Lost Bands: Searching for... the Candy Skins (Or is it the Candyskins?)
06/08/2006
Music Home / Entertainment Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
You’d like to think that the terrible tale of the Candy Skins is a rare one, but the sad reality is that it’s happening every time you turn around.
Here’s the way the story goes:
- Band forms and plays a lot of gigs around town.
- Band gets signed to major label.
- Band doesn’t sell many records.
- Band gets dropped by major label.
- Band struggles to maintain a high profile on an indie label.
- Band get frustrated, breaks up, and vanishes into the mists of time.
It’s tragic…but it’s true. And, somehow, it was even more depressing when it happened to the Candy Skins, because it never seemed to be their fault when things went wrong.
The Candy Skins formed in Oxford, England, in 1989, a time and area which also gave birth to Radiohead and Supergrass. The Cope brothers – Nick (vocals) and Mark (guitars) – were the core of the band, with Nick Burton on lead guitar, Karl Shale on bass, and John Halliday behind the drum kit. They scored a hit in their homeland with “Submarine Song,” which soon turned up on the band’s debut album, 1991’s Space I’m In, which found the quintet signed to DGC Records, the über-hip subsidiary of Geffen. The record was a brilliant mélange of Britpop, part Beatles, part Squeeze, and all catchy as hell, with hooks that stuck with you for the long haul; even the album’s cover song – a version of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” – was clever, with the band making it oddly danceable. Unfortunately, the Candy Skins fell victim to the success of one of their own labelmates: Nirvana. 1991 was, as history records, the year of grunge…and when Nirvana took off, so did most any interest DGC had in promoting the Candy Skins.
The band’s second album, Fun?, showed up two years later, with a slightly harder sound, but, while still decidedly poppy (albeit now in a crunchy, Buzzocks-ish kind of way), you got the feeling they might’ve been trying too hard to fit in with the musical scene of the day. Anyway, it didn’t matter, because even by having a great leadoff track and first single in “Wembley,” DGC did less to promote Fun? than they had to promote Space I’m In, and, the next thing you knew, the Candy Skins were without an American label.
Let’s jump ahead four years, to 1997. In that time (and for no discernable reason), the band dropped the space and became…the Candyskins. As such, it was a new beginning of sorts when the group released Sunday Morning Fever. It was only released in the UK, but it was absolutely a return to form for the band, taking the best bits from the preceding two albums and creating, among others, a perfect pop single in “Mrs. Hoover,” as well as instant classics like “Monday Morning” (a Top 40 hit for the band), “Circles,” and “Hang Myself on You.” Unfortunately, when trying to maintain the momentum for Sunday Morning Fever, the band was preparing to release the string-laden “Car Crash” as a single when Princess Diana was killed in a…well, you know. Still, the buzz on the album was sufficient for the up-and-coming US label, Velvel, to sign the band and release their fourth album, Death of a Minor TV Celebrity, in the US. Things were looking up for the group, particularly when the first single from the record, “Feed It,” was selected for inclusion on the soundtrack to the Adam Sandler movie, “The Waterboy.” There was even talk of Velvel belatedly releasing Sunday Morning Fever in the States.
Then, suddenly, it all went wrong.
The band’s UK label, Ultimate, went under before Death of a Minor TV Celebrity could be released in their homeland…and, to the surprise of quite a few artists (most certainly including the Candyskins), Velvel fell apart as well. In a 2001 interview with the BBC, Nick Cope said that these events, among other things, including bassist Karl Shale leaving the ranks, was a sign that the band’s end was nigh. “I was at home one day,” he said, “and I sat on the floor…and probably then realized it had reached an end.” So the Candyskins called it quits…although they did reunite for a one-off farewell show a few years later (part for the money, part for the closure), which resulted in a live album – Zodiac Live – through Oxford Music.
Unfortunately, the legacy of the Candyskins, at least in the States, is generally limited to the bargain bin in most record stores. None of their albums are available on iTunes; there is a 6-song “best-of” EP called A Brief History that can be downloaded through eMusic, but it hardly does the band’s discography justice. Their official website hasn’t been touched since 1999, and, although a very nicely-done unofficial one exists, even it hasn’t been updated since 2002.
Nick Cope’s whereabouts are unknown, although he did release a single – “Feed Me to the Lions” – a few years back under the strange moniker of the Burt Lump Orchestra; though I’ve not heard it, it’s a song which the label, Shifty Disc, described as “a bit what Donovan might have sounded like if he'd been in some lo-fi krautrock band.” (Oh, yes, that clarifies things nicely!) Mark Cope has a new band called Nine Stone Cowboy; they have a MySpace page...which reveals that the group also features members of Ride and the Unbelievable Truth…but the rest of the Candyskins remain missing in action. If anyone knows the members of the band, Bullz-Eye would like to talk to them and find out more about their story, their current goings-on, and – dare we dream? – if there’s any chance of the Candyskins ever reuniting again.Do you have info on the whereabouts of the members of the Candyskins? Send an email to wharris@bullz-eye.com.