Combining musical template of THE HUMAN LEAGUE with lyrical wit of PULP, YOUNGER YOUNGER 28s were the shining light in synthpop during an era full of dour landfill indie like TRAVIS following the fallout from Britpop.
Released in March 2000, their only album ‘Soap’ was a cutting tongue-in-cheek satire on class aspirations and dreams. Fronted by a Teddy Boy version of Phil Oakey in Joe Northern aka Ashley Reaks, YOUNGER YOUNGER 28s were a terrifically entertaining live act. Backed by his very own Joanne and Susanne in Andie and Liz who were recruited from the Academy of Contemporary Music, there was a bizarre twist with instrumentalist Jimmy Dickinson formally being a member of heavy rockers LITTLE ANGELS!
17 years on, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK managed to trace Ashley Reaks somewhere in the city of London; he kindly chatted about the period when he “was nearly a crap pop star…”
Despite time passing, the concept of YOUNGER YOUNGER 28s still seems quite bizarre, how did it formulate? A strange story of course!
Strange indeed! Me and Jim played together in post-LITTLE ANGELS band B.L.O.W. and when that finished, we tried writing together. He was writing music for computer games under the name YOUNGER YOUNGER 28s and was into THE PRODIGY. I was writing punk and post-punk type songs so initially we were a sort of punky dance act.
We did a cover of ‘A Forest’ by THE CURE and we wrote our own song around it ‘Sugar Sweet Dreams’, which kick-started a whole new direction.
Why did Jimmy want to do synthpop all of a sudden?
At some point Jim played me some demos he’d done pre-LITTLE ANGELS and they were synthpop-esque, so it was always waiting to come out.
Who were the key influences on YOUNGER YOUNGER 28s?
Well obviously THE HUMAN LEAGUE were the template. I remember asking Jim to make ‘Teenage Mum’ sound like THE COMMUNARDS or ERASURE when I brought the song to him. Stock Aitken & Waterman and Trevor Horn were in there somewhere! As a teen, I liked the bleak Northern bands like CLOCK DVA and CABARET VOLTAIRE as well as the miserable lyricists of punk.
Was having two female vocalists alongside your comedic Northern droll always part of the plan?
No – neither me nor Jim were singers so we needed all the help we could get. Liz and Andie sang on the early demos of ‘Julie’ and ‘Teenage Mum’ and it worked well, so they stayed!
When did you realise the concept of YY28s might actually have legs?
When we started gigging… very quickly we had celebrities and music business people at our gigs. I think they liked the comedy of the live act after all the seriousness of Britpop.
You got signed to Richard Branson’s new label V2 and had STEREOPHONICS as label mates, what was it like being on the label?
Personally I think it was a bad choice and I’m not sure V2 really wanted us on the label (though they did want our manager to sort out some problems they were having at the time). We’d have been better going with one of the smaller labels that were interested in us at the time
The first single ‘We’re Going Out’ attracted some attention and radio play…
Putting ‘We’re Going Out’ out as the first single was a bad move in hindsight. The band all wanted ‘Sugar Sweet Dreams’ to be the single, but V2 and the industry were convinced ‘We’re Going Out’ would be a huge hit. It wasn’t!
‘Sugar Sweet Dreams’ was a brilliant album opener, sort of ‘Pulp Fiction’ meets THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Sound Of The Crowd’?
Musically I definitely remember referencing ‘Sound Of The Crowd’ and ‘A Forest’ by THE CURE on ‘Sugar Sweet Dreams’. It was probably the first track we did and we should have continued down that musical path a bit more but got seduced by POP!
‘The Next Big Thing’ was a wry observation of reality TV talent shows and wannabe culture a few years before Pop Idol / X-Factor etc?
The idea that being famous, in itself, will somehow make us feel good and paper over all the cracks is such a seductive belief and has almost become the new drug of choice. Personally, I was always interested in the life that was falling to bits alongside the illusion, including my own.
Was ‘Gary’ based on a true story?
Let me have a listen and I’ll get back… ‘Gary’ was another figment of my imagination but based loosely on some of the characters I’d come across whilst playing the Northern Working Men’s Club scene over the years in various bands. There was one particularly rough club in Wigan where the DJ was a ‘butch-as-hell’ transvestite and we shared the dressing room with the female strippers, their ‘fanny spray’ and their very protective ‘boyfriends’
There was a dispute with V2 about the ‘In Between Days’ cover being included on the album against your wishes. But how did you come to record it anyway?
