Shed Seven achieve first No 1 album of their 30-year career: ‘We’re not some flash in the pan’

Britpop legends Shed Seven have achieved a No 1 album for the first time, 30 years after the release of their debut in 1994.

The York-formed band rose to fame alongside rock’n’roll peers including Oasis and Blur, earning a reputation for their raucous live shows and claiming 15 top 40 singles.

Weeks into their 30th anniversary year, their sixth album A Matter of Time has topped the charts after its release on 5 January, fending off competition from Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi and pop star Taylor Swift.

“It’s taken us 30 years to get to this point, and it feels like we’re bigger and better than ever, which is crazy,” frontman Rick Witter told The Independent.

“In the Nineties we were caught up in it all, battling away against everyone else. I think now we’ve kind of proved that we’re not just some flash in the pan.”

After splitting in 2003, Shed Seven reunited four years later for a greatest hits tour. In 2017, they released their first album of original material in 16 years, Instant Pleasures.

“That last album really helped pave the way for A Matter of Time,” Witter, 51, said. “It was done totally on our terms – a lot of it was written in [guitarist Paul Bank’s] music room and bashed into shape.”

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Witter and Banks met at school aged 11, bonding over their mutual love of bands such as Duran Duran and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

As Shed Seven they were joined by bandmates Tom Gladwin (bass) and drummer Alan Leach. Despite their successes, including five hit songs in one year (1996), they struggled amid fallouts with record labels who wanted them to produce more big hits.

The band also felt they were underappreciated by the music press, who were perhaps more occupied by the antics of the Gallagher brothers, and their rivalry with Blur frontman Damon Albarn.

“Back in the Nineties, we never had a front cover of NME,” Witter pointed out. “But while that can feel like you’re always the bridesmaid, never the bride, [we’ve proved] our longevity.”

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The band are “buzzing” off the fact that they are relevant again, he admitted, “because for a long time we were just playing our Nineties hits and felt like we were becoming a nostalgia act, which we were happy to let ride.

“But now it’s a totally different beast, and the great thing is when we play these gigs, the new songs don’t stick out like sore thumbs. It’s given us a whole new lease of life, really.”

Among the tracks on A Matter of Time is a collaboration with Peter Doherty, on closing song “Throwaways”.

Banks and Witter met The Libertines frontman at a festival after spotting him singing along to their tunes from the side of the stage, ahead of his own band’s headline slot.

Doherty told them he learnt their songs on the guitar in his childhood bedroom, prompting them to invite him to collaborate.

“He said yes before he’d even heard the song,” Witter recalled. “Lyrically, that song is about outsiders, but ones who don’t really give a toss that they’re on the outside. And we went through that in the Nineties, and I think the Libertines did as well, so it’s a great match.”

Witter said having a No 1 album as the band enters their 30th anniversary year “bodes well for the future”.

“People of our generation are bringing their kids to our shows, and they look like they’re having a great time,” he said. “If that keeps happening, we’ll be the new Rolling Stones!”