This version was edited by Frank with permission (features about 40% of the original text).
Many thanks to Julianne for creating special versions of Mick Mercer's photos for this page.
Webstuff by Gooner.

What sort of a cross to bear is All About Eve then ? How serious a problem ?

What an opener ! I think it's quite a big problem, but not insurmountable, in that I don't want to be 'Julianne Regan'. I don't want to be 'ex-All About Eve'. You see, the problem is, that because we had four albums and they were all really different, and we ranged from being Siouxsie & The Banshees copy band to being white noise My Bloody Valentine, with a bit of Pink Floyd thrown in and a few guitar solos for good measure... we've got fans from different eras who are going to be disappointed anyway, so that's why I don't want to play on it because they're going to come along and shout for 'Martha'. If we keep it quiet some people won't know.... not that I'm ashamed, but it's kind of gone.

Because we'd had success early they [Phonogram Records] were sniffing golden eggs all over the place, so they piled so much money into it - really expensive producer, string section, kitchen sink, the lot. It didn't happen, so an accountant looked at a set of figures and thought, 'Oh well, get rid of them and hang on to James then, shall we ?' Just like that. There was the, 'Well, we'll keep the girl and dump the boys' which wasn't a happening thing.

They actually called you in to propose that ?

No, no, they never talk to you, 'cos you're just an appendage of your management company who happens to write songs that makes money for them, so they tell your manager, by fax ! They're really cowardly people... and he tells them by fax to fuck off. So that's what happened. They'd ploughed too much money in and we were just too expensive. We were dropped and MCA picked us up, full of promises, and 'do what you like.'

Some legal action thing cropped up in the news ?

It was a, 'Were they pushed or did they walk ?' thing. To be honest I don't know if I was being protected, because I really thought we'd walked and I thought, 'Yeah, and they forgot to pick up their option'. Looking back I don't know if Tony [Perrin], our manager, was protecting me a little bit and it was 'dropped but we'll hang on to you'. But there was this thing where the option day was up and we hadn't heard from anybody so were thinking, naively, they've forgotten ! These things do happen ! So we still don't know to this day.

What made you go to MCA ? (Only RCA could have been worse).

We found ourselves without a deal, touted it round and to be frank we weren't exactly a hot property. If you've been dropped people are wondering why. They don't know it's because the record company made you spend too much money. You've got this stigma attached, but you also get this kind of smart scavenger mentality that goes, 'Right, Phonogram have spent a million quid building this band up, that's a million we can save if we pick them up now', and, 'We can do what Phonogram couldn't do,' which is where MCA were coming from, because the MD used to work at Phonogram. Big brownie pin for him. Unfortunately we did dupe them a little, I have to say, at the Japanese meal they took us out for. He said, 'I always loved the band and I think you should be doing something like the first album,' and we were going, 'How uncanny !' And then we went in with a load of distortion pedals and the voice mixed really low.

So what happened ?

They weren't really annoyed. The album came out, they were a bit disappointed there weren't any 'Martha's on it, but okay you've got a fanbase, we'll push this. First single, got in the forty, second single... and it didn't, but they'd decided we were going to go then. There was another big clear out of everyone; the MD, our A&R man, us... everyone except Wendy James, funnily enough. The same week, Phonogram brought out 'The Best Of', which was quite stupid and counter-productive for everybody... because they both bombed !

Dropped again. Familiar territory.

In a way it's good we were dropped because we were out of a publishing deal, out of a record deal, so there was no obligation. We could actually afford the luxury of splitting up, without being tied to anyone, because if that had happened when we were on MCA they'd have had me a solo artist and imagine what that would have been like !

Were you planning to approach companies or waiting until you had some songs ?

Waiting until we had some songs because we were picked up by MCA just on what we were, on our name. 'All About Eve ? We'll have them'... and it didn't really work. We were breaking the trade descriptions act really, because they weren't getting All About Eve. We thought this time we'll get someone to sign us for what we're doing, not what we were, but it never got that far.

Was there ever a stage of name changing ?

I wanted to change the name before 'Ultraviolet', I was saying, 'Come on, it's not All About Eve', and they were saying, 'MCA just won't buy that'. That's one of my very non-businessy ideas. It didn't get off the starting block at all with anybody, but ideally we should have done.

When you were still carrying on together [sessions at Wapley Barn, end of 1992] and it wasn't working... did it feel different ? Were any ideas lost there, or did you come up with things ?

You see... I think it could have gone somewhere, and it is going somewhere with those three, do you know what I mean ? There was definitely something going on that was gelling and they knocked out tons of songs in that style, but it wasn't what I wanted to be part of. There's one song from it, where they really tried and Marty said, 'Look, just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it. Tell me, what do you want me to play ? Put my fingers on the fretboard...' I don't know. There was this song we teased out... and they knocked this out and went huh, piece of piss and I said, but that's really good, can I have that one ? 'Yeah.' So I've got that one now, the very last thing that we did as a band will end up on my record. 'Puppydog Tail' [later renamed to 'Battersea']. That was me doing something like this. They would not have been into doing that full time. It was a little nugget I gleaned.

