The Eight Legged Groove Machine had sprouted two new legs and was now a Ten Legged Groove Machine. “Bass Thing” Rob Jones vacated spot stage right had been taken over by Black Country compadre Paul “Snogger” Clifford, previously of my old band The Libertines. Myself and fellow Totally Crap Crew member Adam Booker were asked to audition a lot of bass players who had applied for the job to whittle it down to some who would actually be suitable, sorting the wheat from the chaff as it were. We were set up in a rehearsal room at John Henry’s in North London with a bass rig, a selection of songs on tape with the bass lines removed and a loooooong list of names and were supposed to spend 2 days screening bass players. After half a day myself and Adam were ready to kill each other never mind some of the clearly useless musicians who were attending cos they thought they would get to meet the band. I called TWS HQ, told them we couldn’t continue with this without committing a crime and that they should just hire Paul cos they knew him and he knew all the songs anyway. He got the gig the next day, whether or not that turned out to be a good thing, different people have differing views on that. The 9th and 10th legs belonged to “Fiddly” Bell who had now become a permanent fixture in the band.

Polydor by now had big expectations of The Wonder Stuff. I don’t know who decided that a producer other than Pat Collier (who had produced their first 2 albums) was required for album number 3 but I suspect it may have been Polydor’s suggestion and ultimately the bands choice. The choice was Mick Glossop. If you’ve been reading along you’ll know that The Waterboys “This Is The Sea” is one of Miles’ very favourite albums and Mick had produced a lot of that record. But there is an element of Punk Rock in The Wonder Stuff’s make-up and Mick Glossop had produced records by The Ruts (Malcolm’s favourites), Magazine (another of Miles’ favourites), Penetration, The Skids, The Lurkers and had also worked a lot with Van Morrison so he could take care of the Stuffies raggle-taggle folky side. “Never Loved Elvis” was recorded at London’s Townhouse Studio in Shepherds Bush where The Jam had recorded “Sound Affects”, Phil Collins had recorded THAT drum fill in Studio 2’s slate lined drum booth and where Mick Glossop had been one of the original design engineers.

I was lucky enough to have been around for the entire recording of “Never Loved Elvis”, before that even, I was around while some of these songs were being written and demo’d on a cassette portastudio that seemed to be permanently sat on the dining room table at the band’s flat near Great Portland Street tube station in London. I was there for the production rehearsals at John Henry Studios in North London when Mick Glossop would come in to listen to the songs in their raw state and, in some cases, strip them apart and completely re-arrange them.

The recording process, to some, may have been tedious but Mick Glossop was meticulous in his execution in recording “Never Loved Elvis”. He had identified that “the sound” of The Wonder Stuff was the interaction between Miles and Malc’s voices so although the tracks were layered and complex those two voices were always at the forefront of the songs. Mick Glossop after hearing these songs in rehearsals had a vision from the start, I think, of what “Never Loved Elvis” would eventually sound like.

I have fantastic memories of the months we spent in and around Shepherd’s Bush making “Never Loved Elvis” from the very first days, having set up Gilksy’s kit, the Groove Controller, Mick and studio engineer Al Stone working on drum sounds. I shit you not for about 3 or 4 days myself and drum tech Adam Booker would come to the studio each morning to see if they were ready for us to do anything, to find Martin, sat behind his kit hitting single beats every few seconds on his snare drum looking like he wanted to be anywhere else, while Mick and Al busied themselves over the mixing desk and at racks of effects to achieve the perfect sound. We’d come back the next day and Martin would be doing the same thing but on a tom tom. The next day, cymbals, we thought it would never end.

The night Miles recorded the vocal for “Donation” was the night the US Army rolled toward Baghdad in the first Iraq war. We sat watching a war live on Sky News, drinking wine while we all got angrier and angrier at what was going on in the world, until eventually Miles stood up proclaiming he was ready to do the vocal NOW.

If you’ve ever seen Miles perform “Welcome To The Cheap Seats” solo you’ll no doubt have heard the story of how he met Kirsty MacColl at the Townhouse (Miles “you’re Kirsty MacColl”, Kirsty “too right I am darlin’, who the fuck are you ?”). She came into Studio 1 to hear what the band had been doing, telling everyone she’d be back tomorrow to sing on something, we never expected to see her again. But she did come back and watching her layer up those incredible vocals was a privilege.

“Mission Drive” was a challenge to record. During rehearsals Mick Glossop pretty much rewrote the entire bassline for Paul and while it was being recorded I sat with Paul while Mick made him play it again and again and again and again…to this day I can perfectly hum the fantastic walking bassline under the verse that begins “I'm looking on the bright side,I wear it like a bruise…” I heard it played so many times that day. But it was all worth the effort , “Mission Drive” is one of the greatest album/gig openers I’ve ever heard. Night after night on the ensuing tour I watched crowds across the world explode to that song as the band took off after the intro and lighting designer Carl Burnett hit the room with the “punter blinders”. It still gives me the shivers when I see it.

“Here Comes Everyone” has developed into an essential song in any Stuffies set, I wish they would play “Inertia” more, I love the rampaging almost outta control "Play" and as an inside tidbit the original line in “38 Line Poem” was “I wouldn’t sing I wanna be adored, Cos that would only bore”…We spent hours and hours making the promo videos for "The Size Of A Cow" and "Welcome To The Cheapseats" with the "vidiots" as the band called them and BTW, the four other fellas in the "...Cheapseats" video, 3 of us playing cards and the large wizardy type bloke are myself, Adam Booker and sound engineer Simon Efemey plus manager Les Johnson as the wizard.

I was there from start to finish with “Never Loved Elvis” the only time I’ve ever been so closely involved in the making of a whole album. I was in attendance at every show on the what came to be known as the “Never Going To Memphis” world tour, it’s one of the most fantastic experiences I’ve ever had. Of their first 4 albums “Never Loved Elvis” is definitely my favourite. It feels like something I saw born and grow and mature into the live experiences of it we have today. I know a lot of Wonder Stuff fans “complain” it sounds too “produced”…well yeah, that was the idea!

Mission Drive - https://youtu.be/Qg-JGLN02Ik?si=M3vL_Y29tFtBDfir

Mission Drive (Live Bescot Stadium 1991) - https://youtu.be/V4NW5S1UTPQ?si=BtVwzBhCyvTVfAK0