‘In Between Days’ was never intended to be on the album as it was a ‘concept’ album and didn’t fit. V2 persuaded us to record a cover as a last ditch attempt at a hit but they dropped us before it ever went out as a single. I assume they thought that as they’d paid for the recording, they would add it to the album.
In hindsight, it’s a shame the superb B-side ’Karaoke Queen’ wasn’t on the album in place of ‘In Between Days’? Was that another true story or your imaginative mind?
‘Karaoke Queen’ would have fitted well onto ‘Soap’, but for one reason or another didn’t make the cut. Again it was loosely based on an ex-girlfriend of mine who would get ‘hit on’ by both sexes in dodgy clubs whilst I hovered around uncomfortably.
You ended up on open air bill in Nottingham with THE CORRS, E17 and Jimmy Nail in Summer 1998, playing second from bottom-of-the-bill. It was quite surreal occasion cos I witnessed it, what are your memories of the day and how do you think YY28s went down?
I enjoyed that gig and seem to remember us going down ok though you might tell me otherwise! My main memory was I gave a backstage pass to a guy we’d met on our travels and he proceeded to get very drunk on the free beer and was kicked out for trying to get into THE CORRS dressing room. I denied any knowledge!
Was there a moment when you perhaps realised that things weren’t happening for YY28s and people didn’t get it, that some found the lyrics too condescending?
I remember a meeting at V2 where the marketing team had absolutely no idea what we were about and had been telling the radio shows that we were “a step up from STEPS”! When ‘We’re Going Out’ didn’t chart, the whole buzz around the band seemed to disappear immediately and it became pretty clear that the label weren’t going to continue to push us.
I didn’t realise how many people thought I was condescending in my lyrics and looking down on the less fortunate. I’d spent years wasting away on the dole in haze of dope smoke in a small town, so I was writing about myself and my life and the desperation I (and my friends) felt on a daily basis.
There was a letter in the Melody Maker or NME one week accusing me of patronising the emotionally damaged in the song ‘Valerie’, where a lonely man seeks refuge in porn and is only capable of a fantasy relationship with one of the models in an ‘adult magazine’. That could easily be me! I think people assume that if you’re in the public eye, you must be happy and emotionally balanced – nothing could be further from the truth, in my case at least!
‘Two Timer (Crap in Bed)’ was issued as a promo but was never officially released and that appeared to be the end of YY28s. What actually happened?
‘Two Timer’ was actually one of the earliest songs we wrote and recorded – an electro re-write of the punk one-hit-wonder ‘Jilted John’. I don’t know why it was never released or on ‘Soap’…
How do you look back on the ‘Soap’ album now and its context in the grander scheme of popular culture?
I haven’t listened to ‘Soap’ in a long time, but I’m glad we made a brave record that was completely out-of-step with everything, which seems to be my forte.
Do you have any favourite songs from the album?
I always liked ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘Sugar Sweet Dreams’
So what are you all up to today?
I’m making music and art at a rate of knots… 10 albums in the last 5 years!
Jim is teaching music production at Bath University and works with new artists.
Liz is running her own PA business, working with dogs as a trainee trainer and has her first baby on the way.
I don’t know what Andie’s up to…
If you had your time again, is there anything you’d have done differently with YY28s?
Signed to one of the smaller indie labels that were chasing us early on, and released ‘Sugar Sweet Dreams’ as the first single.
Cheers for this, Ashley 😀
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Ashley Reaks
‘Soap’
https://www.facebook.com/ashleyreaksart/
Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
22nd April 2017
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was not included on the debut FAD GADGET long player ‘Fireside Favourites’ that came out a few months later, but it helped establish Mute Records’ credentials as an early champion of independent electronic music.
via Mute Records
was a worthy transitional recording although where Foxx headed next was the more romantic and band oriented textures of ‘The Garden’.
via Metamatic Records
was not a hit on its original release, but the world belatedly caught up when a remixed reissue reached No11 in 1982.
via Virgin Records
was the posthumous hit single that documented the relationship turmoil which JOY DIVISION’s lead singer Ian Curtis was facing prior to his suicide. The initial attempt at recording had been much faster and tighter, but producer Martin Hannett slowed the band down and suggested Curtis take on a more Sinatra based drawl. The looser end result added further poignancy.
