Record Mirror feature

17 November 1984

STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE are a guitar strumming duo from Glasgow who sing about trees, flowers and romance. Yet, underneath this lies a strength and lilting charm to their music, which betrays their early contact with the Postcard record label.

Strawberry Switchblade are Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall. Their second single is ‘Since Yesterday’ – following on the heels of their acclaimed debut last summer ‘Trees and Flowers’. This saw Jill and Rose supported by Bedders and Woody from Madness and the guitar playing of one Roddy Frame. ‘Since Yesterday’ lacks such auspicious company but doesn’t seem to miss it.

The duo have been together since 1981. The story goes that James Kirk of Orange Juice thought of the name and everything else followed.

“We had the name before we had any songs or could even play our instruments,” Jill explains. “We just started playing because a lot of our friends were in bands.”

The first Strawberry Switchblade album will be out after Christmas. As with most people, it was finding a title that was the major problem.

After two months of trying to think of something, we called it, originally enough, ‘Strawberry Switchblade’,” Jill says sheepishly.