The Boo Radleys: Music According To Their Mood
Artistic reunions are a joyous occasion, especially when the reuniting band very clearly enjoys performing and recording together. After a twenty-two year break, The Boo Radleys are back and it's easy to see their passion for making music is intact on their new album 'Keep On With Falling'. As well as a full album review on Moths and Giraffes, our piece concludes with a Q&A from Radleys vocalist and guitarist Sice Rowbottom, who gives us more insight into the making of the album.
The Boo Radleys: Sice Rowbottom, Rob Cieka and Tim Brown.
Formed in 1988, The Boo Radleys released six albums and five EPs between 1990 and 1998 including 1995’s ‘Wake Up!’. The U.K. number one album featured top ten single ‘Wake Up Boo!’, ensuring the band’s continuing legacy with over 11 million plays on Spotify and almost 2 million views on YouTube.
The classic line-up featured Simon “Sice” Rowbottom on vocals and guitar, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Martin Carr, Tim Brown on bass and keyboards and Rob Cieka behind the drums. An earlier line-up briefly featured former and long-term Placebo drummer Steve Hewitt who performed on the band’s debut album ‘Ichabod and I’. For this reunion, The Boo Radleys write and perform as a trio while Martin Carr continues with his solo career.
The Boo Radleys teased their return on social media in May 2021 and released their new single ‘A Full Syringe And Memories Of You’ in July. This was followed up with an accompanying EP in September and the band’s first tour since 1997 in October. The six-date outing across the U.K. previewed new music from the band’s first album since 1998’s ‘Kingsize’, the eleven track ‘Keep On With Falling’.
‘I’ve Had Enough I’m Out’ boldly begins with acoustic guitar, before a bass slide from Tim Brown brings in Rob Cieka and the album is fully underway. The verses retain the core band performance in this way, but the listener is hit by the joint force of beautiful strings and vocal harmonies during the chorus, and not for the last time on this record.
Though its possible the lyricism is ambiguous, the lyric video points towards this track being rooted in its character losing their faith in the church. ‘How many times did I kneel at an altar that cost more to build than we all had to give?’ The beauty of this lyric is how it can be interpreted beyond its surface level meaning. How many situations are there where a person could say, ‘I’ve Had Enough, I’m Out’?
There are many varying stylistic choices made on this album, but they all fit together effortlessly when made by The Boo Radleys. The introduction to the title track almost sounds like a remix, utilising a part of the vocal under programmed drums that then starts the song proper.
The programmed drums would be retained throughout ‘Keep On With Falling’ alongside Rob Cieka’s acoustic playing, a perfect choice for a single as released back in January. Underneath its catchy risk themed lyric is a production full of exciting guitars and keyboard layers - listen especially for Tim Brown’s unrelenting bassline.
‘All Along’ was one of the songs The Boo Radleys previewed during their 2021 tour. The opening guitar sound evokes memories of ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’ by Manic Street Preachers, which continues to phase across the stereo mix throughout this track. How could the drummer writing this article not love Rob Cieka’s fill that kicks Sice Rowbottom’s vocal off? Rob’s tone is open and his playing full of character across this album. The way he manipulates the rhythm with his fills here is just one reason why the band working as a united collaborative unit on these tracks makes this record twice as good.
It's not hard to see why All Along was a perfect choice to play for audiences before the album’s release. The track’s band sound translates well to live performance, and the chorus too is destined to be sung back by audiences, ‘All Along I thought that you were gonna save me!’ The synthesizer reproducing the song’s melody that appears following the chorus is just another musical highlight in this track.
By now you’ll have noticed that each song on Keep On With Falling begins differently, here Rob Cieka takes the lead, kicking off ‘I Say A Lot Of Things’ with a pacey low-tom and snare. Could the handclaps be a cause for audience participation during The Boos’ upcoming live dates?
It’s exciting to hear the band using different instruments in their sound too, with a glockenspiel heard under Rowbottom’s vocal during the lyric, ‘I Say A Lot Of Things, I always give my point of view.’ The production on this track is diverse, synthesized brass makes its first appearance on the album too alongside gliding strings with percussion and a vocal reverb that has roots in reggae. Musically, I Say A Lot Of Things has the most optimistic sound on Keep On With Falling so far.
