Photo from the session for the Strawberry Switchblade album cover, 1984. Pic used by kind permission of Peter Anthony McArthur, who retains copyright.
I didn’t intend to make this website. But I loved Strawberry Switchblade, I felt they were really misunderstood, that the dark undercurrents and bittersweet nature of their music was wrongly overlooked. I knew they made great pop music and as a fan I wanted to know more.
I found so little about the band on the internet – and some of it was untrue, too – that I was left with many unanswered questions. This website is what I’d hoped to find when I first typed Strawberry Switchblade into a search engine in the 1990s.
The site went online in 2003 and proved popular, but became so old that the coding stopped working properly and it took itself offline in the late 2010s.
It’s taken quite a lot of work to get it on to a modern stable format, as well as adding new finds to the Press and Gallery sections, and updating the discography (it’s amazing how it keeps on coming – five new cover versions in the first half of 2024!).
It’s back as the comprehensive hub archive for Strawberry Switchblade, offering all the insight into the band and their music that a fan could want.
Finding Rose and Jill
Having done some work for Julian Cope’s website, I knew Cope’s bassist, Richard ‘Frog’ Frost, was married to Jill Bryson, and that I could get in touch her that way. On the third time of meeting her I managed not to be a gabbling starstruck git and instead behave like a rational human being. I asked if she’d do an interview about Strawberry Switchblade, thinking I’d publish it on one of the newly emerging culture blogs or something.
In the summer of 2001 we met up to do the interview and got through four hours of tape. So much had been said and raised that it was only fair to give Rose a chance to put her side, so Jill gave me Rose’s contact details. Rose talked for even longer than Jill did!
With such a vast amount of material, plus tapes of unreleased tracks and some great unpublished photos, I realised it was going to be much more than an interview. The scale of the project ballooned into plans for this website.
The interviews are the core of the site. Bear in mind I was doing them in the early 2000s, it wasn’t trying to be journalism, it was really just me wanting as much detail as I could get so I could understand the story of the band, and to share that with anyone else who loved them as much. It was before any of us were using YouTube or Wikipedia, it was hard just to get reliable information on a subject. By doing it myself, I got the answers I always wanted – why is there only one proper album? How come Trees And Flowers is so delicate and mellow yet the album is so electro-bright? Is it true Rose was in a punk band before Strawberry Switchblade?
In that respect, it’s perhaps got a bit more focus on the behind the scenes stories, and doesn’t dig into the songs and production as much as it would for an audience that already knew the basic facts.
There’s a hell of a lot of text in the interviews, so for people without the desire or time to read it all I’ve done edited highlights, taking key points from all the individual interviews.
Strawberry Switchblade live at the Warehouse, Leeds, supporting Orange Juice, 1 December 1982. Pic used by kind permission of Peter Anthony McArthur, who retains copyright.
Whilst some of the details can clearly be established, there are differences in sources and the memories and emphasis of the people involved. It was not my place to try to find and tell one objective truth, but instead just to give the people involved the space to tell the story as they remember it.
So I’d talked to Rose and Jill, but what about the others who were there? The thought didn’t actually occur to me at first.
Detective Work and Sheer Luck
I had only seen the name of producer David Motion on the Strawberry Switchblade album, not even on any other music. This still being early days for the internet, I put his name into a search engine to find more information about his work and was astonished to see a page on a publisher’s website with his emal address. Within 24 hours we’d arranged an interview. It felt like living in the future.
Finding Robin Millar, on the other hand, was pure chance. He’d produced the first sessions for the album, a very different sound with live musicians. At a party full of music media people in January 2003, I arrived not really knowing anyone. I saw the host, the only person there who I knew properly. Being the host, he’s flitting around a lot, introducing people to each other.
‘Ah,’ he says on seeing me, ‘I’d like you to meet someone – this is Robin Millar‘.
‘Whaoh!’ I say, ‘you produced the first sessions for the Strawberry Switchblade album! I’m about to illegally upload them onto the internet!’
‘Good,’ he replied, ‘I’ll illegally download them because I don’t have copies any more’.
He readily agreed to an interview and was such an insightful, affirming delight. A brilliant man, he talked extensively not only in great anecdotes, but with a real passion for music itself, for integrity and purpose instead of commerce.
Just a week or two later, equally randomly, I found the band’s manager Bill Drummond. He wasn’t tracable online, so when I looked out of a bus window in Manchester and saw a poster for a Bill Drummond performance called How To Be An Artist (actually more of a rant among among an exhibition he’d created), I shrieked. On the day of the performance I turned up at a couple of hours early and blagged my way in. Bill had no idea I was coming. He’d had no chance to dredge his memory or get any answers ready, and yet he was more than ready to give his time, and was really engaged.
Often portrayed as an egotist and self-publicist, Drummond struck me as quite the opposite. Whilst he has an enormous commitment to and bold belief in his work, in the man himself I found an approachability and a modesty that must be rare indeed among people who’ve sold so many records.
The rapid growth of the internet made people ever easier to find. The band’s manager/keyboardist David Balfe and video director Tim Pope were both responsive and generous with their time.
Then and Now
Backstage (actually in the toilets) at Reading, 12 November 1983. Jill: ‘That was our dressing room – we had to get ready in the public toilets! There we are with a table of beer and crisps in the toilet. The glamour!’. Pic used by kind permission of Peter Anthony McArthur, who retains copyright.
The interviewees, of course, have the benefit of hindsight. They talk about events and people knowing where they were to lead.
For both of the band members, particularly Jill, the pressure of the corporate publicity machine and the acrimonious split-up had soured the memory of the better times. This is a big part of why I thought it was important for the site to include an archive of press clippings – interviews at the time can better capture what it was like and how they felt as they did it.
And while the major differences between them caused such a swift and unpleasant end to the band, there are still so many striking similarities. They are both very definite in their ideas, very strong, candid, friendly, compassionate and very sure of who they are. They are both big talkers, easily engaged yet always very clear, thought-out and direct. They are both obviously driven to really think and feel, and to keep turning it into creative expression. Both still plainly have an artist’s heart – Jill is considered and gentle, contrasting with Rose’s pagan dynamism.
Perhaps most moving is the way they both feel about the core activity of the band, collaborating on writing the songs. For all the later pressure, they both had an air of excitement, tingle and satisfaction when they talked about the way they used to write together.
Rebooting the Strawberry Switchblade fansite
After the site’s ancient coding sent it crashing, I moved it to a more stable modern platform, and took the opportunity to update a few aspects.
There’s now a YouTube channel featuring all the music and TV appearances I can find. I’ve started Twitter Facebook and Instagram accounts to spread some of the content and keep folks updated with new additions to the site. There are also Spotify and Tidal accounts with playlists of the album, the non-album tracks, extended mixes and over versions. And if you’re a Facebook user, be sure to check out the Remembering Strawberry Switchblade group for all kinds of great finds and discussion.
All this means that there’s now better access to more Strawberry Switchblade material than ever before.
If you have any material that would be a good addition, or any suggestions and corrections, please contact us.