Housemartins."