‘Tonight’ begins as if a tape machine is starting up with the acoustic guitar playing. For this album, The Boo Radleys shared their recordings with each other from their home studios, adding and changing the songs over time without the pressure that comes with booking a professional studio space.
With the rhythm section of Brown and Cieka tightly locked in together on this track, the early acoustic guitar remains a constant under this song, frequently returning to it as if this was how Tonight was originally written. Rowbottom later adds a guitar solo amid soaring strings and you can’t help but feel seeing The Boo Radleys performing with a full string section would be a glorious experience. Sice’s voice blends so well with the string arrangements on this album, the endeavour would be beyond a treat for their fanbase.
‘I can’t do this, all this useless fake hope. I can’t do this, hurts too much, I can’t cope. Leave me where there’s light, enough to see me through. Leave me with a full syringe and memories of you.’
‘A Full Syringe And Memories Of You’ is one of the most powerful tracks on Keep On With Falling. Musically centred on the lyric, this song focuses on a person’s right to choose their own path in the face of terminal illness. The point of view is that of the patient, whose mind is made up, but also whose hands are tied by laws prohibiting assistance. Though the lyric is worthy of its entire inclusion here, a stand-out line jumped out when listening: ‘Don’t talk to me about the joy of life when I can’t even breathe.’
With the music video released in September, the trio are augmented by Stephen A. Wood on guitar, who’s well known amongst Boo Radleys fans as having designed the band’s artwork, including the art for this album.
The atmospheric ‘Call Your Name’ is like a puzzle that slots together to reveal a beautiful work of art. The swirling keyboard heard in the beginning continues beneath crunchy guitar noise as descending bass notes bring in Rob Cieka’s drums and percussion. Indeed, the rhythm section is like a slice of trip-hop without the effects, whilst Sice Rowbottom’s voice floats among the music like a dream.
A new melody is heard during a vocal break, intriguing in its ambiguity – is it keyboard, guitar, or something else entirely? The strings in Call Your Name are melancholic too, matching the backing vocals well. When performing live, all three of the Radleys contribute their voices in the backing, this one would certainly be an interesting track to see in their live set.
Of all the tracks on Keep On With Falling, ‘Here She Comes Again’ is the most unique. The instrumentation alternates between the faux distorted brass and a gliding electric guitar part. Further back, you can hear Rob Cieka adding congas to his drum sound as Sice Rowbottom begins his vocal.
The production on the vocal tracks is interesting too, broken into more distant verses and cleaner, more upfront chorus vocals. The melody in the latter sticks with you after the fact, simple but engaging in: ‘Here She Comes Again, you know I love her so.’ Overall, it’s the sound of this song that pulls the listener back in. You could be dancing to this at a gig, but also sat in your living room chilling out with the stereo on.
‘You And Me’ continues in a similar thread to ‘A Full Syringe’, lyrically centring on the damage cancer can do to a person and the ones around them. After the first verse, the music ventures into shoegaze territory, with soaring guitars and an anthemic keyboard line.
One of the special parts of You And Me is the chorus features harmonies from all three members of The Boo Radleys, which they later recreated during their tour in October. This can be seen in the band’s acoustic performance of the track made last summer. It also shows the vitality in Tim Brown’s bass part, imparting the melody over Sice’s rhythm guitar in absence of keyboard.
The grand ‘I Can’t Be What You Want Me To Be’ is well placed towards the end of Keep On With Falling. It’s notable particularly for Sice Rowbottom’s lead guitar playing, which can be heard in the song’s introduction before the quietened verse begins. With Cieka’s drums and acoustic guitar, the harmonies and string arrangement are a beautiful addition to Sice’s soft vocal.
This builds into a broader chorus with layers of backing vocals, organ, brass and Sice’s lead vocal stretching further than before on this album. At its pinnacle, I Can’t Be What You Want Me To Be is finished off with a well-placed guitar solo. This is the kind of song The Boo Radleys should close their set with prior to an encore.
If you were to visit the band’s official store, The Boo Radleys also have a deluxe edition of Keep On With Falling. A bonus disc features the other tracks from their 2021 EP, a New Order cover and alternate recordings of the album’s songs. A real treasure trove for fans, this includes a piano version of I Can’t Be What You Want Me To Be.
