Jim Reid from The Jesus And Mary Chain has revealed that when he and his brother William presented the final mixes of their debut album Psychocandy to bosses at their record label, they were told that the record was "a piece of shit.”
The Jesus and Mary Chain's frontman shared his memory of the meeting in an interview conducted for the Life of the Record podcast.
Psychocandy, the East Kilbride band's debut album, was released on November 18, 1985 on Blanco y Negro Records, a subsidiary label of Warners co-founded by Geoff Travis from Rough Trade. The record received rave reviews in the UK's influential weekly music papers, but the Reid brothers recall being initially fearful that their label might refuse to release the album, such was the reception they received from key figures at Warners.
'When we took the finished mixes of Psychocandy down to Warners, they just said it was a piece of shit," Jim Reid remembers. "They said, 'These are the demos. When are you going to make the record?' And we're going, Look, you don't get it. This is the record, and there won't be another one."
The Reid brothers were never under any illusions about the polarising nature of the band they formed in 1983. If they had been blind to this fact, the very first reviews they received in national music papers would have clued them in
"NME said we were the best thing since the Sex Pistols," William Reid recalled. "And Sounds said we were the worst group they'd ever seen. So that was kind of amazing."
The most-talked-about band in Britain at a point, the band demanded, and got, complete creative control signed into their contract with Blanco y Negro. The brothers produced their debut album themselves, and were thrilled by the outcome: "We thought we couldn't have done a better job,"Jim Reid recalled. "We felt very confident about it and we really did think that we did what we set out to achieve."
"We really did feel that if we died today, this record would be our masterpiece," William added.
The label big-wigs were less enthused, and made no attempt to hide their disapproval.
"We had a meeting and one of the guys at Warners says, 'It's such a shame that you've made a record full of pop songs and wasted them with all this noise' or wasted them with the production', something like that," William Reid says. "I remember thinking, Oh my God, does this fucker think that this is a hit record? But the only thing stopping it being a hit is the production?
"I remember saying to Geoff Travis, Geoff, if Warners think this is terrible, can they refuse to release it? And he said, 'No.' I said, Can they make us go and reproduce it with a producer? And he says, 'No.' And I took him at his word, and he didn't lie, because Warners didn't like it. I think the consensus was that we had a bunch of pop songs and ruined them until, until the record was released to the press, and the press were unanimous that it was a great album. But I think we were on the verge of being kicked off Warners."
In conclusion, Jim Reid had a powerful statement for the band's detractors.
"All you fucking idiots back in the '80s that were saying, 'Oh, you'll be finished in five years'... Fuck you all. [Laughs]"
Listen to the excellent podcast in full below:
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