Dubstar: I Haven't Forgotten You Demo

“So what do musicians do when their bands are over? What do they do next?”

I was in the passenger seat of Mike ‘Spike’ Drake’s car, completely lost in deepest Sussex on the way to Chris Difford’s studio Heliocentric. It was taking us far longer to get there than we’d imagined and conversation was running low:

“Some become taxi drivers…” said Spike, “work on building sites. I dunno…”.

It was getting dark, rain splashing up from the drenched B2089. I wasn’t satisfied with that so I persisted, like a ten year old pestering an irritated mother:

“But they can’t just stop making music. Like Tony Mansfield. I was a massive fan of his in the eighties and I haven’t a clue where he’s gone…”

I hoped Spike would know but I got nothing, he was concentrating on the road. To this day I don’t know what happened to Tony Mansfield.

But in that car I was well aware that I didn’t know where I was going either. It was February 1999. In eighteen months Dubstar would be over.

SONGWRITER FOR HIRE

There had been a long hiatus between the making of Make It Better and its release, and during this time I’d worked with our manager to set myself up as a writer for other artists in order to avoid, as Spike had predicted, ‘becoming a taxi driver’. The best thing to do would be to capitalise on Dubstar and my visibility as the act’s songwriter before the ‘brand’ evaporated. That meant transitioning from writing for my own act to writing for everybody else's, a role I performed for the best part of seven years. 

I loved it.

I spent so much time writing in Stockholm, the world’s musical capital, that it became my second (or should that be third?) home. Even considered moving there for a while, until I experienced my first Swedish winter. Brrrr… 

I did alright as a writer for hire though (I’ve included a handful of examples of what I got up to here), have many stories to share, certainly made a comfortable living and I’ve occasionally returned to that world since I finished working with Chris and Sarah in 2014. But after a few years at it I had a growing problem…

The memories of how Dubstar ended were fading away. One night in mid 2003 I revisited the songs I’d written as the curtain was falling and realised that I’d accidentally gotten my writing mojo back right at the end of Dubstar, right after the struggles with Make It Better. I Lost A Friend is a great example of this.

I had a nagging and growing sense that Dubstar had more to say, maybe it had ended too soon? I listened back to ‘I Haven’t Forgotten You’, ‘Leaving In The Morning’ and ‘The Last Song’…maybe there should be more Dubstar?

Also, I’d had a unique experience working with a then unknown local Sussex band called Keane. I’d been called in by David Field at BMG to work with them and we did a great session at Kevin Stagg’s studio just round the corner from the Booth Museum in Brighton. We remained friendly for a year or so after; consequently I had a front row view of their ascent into super-success.

What was so inspiring was after all the difficulties I’d faced as Dubstar fell apart, I saw that the good guys could actually win in the end. And not just win, but create something truly remarkable. Keane’s Hopes and Fears, which actually was recorded at Heliocentric unlike Make It Better, remains one of my all time favourite albums. And as Nick Gatfield, their A&R man at Island Records who also signed Dubstar in the USA said in an interview…the formula for Keane’s success was timeless and simple: 

‘great songs sung by a great singer’

Dubstar had those. Dubstar could do that. 

DUBSTAR AGAIN?

I’d worked with other singers on new artistic projects in this period too. There was Lily Fraser from Cornwall…we wrote a song called ‘Down’ together which I would play in A&R meetings for years after. It’s the song that got me the Keane gig and countless other opportunities. And of course there was the amazing Cat Goscovitch who I’d accidentally met at a party in Jesmond in 2003 having been a secret fan for years. We wrote lots of great music together.

But it’s a different dynamic creating a new act from scratch when you’re in your early thirties rather than your early twenties. With every other act I’d been in we’d been friendly before we realised we could do music together. Starting with music in mind is a different process, like the difference between meeting ‘a friend of a friend’ as opposed to meeting someone on a dating app. I couldn’t make it work, and of course even if I had…

It wouldn’t be Dubstar. Which meant no matter how good the music was we’d have had an enormous uphill struggle getting any attention in the millennial media. That struggle is fine when you’re young and callow and willing to sacrifice years of slog to get somewhere. 

But I’d already been somewhere. In fact, because I’d been writing extensively with other artists for years I’d done this all before, I knew exactly what difficulties lay ahead. That’s the burden of experience I suppose, of maturity.

So if it was going to be art it had to be Dubstar, because Dubstar worked. Dubstar had a track record and a ready made and receptive audience. And of course, that meant it had to be Sarah up front. But Sarah was in Client making music that was as far away from Dubstar in sound and intent as they could make it. Would she be up for it?

Chris had been in regular contact and sounded her out, repeatedly I later discovered. So Sarah and I met in a bar near the waterfront of the Thames with her boyfriend and their friend Steve Strange, the legendary promoter who sadly died last year. Her answer was yes, there would be more Dubstar. Hooray! I opened my songbook where I had secretly been writing more Dubstar for years and we were off.

It was late 2006. We were back and ready to take on the new millennium. What could possibly go wrong?

Stay tuned.

I Haven’t Forgotten You

This is a demo recorded in late 1999. I can’t recall what it was for but I do know that I recycled some of it for Drycker Stor, a collection of classical pieces I wrote for Audrey Riley’s ‘A Change of Light’ the following year. 

I hadn’t thought about this song in many years until I found it on one of the archive hard drives earlier this month. I couldn’t find a version with the vocals to the verses or middle eight and was tempted to overlay myself singing it, or maybe using Emvoice to sing it (which sounds remarkably like Sarah). But that’s not the spirit, I thought it better to leave the demo as is and instead provide the words. After all, the song you can hear in your imagination is undoubtedly better than my interfering with a twenty two year old recording. 

I Haven’t Forgotten You

A life short lived

With no final word to share

Laments left in letters 

And told in prayers

I chose to leave goodbye unsaid 

But I meant to let you go

(With) All my memories, the moments that we shared

I haven’t forgotten you

For every phone call and letter I ignored

I haven’t forgotten you

But this apology

Might suffocate you as I stand

Under shadows of regrets and broken plans

It’s too late to tell me

But you wouldn’t let go

I have the souvenirs of your suffering

And here are mine so

(hold out your hands and)   

Take my fear, take away my shame

I haven’t forgotten you

In my excuses and everything I blame

I haven’t forgotten you my love

Spoken:

Feeling a little sad in the mornings is so normal 

I hardly notice now

All my memories, the moments that we shared

I haven’t forgotten you

For every phone call and letter I ignored

I haven’t forgotten you

Take my fear, take away my shame

I haven’t forgotten you

In my excuses and everything I blame

I haven’t forgotten you my love

Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for up to be the first to hear new releases and up to the minute news