‘There’s only so much I can take…’
A vinyl scratch starts off the nostalgic ‘Alone Together’. This song takes a look back at growing up and is the band’s most recent single prior to the release of the full album. Early on, Alone Together is driven more by keyboards, an arpeggiated line that remains throughout and a pad sound in place of guitar. Cieka adds percussion as the track builds, though it’s a shame the piano sound is slightly under the radar.
Utilising their method of file sharing to make this album, the adding of layers in these songs is a real sonic treat for fans, allowing listeners to pick out more with every spin. The deconstruction of Alone Together in its conclusion reveals even more elements that were there all along, how could a fan not flip the record and start it all over again?
The listening experience of Keep On With Falling is both fresh and energised, while retaining the classic sound of The Boo Radleys. With one exciting tour already under their belt, an EP, new album and more dates in the calendar for April, it feels like the band who were away for twenty-two years never truly left.
Continue reading for our Q&A with Sice Rowbottom. We ask about the making of Keep On With Falling, the upcoming live dates, archival releases and the possibility of more forthcoming material. All this and more below!
1. The Boo Radleys are well and truly back with 'Keep On With Falling'! How did the process of putting the album together start? Who piped up with the first idea and what was it?
It all started at my 50th birthday party in 2019. Tim was there and we got chatting about songs and what we were writing. We drunkenly agreed to swap some stuff with each other and work on it. We’d actually said this to each other a few times before over the preceding 20 years, but life just seemed to get in the way and we both had a lot of commitments. This time though, it just seemed to click and we began working and before we knew it we had a stack of songs. We wanted to hear them with live drums and so managed to get Rob to play on the tracks before Covid hit. So, then we had this period of waiting where we had to decide what to do with them. Initially, we decided that I would do it as a solo thing as I had a couple of solo gigs planned anyway. We thought about calling ourselves something like “Sice Boo and the Radleys.” I mentioned it to Martin and he said “That sounds ridiculous… just call yourselves The Boo Radleys.”
2. Of course, Martin Carr isn't joining the band this time around, how did that change the dynamic of the writing and recording process?
The process is completely different – which I think is why he’s chosen not to be involved. The process for the period we were making records is that Martin would produce home demos and then we would meet in the studio and construct the songs from that point – all playing together. This time, the songs were completed when we asked him about it, and I don’t think he fancied working in a different way. He’s been a solo artist completely in charge of everything he writes and releases for over 20 years now. I know to everybody else this must seem strange, but Tim and I were writing songs for the band for a long time, and continued to do so. I released a solo album of songs in 1996 that could have ended up on a Boo Radleys record. It just didn’t work out that way.
3. The album was made by file sharing this time, how does that compare to the way you made records in the 90's?
I much prefer the way we’re doing it now. It allows you to live with a song a lot longer before it becomes reified. Back in the 90s, once you were out of the studio, a song was set in stone and sometimes there were things I wanted to add, or remove, or do differently. Now, right up until the point that song goes out, changes can be easily made. I much prefer this. It’s far more collaborative and less pressured too. Often in the studio, there was a bad mood around, or someone was ill, and you had no choice but to continue as it was costing a grand a day just to be there. Now, we can create music according to our mood, and that feels much better.
4. The record was preceded by an EP named after 'A Full Syringe And Memories Of You'. Was it always the plan to split these songs into two collections? Are there even more songs in the can for the future?
There were no particular plans about how to release things. I really have no idea why it was decided that an EP was the way to go. I think it’s a marketing thing… I’ve never really had much of a brain for that kind of thing… I would probably just shove the whole lot out as one album. Which is why I’m best kept away from these sorts of decisions. There are a ton of songs in the can, and we’re still writing. We’re loving the creativity of it at the moment, so there’s no stopping us.
5. You're also releasing a two-disc edition of the album with some alternate versions of the album's tracks. Were those extra recordings a conscious effort to make something different, or are these work-in-progress versions made prior to the finished tracks featured on the record?
They’re kind of a mish-mash of all those things. I guess it goes back to that thing I was saying about making a song concrete. Different versions give us the opportunity to try on different clothes. For example – the song “I Can’t Be What You Want Me To Be,” on the album sounds a lot like I imagined from my initial demo. But then Tim produced a beautiful piano version that I wished had gone on the album instead… so this version was able to go on the extra disc. So, it’s things like that – there’s a New Order cover because Tim is a massive fan and it was something we wanted to have a go at.
