The Britpop era is synonymously remembered for mostly two bands; Blur and Oasis. But there were other bands around then, y’know. And lurking in the shadows of London and Manchester’s behemoths, were a rather super group from York…

It’s hard to understand how they didn’t get the accolades their counterparts did – it may be as simple as the fact that York wasn’t a ‘cool’ place of the times. Who knows? But Shed Seven were one of THE British bands of the 90s; hitting the top 40 singles chart no less than 13 times and having 4 top 20 albums to boot.

Formed in 1990, they split in 2003 before coming back in 2007. I caught up with frontman Rick Witter early one morning to speak about what may have held them back, their tour later this year, and the dawning realisation that the band are nearly two decades old…

“We reformed in 2007 and went on that big tour, and because of that, we got a few festivals last year. And because it all went so well, we kind of thought, ‘there’s room to do this again’ – so many people came and loved it and appreciated hearing old stuff.  So we thought to try it again, and it’s good ‘cause we’re selling shitloads of tickets again. It’s a bit mental really because obviously we’re kind of just doing another Greatest Hits tour, so we’re quite fortunate that we can go out and play a load of old songs and people still want to come and hear them.”

Those ‘old songs’ are, in many people’s eyes, timeless classics. ‘Chasing Rainbows’, ‘She Left Me On Friday’, ‘Going For Gold’, ‘Speakeasy’… they sure had their fair share of hits. But what happened exactly?

“We were getting a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure off various different companies and it became a bit of a bind. We’ve just grown up at school together as friends, and we found ourselves bickering about stuff and I think we would have fallen out if we’d carried on the way we were. Even to the point of being in a rehearsal room trying to write a new song way back when: because the pressure was on from record companies to write a top 10 hit. And granted we had a few, but they were just written because we wanted to write them. And then suddenly you’re put in a situation where you’re thinking ‘well, is that good enough to be a top 10’, and that’s just an awful situation to find yourself in. It’s not why you do it; it’s not why I picked up a microphone in the first place.

“We were signed to Polydor which is a massive label, and for the first couple of albums we were given ‘cartes blanches’; we could decide what single we wanted out or, with their help, we could decide what the cover looked like and the t-shirt designs. We had a lot of artistic control. But then, after the third album, they suddenly wanted a Greatest Hits, which has become the norm these days. We weren’t really comfortable with that – the only reason we did it was because we did have 15 hits, or 13 at that time. So we knew that we could hold our heads up, even though we weren’t that keen on doing it. They told us to write two new songs to promote it all, so we wrote ‘Disco Down’ and a song called ‘High Hopes’. ‘Disco Down’ came out and did really well, and we were all really geared up to release ‘High Hopes’. But Polydor said that they’d much rather re-release ‘Going For Gold’, and it had only been out 3 years previous. So we were thinking ‘how much do you want to rip off your fanbase’, y’know! As much as money rules the world, there’s got to be a bit of fun doing stuff at the same time. It just became a bit hideous.”

As well as the increasingly weighted shoulders the four-piece were then toting, the press were already on their backs too.

“At the very beginning we had quite a good relationship with press like NME, but then it started to go downhill. It’s probably because we didn’t play ball and we didn’t move to London and I don’t think the NME liked that; I think they wanted us where they could keep their eye on us. So they started slagging us off, but it didn’t affect us in how we went about stuff or our fanbase really.”

So in 2009, it’s all about repaying that ever-loyal fanbase, whilst maybe slightly sticking two fingers up at the greedy record bosses at the same time. Giving away a full live album from their Leeds University gig in December ’07, each fortnight over summer, an extra track is made available for free download from their website.

“That last tour was the first time we’d gone out as a two-guitar band – the original two guitarists. It was a really good, meaty sound, so we wanted people to be able to have that rather than just go and see it live. We’d recorded that whole Leeds gig, so rather than just lock it up in a vault, why not give it to people? We played well that night, and we just thought it’s worth people having this. It’s a nice way of giving something back to the people who are spending money to come and see us.”

Rick’s now a settled-down bloke, kids n’all (one’s playfully making noise in the background). But he’s hardly taken a break from being a rockstar and one of the most recognisable faces of the 90s. In August 2005 he formed Rick Witter & The Dukes, releasing their debut album ‘Year Of The Rat’ 18 months later. Still involved with both bands, time is admittedly tricky to divide.

“It’s a tough one with The Dukes. We went away and had a really good laugh, wrote a good set of songs and went and toured it. But a lot of the people coming to see us were obviously Shed Seven fans seeing what I’m doing next. At a lot of those gigs, people went away liking The Dukes on their own merit. The thing is, if I was slap-bang in the middle of doing something with them now and then we’re advertising a tour for Shed Seven – without knocking The Dukes in any way, I think people would probably choose to come and see Shed Seven at the end of the year, and I don’t think that’s very fair to the rest of The Dukes if I’m honest. So that’s kind of on-hold – it’s not over with, I want to do more stuff with them. That’ll probably be next year now, or at least we’ll get together and start writing some stuff then.”

Next year is fast-approaching (seriously, where has ’09 gone?!), and that’s set to be another milestone.

“I was told the other day that next year is Shed Seven’s 20^th anniversary, which is pretty mental really. We’ll probably end up doing something locally for that reason alone. And because we’re not playing York on this tour, maybe in the summer we might stick a big top up on a big racecourse and maybe do something there! But yeah, it’s quite a scary thing that; 20 years…”

Back on topic of the present day, this looming 18-day tour starting at the end of November is set to be a nice winter-warmer. And the band’s lasting appeal has been certified by their Manchester and Leeds dates selling out already, with extra shows for each plus a second in London being added. So what can we expect?

“Well I think a lot of the people that have bought tickets want to come and hear the hits, so they’ll definitely get that. We’ve now just got to get together to decide what are the kind of songs we can play that are known enough for people to like, and that’ll please us as well. Because we don’t want to recreate what we did last time. So basically: hit-heavy, a bit of arse-swinging ‘cause I like doing that and then just a good time. I think our fans have come relentlessly over the years to see us play; I think we’re quite renowned as a good live band, so people can have a few drinks, sing along to a lot of old hits and walk home happy hopefully!”