Breakout

March 1985

Strawberry delight

STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE are two young Scottish girls with their feet firmly on the ground. Managed by David Balfe (ex Teardrop Explodes) they are a refreshing change on our TV screens mixing glamour with fashion and of course, good songs.

After the success of ‘Since Yesterday‘ how do they plan to follow it?

Well we are in the studio at the moment recording our next single called ‘Let’s Go‘ [sic]. We actually prefer this song to ‘Since Yesterday’. It will be released on March 15 and our first album will be released at the beginning of April. We will be touring in May to promote the album.

What sort of backing musicians do you plan to take on the road with you?

We will only be taking a keyboard player, a lot of the music we will put down on backing tapes. I love gigging. I much prefer it to studio work. We gigged constantly in Scotland for about a year before we got our first Radio One session, which is how we got our management deal.

How did you strike up a partnership with David Balfe?

North-West England music magazine Breakout’s March 1985 cover featuring Strawberry Switchblade

He heard our radio session and we actually got our publishing deal through him and eventually our recording contract. What’s good about David Balfe is that he has had the experience of being in a band and he’s only quite young. Most bands aren’t lucky enough to get a young manager that has had that experience.

I read that your partner Jill suffers from agorophobia…

That’s right, our first single ‘Trees and Flowers‘ is about that. It is something that she probably still has but its not obvious anymore because she has overcome it a lot. It affected us more in the earlier days of our career. When we came to London to sign the record contracts, we got on the train station and suddenly Jill couldn’t do it so I was left on the train by myself. I used to do a lot of things on my own. But its not that bad anymore. I think the excitement of everything helps, if something is good fun then its a lot easier to do.

How has the single success affected you?

Its just made us a lot busier. People keep saying to us, ‘how do you feel being successful?’, but we feel exactly the same, except really busy.

There was quite a gap between singles, is that because you were sorting the management deal out?

No, we had our deal but it just took months and months to get the right producer. We tried lots of different people, but it took a long time to find the right one. In fact we released ‘Since Yesterday’ at the wrong time, just before all the big Christmas releases. In fact the single went down twice before it finally peaked at number four.

How much do you think the image side of it has helped in your success?

I’m sure it plays a really big part. We looked like this before we had the group so its not as though we have been created by the record company. Magazines want to print pictures of us and people want to read about us, so it’s a real advantage.

Does it affect you when you’re walking in the street?

Its funny because we have been dressing like this for so long that we don’t notice people looking at us anymore. Now we get recognised because people know who we are, but we are so busy that we don’t notice.