via Rhino
via Beggars Banquet
was the first release from THE BLUE NILE and the esoteric template that later emerged on ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’ was already omnipresent. Rawer and more aggressive than songs like ‘Stay’ and ‘Tinseltown In The Rain’, this was a fine opening gambit from the enigmatic Glaswegian trio. Originally self-released, the single was picked up by RSO who promptly folded after its re-release.
via Virgin Records
co-produced by Mike Hedges was an interim 45 prior to the doomfest of ‘Pornography’. The band’s potential for success now looked like a real threat as The Raincoat Brigade seeked out a successor to JOY DIVISION. But in late 1982, THE CURE lightened up for the first of their fantasy singles, ‘Let’s Go to Bed’.
via Fiction Records
. The multi-lingual phrases highlighted an expanding world market while Glenn Gregory provided commentary on how personal relationships were like business transactions.
via Virgin Records
, a song that had not been originally included on their second album ‘The Friends Of Mr Cairo’. Jon Anderson’s lyrics were almost spiritual while the widescreen sonic backing from his Greek chum complimented the mood. Vangelis himself was about to enter his most high profile period with ‘Chariots Of Fire’ and ‘Blade Runner’.
via Polydor Records / Universal Music
via Music Club Deluxe
being appended to the album.
via EMI Music
effectively bookended Marc Almond and Dave Ball’s imperial pop period which had started with ‘Tainted Love’. Another song that came via the Northern Soul scene, it was originally recorded by Judy Street and had more than a passing resemblance to ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’. The recording was quickly disowned and was to be SOFT CELL’s last Top10 single before the duo entered much darker musical territory and on the path to ‘Mr Self Destruct’.
via Phonogram / Universal Music
allowed Clarke to put his new Fairlight CMI through its paces, while a gospel flavour came from SYLVIA & THE SAPPHIRES.
via Music Club Deluxe
was a cynical attempt to ensure DURAN DURAN got a UK No1. Nick Rhodes made it clear the song was not going to be on the next album while completely different versions featured on the 7 and 12 inch formats. This synth laden single featured that dreadfully unforgettable line “You’re about as easy as a nuclear war”!
via EMI Music
featured a charming four way call-and-response vocal while the huge use of portamento on the lead synth line fooled buyers into returning their singles to the shops thinking it was warped!
via Virgin Records
via EMI Music
was considerably less harsh than his band’s pioneering electronic body music. Although not featured on Görl’s first solo album ‘Night Full Of Tension’, ‘Mit Dir’ did much to help lighten his mood considerably that he was attempting synthpop with EURYTHMICS’ Annie Lennox on songs like ‘Darling Don’t Leave Me’.
via Mute Records
was a brilliantly glorious statement with Billy Currie’s OSCar interventions being its undoubted musical highlight.
via EMI Records
was the bridge between the industrial flavoured synthpop of ‘Some Great Reward’ and the darker aesthetics of ‘Black Celebration’. Much more accomplished than the more throwaway standalones like ‘It’s Called A Heart’ and ‘But Not Tonight’ which followed, ‘Shake The Disease’ continues to be performed live at DM shows in a less interesting stripped down form with Martin Gore on lead vocals.
via Mute Records
became an unexpected American No1 on the back of the movie’s success and took Jim Kerr and Co into the stadiums of the world.
via Virgin Records
, a one-off for London Records. Engineered by Dan Lacksman of TELEX, it featured a sonic passage that would have made Trevor Horn proud. Lines such as “I’ve been thinking we’ll get back together again someday – your hair will be some weird color by then…” reminded European audiences of how quirky SPARKS could be.
via Lil Beethoven Records
actually follows a chord progression very similar to ‘Enola Gay’. Interestingly, the song failed to enter the Top40 on its release in the UK.
via Virgin Records
is one of the Mancunian’s combo’s more underrated singles. With a synth riff borrowed from Shannon’s ‘Let The Music Play’, it successfully combined some gritty rock energy to a solid Italo disco backbone featuring a great sequenced bassline.
via Rhino
was a throbbing Moroder-inspired disco tune that borrowed counter-melodies from Donna Summer’s ‘Love’s Unkind’. Independent labels such as Mute and Factory were more likely to indulge in releases that weren’t specifically tied in to albums, and it proved to be a perfect move to maintain ERASURE’s profile while they were preparing their next plan of action.
via Mute Records
. It all seemed so camp and ridiculous in the video when Neil Tennant was singing it wearing a Stetson, but then in 1992, out popped Bono doing something similar on their ‘Zoo TV’ tour!
via EMI Music
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