Shed Seven’s Rick Witter: ‘The basic idea was not to rip the fans off’

Unlike certain other bands who found fame in the 90s, alternative rock collective Shed Seven didn’t take a lengthy break and then get back together again with a big fanfare and off-the-scale ticket prices.

Celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2024 (yes, 1994 really was three decades ago), the Sheds, widely regarded as a great live band, broke up in 2003, but reformed four years later.

Now, after landing on the BBC Radio 2 B-list with their single Waiting for the Catch – and being named as ambassadors for National Album Day – the band put out an orchestral reworks album titled Liquid Gold at the end of September.

They play the Cambridge Corn Exchange in December.

“The idea [of the new album] kind of came about because as we were approaching our 30th anniversary, which is what we’re celebrating this year, we were a little but conscious of ex-record labels releasing an old greatest hits again,” explains the band’s singer Rick Witter, speaking to the Cambridge Independent via a Zoom video call from his home in York.

“We’ve had about three or four greatest hits [albums] in our career, and we were a bit cautious of another one of those suddenly appearing – because we’re 30 years old – with new artwork with the original recordings.

“So we thought how can we counteract that? So we thought ‘Why don’t we go back in the studio and we can cherry-pick a handful of our known hits from the past, rework them, tinker with the arrangements, but not so much that it’s going to take the song away from the original – the last thing we want to do is destroy people’s idea of what the song is – and then put a big orchestra over it?’.

“Orchestras are amazing things and they give the songs so much feel – it takes songs off to a whole new direction.

“For example, one of the songs we really wanted on there was Going for Gold, which was a big hit for us in the 90s, and that didn’t have strings on it originally.

“We knew adding that element would just take the song off in a whole new direction, and it has – and I’m really pleased that we’ve done it for that.

“So the basic idea was to try not to rip the fans off, because there are so many of our fans who’ve got three or four different greatest hits, and the albums and possibly the singles…

“The fear was the backlash, of sorts, about ‘Why should we buy all of this again?’. So we’ve done something lovingly to celebrate 30 years of being recording artists, and I hope people enjoy what they hear.”

In August, Shed Seven released the album’s lead single, Waiting for the Catch, which features Issy Ferris of Ferris & Sylvester, a UK folk/rock/Americana duo who have previously performed at the Cambridge Folk Festival.

“That’s a song that we wrote in about 2016, as part of the Instant Pleasures album process,” recalls Rick, 51, who notes that quite a lot of younger people come to the band’s gigs these days, “but we ran out of time.

“We only had three weeks to record the album and we ran out of time. We were literally, on the last day in the studio, trying to do something with Waiting for the Catch and it just sounded like a half-finished demo, to be fair.

“So we wondered what to do with that and ended up putting it on a bonus disc of that album – and a lot of our fans picked up on it, thinking ‘Well why isn’t this on the main album, it’s brilliant?’ and we’re thinking ‘Well it’s not finished’.

“So when we decided to go and revisit some old songs, we just knew that particular song needed its day in the sun.

“And we’re really pleased we’ve done that as well now. We invited Issy to come and sing on it with us because it’s definitely a call-and-response, male-female kind of song - and she sounds amazing on it.”

As discussed recently with Mark Morriss of The Bluetones, the popularity of the guitar-based music of the mid-90s known as ‘Britpop’ has never really gone away – and doesn’t need a reformed Oasis to bring it back to prominence.

“No, it hasn’t really [ever gone away],” agrees Rick, “I mean Oasis are their own beast, aren’t they?

“This is where you get into kind of the ‘everyperson’ thing, because you get people who perhaps only know Oasis but don’t know The Bluetones and don’t know Shed Seven and don’t know Cast and don’t know Echobelly – the list is endless.

“A case in point being one of my bedroom windows broke last week and I had to get this chap round to come and fix it for me.

“He comes in and realises that it’s me and he says ‘Oh, you’re having a bit of a resurgence, aren’t you?’

“And I said ‘Oh yeah, it’s going really well’ and he went ‘Is that because Oasis have reformed?’ I mean come on! We had a number one album in January, what you talking about?!”

That album was A Matter of Time, the band’s sixth studio album. They then released Liquid Gold, featuring Waiting for the Catch, on 27 September – which also went to number one.

This surely means that Shed Seven are the only act to enjoy two number one albums in 2024.

Rick, who has known the band’s guitarist Paul Banks since they were both 11 years old, adds: “We’re really happy with how we’re going, with how we’re doing it.

“I mean most of these gigs that we’re doing are sold out, which is absolutely amazing, and it’s testament to the work we’ve put in over the years. So roll on Cambridge on Tuesday night when everyone’s going to be lovely.”

Shed Seven will perform at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Tuesday, 10 December. Tickets, priced £40.50, are available from cornex.co.uk. For more on the band, go to shedseven.com.