The Wild Swans (post‐punk band from Liverpool, UK)

The Wild Swans are a post-punk band from Liverpool, England, formed in 1980 shortly after Paul Simpson left the Teardrop Explodes. The band's personnel has been subject to regular turnover, with vocalist Simpson being the only constant member. The original incarnation of the Wild Swans lasted until 1982, issuing one single. A reconstituted incarnation of the band issued two albums from 1988 to 1990 before dissolving again. In 2009, Simpson put a new lineup together and the group played numerous live dates, issuing a new studio album in 2011. The Wild Swans also spun off two charting splinter projects: Care and the Lotus Eaters. Members of the Wild Swans have also been members of Echo & the Bunnymen, the Icicle Works, the Woodentops, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Lightning Seeds. The Wild Swans formed in 1980 when Paul Simpson, who had left the Teardrop Explodes after the recording of their first single, teamed up (on vocals) with Jeremy Kelly (guitar), Ged Quinn (keyboards), James Weston (bass) and Justin Stavely (drums). An opportunity arose when Pete de Freitas of Echo & the Bunnymen (an old friend and flatmate of Simpson's) agreed to fund their first single "Revolutionary Spirit" (1982, Zoo Records). Stavely had dropped out of the band, so De Freitas ended up financier, drummer and producer for the single; he was credited under his middle names, Louis Vincent. Despite turning out to be Zoo's last ever release, and the A-side being accidentally mixed in mono rather than stereo, the single received a measure of critical acclaim and in time, developed cult status. The single spent 9 weeks on the UK Independent Chart, peaking at No. 13. Subsequent to the release of "Revolutionary Spirit", weekly rehearsals were given a degree of urgency when the band was offered a BBC Radio 1 John Peel session. Songs on this session, all written by the team of Simpson, Quinn and Kelly, included "No Bleeding", "Enchanted" and "Thirst". By this point, the band was rounded out by two new members: Baz Hughes (bass) and Joe McKechnie (drums). The Wild Swans were sporadically active in the early 1980s; touring with Echo & the Bunnymen in 1981 following a residency with the Teardrop Explodes. A David Jensen session came in spring 1982, with the band penning and performing "The Iron Bed", "Flowers of England" and "Now You're Perfect". The group split very soon after this BBC Radio 1 session was broadcast. Once the band split, Kelly and Quinn started up the Lotus Eaters with co-founder Peter Coyle. Simpson followed suit with the duo Care, teaming up with Ian Broudie. Strangely, Arista Records, who had refused to sign the Wild Swans, then snapped up both of the offshoots. Both groups issued several singles, with the Lotus Eaters scoring a chart hit, and releasing an album in 1984. Care, meanwhile, reached number 48 on the UK charts with the single "Flaming Sword". Both bands had broken up by 1985, with Care having recorded an unreleased album. In 1986, the session recorded for the Radio 1 John Peel show was finally released on Strange Fruit Records, containing the tracks "No Bleeding", "Enchanted", and "Thirst". The session release was promoted by Kelly on BBC Radio 1 and it repeated the single's success, peaking at No. 13 on the independent chart. Shortly thereafter, Simpson, Kelly and Quinn got together and began playing once again as the Wild Swans. By 1988, Quinn had dropped out, Simpson and Kelly were joined on bass by Joe Fearon, and a long-awaited debut album finally emerged. Titled Bringing Home the Ashes (1988, Sire/Reprise Records), and featuring uncredited session players on keyboards and drums, it was produced by Paul Hardiman and yielded two singles, "Young Manhood" (which first appeared on the 1987 Sire Records promotional sampler Just Say Yes) and "Bible Dreams". Simpson is nowadays disparaging of the sound developed on the album and feels that some of the aura and magic surrounding the (Mark I) Wild Swans had been lost. "Major label thinking is like a virus, you forget why you started the band and fall into the 'hit' record mind-set". He went on to offer even more stark words of wisdom for those thinking of setting up a band: "Major labels suck the poetry from your bones and fill the gaps with a cement made from cocaine and crushed teenagers." However, Kelly, who programmed drums and worked with producer, Paul Hardiman, remains up beat about the album, which remains the band's most popular recording on Spotify. Bringing Home the Ashes was issued in the United States initially, followed by UK and German releases. A near-simultaneous promo-only release called Music and Talk from Liverpool included Wild Swans tracks interspersed with interviews with Jeremy Kelly. A second album on Sire, Space Flower, was released in 1990, subsequent to the departure of Kelly. It was produced by Ian Broudie, and featured a line-up of Paul Simpson (vocals, mellotron, effects), Joe Fearon (bass), Ian Broudie (guitars, keyboards), Chris Sharrock (drums) and Ian McNabb (additional guitars, vocals). Sharrock and McNabb were both of the Liverpool three piece the Icicle Works. Much of the material written for the album had a food-flavoured theme, depicted by the tracks "Melting Blue Delicious", "Tangerine Temple", "Chocolate Bubble-Gum" and "Vanilla Melange". The album was released in the US, Germany and Japan, but not initially in the UK. The Wild Swans split up again shortly after Space Flower and Simpson went on to form his own project 'Skyray', recording several singles, EPs and albums, and the spoken word project Dream Diaries. In 2003, a retrospective collection of rare Wild Swans recordings was compiled and released by Renascent Records. Incandescent is a double album containing material from 1981 to 1987, but mostly from the band's earliest period. It includes the Peel, Jensen and Long Sessions, as well as a number of live songs, demos and alternative versions. An accompanying booklet featured biographical information on the band and a detailed track by track commentary from Simpson. The familiar 'Icarus Swan' artwork, which first appeared on the cover of "The Revolutionary Spirit", also returned for a second outing. In 2007, after many years of deletion, Sire Records finally elected to re-release both Bringing Home the Ashes and Space Flower, this time giving them a full UK release. Both albums were re-packaged as a 2-CD set called Magnitude, whose cover and artwork this time mirrored 1988's Wild Swans – Music and Talk from Liverpool album, complete with familiar Swan design. The album itself was released as part of Sire's April 2007 relaunch of the Korova label, alongside other re-releases from acts like Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion, all 2-CD sets with extra tracks. Magnitude CD 1 features the whole of Bringing Home the Ashes and the four B-sides from the singles "Young Manhood" and "Bible Dreams", all mastered from the original tapes. CD 2 features the first UK appearance of the Space Flower album, with the addition of an extra track, recorded back in 1989 but left off the album at the time, called "Tastes Like Tuesday". Another studio recording is the Bill Drummond unreleased single remix of "Melting Blue Delicious". The second disc concludes with five demo recordings, made by Simpson back in late 1988, including early versions of "Melting Blue Delicious" (called "Telescope") and another mix of "Tastes Like Tuesday". Magnitude enjoyed a relatively short physical shelf life as a 2-CD set, as in June 2007 Warner Brothers (UK) was disbanded by the parent company and the album was deleted. Paul Simpson declared his intention to resurrect the Wild Swans on his Myspace site in late 2007: "This unhappy band has been unfinished business for me for over 20 years, haunting my days and nights, obsessing my thoughts at the expense of my health and sanity. I never got over the sudden implosion of the first incarnation and was devastated by the crash and burn of the second. In