Mr. Nice Guy

The story of Guy Chadwick s life in pop is a survivor s tale that reads just like a war veteran s memoirs he is critically and commercially decorated for his songwriting valour and leadership qualities in his first tour of duty with his band The House Of Love in the late 80s. He then gets shafted by his commanding officers and finds himself in a creative no-man s-land, having lost contact with his artistic control.
With his very sanity in the line of fire, he finds himself facing a mental Gallipoli, in the midst of which he deserts the music business and convalesces by roaming the world in search of himself and his lost marbles.
Ever since the demise of The House Of Love in 1993, Chadwick had been missing presumed past it, living somewhere in a remote jungle that the music industry and the record-buying public had forgot.
But Chadwick s back! Having been rescued by Keith Cullen s Setanta Records, the 41-year-old pop vet has just released his first solo album, Lazy, Soft And Slow. It s an appropriately named record of languid sepia-tinged love songs that is definitely more Leonard Cohen than Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I m much more confident in my own ability, chirrups Chadwick over lunch in an RTE casualty, sorry, hospitality room. I knew I wasn t going to make a rock record cos I d written all the songs on an acoustic guitar and I wanted them all to be atmospheric and my voice to be up-front and pretty dry.
And I got Robin Guthrie from Cocteau Twins to produce it, which was great because although there were arguments about how it was going to sound, he still acted as a sort of emotional crutch. . . well, maybe not crutch but. . .
Despite looking pretty disgruntled on the cover, Chadwick claims and definitely appears, in conversation to be more content than at any time since he started The House Of Love. The industry tastemakers all thought back then that HOL would do for Alan McGee s Creation Records what Oasis went on to accomplish. Great singles like Christine , Shine On and Destroy The Heart (which won the esteemed John Peel Festive 50 Listeners chart in 1988) still stand up to this day.
We didn t feel comfortable on Creation and to tell the truth we were glad to get off, although Alan McGee continued to be our manager. But we did have a positive effect. Guitar-based groups were able to have a voice because of us. I get a lot of satisfaction from that.
However, things turned pear-shaped when the HOL grabbed the poisoned chalice that was their major label deal. Remember, Creation at the time was in its fledgling pre-Oasis state.
When we signed to Mercury Fontana it was a fatal mistake, explains Chadwick matter-of-factly and without any trace of bitterness. It was really what stopped the group developing as it should have. It was a downhill spiral from there on in, even though our second album (which ironically became known as Fontana) was more successful. But in our heart of hearts, we knew it wasn t as good as it should have been. We never reached our potential.
The last four years of the group s life were very frustrating and depressing. The person who signed us rejected all our recordings for a year. . . at a time when it was absolutely paramount that we get a record out quickly and keep developing in our own way. We would do a recording and then find that there had been these horrible drum-heavy mixes made, apparently to suit the American market.
Despite the success of the The Beatles And The Stones surely their finest moment Chadwick felt like he was under House arrest in his own band. He confesses that he eventually became a nervous wreck when the HOL eventually closed its doors. Hanging around London in a daze, Chadwick was by his own admission a few strawberries short of a punnet. However, he got it together sufficiently to travel around the world (Cyprus, Brussels, Egypt, Jordan, Camden Town), as you would if you ve got the time, money and inclination to do so.
The wilderness years over, Chadwick was delighted to be airlifted by Setanta and allowed to develop at his own pace. But will it take another five Stone Roses-esque years to record the follow-up to Lazy, Soft And Slow?
No, he answers. I plan to finish recording another album by the end of the year. I ll probably use a different producer this time but now I really comfortable for the first time with being a solo artist which I never did before. n
Lazy, Soft And Slow is out now on Setanta. Guy Chadwick plays the Mean Fiddler on Fri 20th March.