Why were you sitting in this other little room in this barn going, 'Oh, I don't know' ? If you've got your guitar why weren't you in there with them ?

No, because, thing is, I played some stuff on the album, and played some stuff live, but I never liked to do it, 'cos Marty was so brilliant I just felt shit standing next to him. He'd always be very encouraging, 'Come in and do something'. Nahhh. I'll go and make a cup of tea shall I ? I'd go in the room and worry. The 'jam' thing... I wasn't very good at. I could jam with Andy and a drum machine but I couldn't jam with three live blokes and all the power at the time... which I could now. I couldn't really direct it. You need a bit of direction but it was like a bit of a soup to me I couldn't get a handle on. I didn't know and I couldn't tell them. I didn't know until I went off and started writing this stuff that was what I wanted to do. It was only when I sat down with a guitar.

'Touched By Jesus' featured interesting modern indie rock parallels. Then the abrupt change to 'Ultraviolet', with no parts of that carried forward ?

I think... I do have to take the blame, because no matter how democratic something appears to be if there's one person going 'Nah, whinge whinge', which I was... I didn't realise 'Touched By Jesus' was cool in places. I thought it was a bit stadium, better just go on with something else. I glossed over the good bits and dwelt on the bits where people said, 'Aha, isn't that a pompous big rock sound, not a million miles away from Heart still ?' So, swing completely. I was so sick of people saying, 'You're Fleetwood Mac, you're going to be Heart'. Perhaps it would have been the logical progression ? We'd have been on my yacht conducting this interview now, but there goes that self-destruct button, which is stupid, but very ingenuous, very dumb but heartfelt. Done that, what shall we do now ? 'Ultraviolet'... I love it, but I'm probably in a minority of one - none of our public, families and band ! The stuff the chaps are doing now is much more like 'Touched By Jesus' than 'Ultraviolet'. It was a bit of a hijack job, which I'm good at doing. I hijacked the second album for my acoustic mood, and the fourth one for my 'Indie's great isn't it ? Let's get a distortion pedal !' mood.

Were all songs you in your room ?

Me in my room. I re-did three with my old troubadors. They were all around. 'Do you wanna go in the studio and do a few songs ?' Banged out three or four. Only recently, a month ago, I met Tim [Mc Tighe] and we've done three songs. Mostly a lone thing and I'm no a brilliant instrumentalist and I've got hardly any gear, so I can only approximate what it wants to sound like. It's me going through a little pedal.

At what point did you realise you'd hit upon something you had to take further as you'd never done it before ?

When someone said, God that sounds nothing like AAE, and someone, a friend, will hate that. God, people kept saying, I suppose you're going to make an acoustic album. Where have you been since 1988 ?!!! I'm not going to do an acoustic album. I think when I wrote 'Star' and 'Messed Up' and the chorus kicked in and even though the lyrics weren't particularly jubilant the music went somewhere and they had choruses.

Are there points that have emerged artistically ? Things you can do now you couldn't do before ?

Oh yeah. You know that old 'if the cap fits wear it' thing. You get this persona you're supposed to be. When we were peaking at our fame I was supposed to be this nice floaty Pre-Raphaelite, Shelley-reading bint. Which I was, but I am a bit of a grasshopper mind. I probably wasn't six months later. Because there's been an actual break, now I'm just me. I don't have to be what people think I am. I am a little bit more sarcastic, a little bit nasty. I do swear, I don't sit around in white frilly frocks.

On these new songs you never expose the sound of the voice.

It's kind of diluted, isn't it ? That's why I need a band. I'm not brilliant at knocking out tough music but I'm a big fan of it. When Tim gave me one song that was really edgey I thought, 'Brilliant, I can do this immediately'. That's not my strength musically, although it's what I'd dearly love to be able to do. This is why I don't think I can go any further until I've found a guitarist to bring that dark edge to it. There will still be pretty stuff but I want the balance much more in favour of the non-pretty stuff.

Punky version of The Kinks ?

Yeah, that's kind of brilliant. I love choruses and verses and I like words to mean something. That's where The Kinks come from, but I don't really like the fey delivery of it. The Kinks didn't have the pedals we have, otherwise they might have done it. The Buzzcocks are the Kinks with distortion pedals, sometimes. Good, good, if it sounds like a punky version of the Kinks. I'm still a massive chorus fan but I don't want it to be cosy. I'm not exactly Ms. Cutting Edge, but I want to make it a bit difficult for people to like it.

Used by permission, with many thanks to Mick ! Text and source photos taken from one of Mick Mercer's Goth Punk & Indie cd's.

(Mick also provided us with this charming pic around 1987, when Goth was at its highest peak in the UK ;-) )

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