6. The album artwork is hypnotic, was that a collaborative effort or was that left entirely up to the art department?
The artwork was from our good friend Steven A. Wood. We’ve known Steve for over 30 years. He’s pretty much done all of our artwork, right from the very first piece of vinyl. It wasn’t a hard decision to involve him. Apart from a few steers along the way, we left it up to him.
7. The band went on a short tour back in October, how did it feel to perform live after such a lengthy break?
It was incredible. I’ve always said that playing live is the thing I missed most about being in a band. You just can’t recreate that experience anywhere else in life. I’d done some solo acoustic shows, but to feel the power of bass and drums again was amazing. The audience reception was astonishing too. We really weren’t sure that anyone would really care, but the depth of devotion and love from our fans was really moving. We were intensely grateful for the way they supported us.
8. You also debuted some of the material from the album during those shows. Has the drive for the reunion been spurred on more by writing new songs or wanting to play in front of audiences again?
A bit of both. I don’t think we could have done one without the other. We’ve had lots of offers over the years to do festivals to play Giant Steps or a setlist of back catalogue, but it never really interested me. I would need to feel like we had a purpose and were moving forward with new material. By the same token, I don’t think I could just be in a studio band – it has to be a mix of the two. We enjoyed playing some of our old stuff, but it was also great to play some new songs even though people were unfamiliar with them. It will be nice to play new songs again live once the album is out and people know them.
9. There are always certain tracks people gravitate towards, what are your favourite songs on the record and why?
Always a difficult question to answer this one – the cliché about being asked to choose between your children is apt here. That said, there are songs I like for the way they’ve turned out. “I’ve Had Enough, I’m Out,” pleases me because it’s radically different from how I initially envisaged it, and that’s due to the collaboration with Tim. I would never have been able to hear what he hears in it, and adds to it, so it’s such a thrill to have that. I also really like “Call Your Name,” because it’s from Tim and it's great to sing something that I wouldn’t necessarily write. It produces lots of different influences for me and allows me to tap into different things that I wouldn’t necessarily bring to something that I had conceived.
10. Your social media features a littering of studio and live rarities from back in the day, could there possibly be an archival release at some point? Are there particular recordings you'd love fans to hear?
There are some things we did that would be nice if they saw the light of day. Somewhere, there’s a football song… from when bands used to write ‘theme tunes’ for a World Cup campaign. I think we demoed something and forgot about it, but I recall it being a pretty good song. There is a huge amount of video recordings around, as we used to carry a camcorder everywhere. There is probably something like 60 hours of footage. Maybe someday someone will wade through it all – although it’s probably just hours and hours of us being drunk. Some of it was used for the BBC documentary on Rockfield Studios.
11. The soundboard cassette from Saint Malo in 1997 is especially cool. Are there a stack of soundboard tapes in storage somewhere?
Sadly, I don’t think so. There is definitely video footage of a lot of gigs, but the sound quality is awful as the whole thing has to come down the camcorder’s little condenser microphone. I don’t think we were in the habit of recording from the mixing desk. I could be wrong though… maybe someone out there has a load of them.
12. You're back out on tour again in April, what are you most looking forward to about playing these shows? Can fans expect a heavy showing of 'Keep On With Falling'?
We’ll be playing some of the new album, but also a lot of old songs. I think there might be something off every album we’ve made in the live set (maybe excluding Ichabod and I). One thing we realised from the last tour is that people are very eclectic in their views about which period of our music they like best, so it’s a good thing for us to cover all bases. I just love being on stage, playing music with my friends, singing my heart out and having a wonderful time. I couldn’t wish for anything more.
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Visit The Boo Radleys official store to purchase ‘Keep On With Falling’ on CD and vinyl with deluxe and signed editions available. Their store also includes t-shirts, mugs and copies of their recent EP.
For more information about The Boo Radleys, including details of upcoming tour dates, visit their official website.
Follow The Boo Radleys on Facebook and Instagram @booradleysofficial, and on Twitter @theboo_radleys.
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