IT'S now 30 years since The Boo Radleys released their cult classic Creation LP Giant Steps, and while the Wirral-bred indie rockers are about to hit the road to perform this wilfully experimental double album "nearly in full" for the first time ever, they also have one foot firmly in the present with a brand new record, Eight.
Released last week on their own Boostr label, it's the trio's second full-length since they reconvened in 2021 after a 23-year break minus original guitarist and chief songwriter Martin Carr, who has opted-out of the ongoing reunion.
However, the signature vocals of original singer/guitarist Simon 'Sice' Rowbottom provide an instantly recognisable throughline from the Boos' 20th century output, including the band's best-known number Wake Up Boo!, which was practically inescapable for anyone near a radio throughout 1995.
The Boo Radleys' music evolved at an incredible rate in the space of just five years: 1990's Action Records debut LP Ichabod and I was an almost chronically noisy affair in thrall to the blazing guitars of Dinosaur Jr, with the group then exploring swirling/swooning My Bloody Valentine-informed shoegaze rock with hints of 1960s pop psychedelia through their early EPs and 1992's Creation Record debut LP Everything's Alright Forever.
Buoyed by the reaction to 1992's dub-informed, trumpet-enhanced psychedelic pop masterpiece Lazarus, 1993 found the Boos breaching the Top 20 album chart as they broadened their sonic palette to create the experimental majesty of Giant Steps, which led to Carr being touted as a Brian Wilson-esque genius in the music press.
For their Wake Up! album in 1995 – their first to be released in the wake of the chart-topping, Britpop catalysing success of Definitely Maybe by new Creation labelmates Oasis – Carr and co were determined to explore the commercial potential of their melodic sensibilities: the trumpet-powered Wake Up Boo! duly hit number nine in March 1995, propelling its parent LP to the top of the album chart a month later.
"When we made Giant Steps, we were literally just doing our own thing, which was great," explains Boos bassist Tim Brown, who became a music teacher in the wake of the band's 1998 break-up: based in Dundrum, Co Down, he has taught at St Louis Grammar School in Kilkeel for the past 19 years.
"We were listening to a lot of Pavement and things like that around that time. They were a big influence when we were just trying to forge a new path. And, to give Creation their due, they allowed us to just get on with it.
"But by 1995, things were more pressured to actually 'do well', including from Creation themselves. Which is why that single happened."
Fired-up by his indie peers starting to enjoy actual hit records, Martin Carr set out to pen a chartbuster of his own. However, according to Tim, Wake Up Boo! started off as a more traditional early-90s indie guitar number before it was quickly re-tooled, with all the deceptively cheery tune's hooks filed razor-sharp and stomped home by drummer Rob Cieka's relentless backbeat.
"The pressure was on Martin as the main songwriter, and he did set out to write a hit," says the bassist.
With a chuckle, he adds: "I suppose the rest is history – and it's been a curse ever since!"
Having now tasted the demands of fame, the Boos hoped to bring some of their newfound fans along with them into weirder, noisier territory more aligned with the group's awkward indie kid origins: 1996's C'Mon Kids was a career highlight and another Top 10 album, with the splendidly caustic guitar pop title track bulldozing its way to number 18 in the charts, but sales quickly tailed off despite a relentless touring and promotional schedule.
"C'Mon Kids is more of a 'rock' album than anything else," recalls Tim, "so that turned off a good 100,000 people!"
And, if the band's ever-shifting musical goalposts confused some listeners, it also confounded their label boss, Alan McGee.
"I don't think Alan ever really understood what we were doing," offers the bassist.
"He certainly didn't understand the self-destructiveness of following up Wake Up! with C'Mon Kids – he just couldn't get his head around it. But actually, Dick Green [Creation co-owner] was a great support right up to the end: he was always interested, and he seemed to understand what we were trying to do.
"Dick was the one who gave us the scope to spend all that time in studios, you know, trying to make great records."
However, tensions within the band had reached breaking point by the time 1998's Kingsize arrived to relative commercial indifference and critical bemusement: an eclectic, sprawling and initially somewhat impenetrable record, it became the Boos' swansong, ending the first chapter of their career on a funkier, orchestrally-embellished bent.
"With Kingsize, I loved being in there and getting involved in the recording side of things," recalls Tim.
"But I think everyone else had probably had enough. Everything just became very hard work, particularly the touring, and I think Martin was struggling too. We were certainly on our way out.
"We never knew that you could just have a rest, maybe go away for a couple of years and do other things and then come back. That never even occurred to us."
As mentioned, Martin Carr has not been part of the Boos' reunion between Tim, Sice and Rob, who reconnected after Tim attended Sice's 50th birthday party: ironically, it seems the trio were all set to mark the band's 25th anniversary with a live performance under a different name until Martin himself suggested they just call themselves The Boo Radleys again.
"He was the one who said, 'Why don't you just use the name?'," explains Tim.
"So then we thought, 'Well yeah, we should'. It's not like we're trying to kid anyone, because we actually are the Boo Radleys – it's just that one of us isn't with us.
"But we still message Martin about band stuff: he was fully involved in the re-issue and remastering of Giant Steps, although he doesn't want to do any press – which is a shame, because it's the album where he really came into his own as a songwriter.
"We've also just been discussing with him the re-release of another song and another album in the near future."
In Carr's continued absence, Jane Weaver sideman Louis Smith is playing second guitar for the imminent live shows, and also contributed to a couple of songs on the newly released Eight.
"The last record was maybe more of a collection of songs than a proper album," comments Tim of last year's 'comeback' LP, Keep on With Falling.
"With Eight, the songs were more deliberately written, so I'm really looking forward to playing some of them at the upcoming shows. We're actually going to be doing two sets: a 'greatest hits' set, followed by nearly the whole of Giant Steps from start to finish.
"I'm not sure if we as old men are actually prepared for playing twice in one night – but we shall see."
:: The Boo Radleys play Dublin's Grand Social on June 22 and The Limelight 2 in Belfast on June 23. Tickets via ticketmaster.ie. Eight is out now, buy via thebooradleys.com.
