Led by the vastly under-appreciated singer and songwriter David Westlake, who has more than once been described as a post-punk version of Ray Davies, The Servants, formed by Westlake in 1985, were a natural yet reluctant fit among the figureheads of the guitar-pop resurgence that took hold in England during the mid-late 1980s, a movement that retroactively came to be known as "C86." Westlake, who hailed from Hayes, Middlesex, had already connected with guitarist John Mohan when he placed classified ads in a number of London music publications in the hope of putting together a proper band. Among the respondents was future bassist Phil King (who would go on to play in bands such as Felt, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Biff Bang Pow! and Lush). Phil King: "As for joining the Servants, I seem to remember seeing an ad looking for
a guitarist in the back of the ‘NME ‘around 1984. I am trying to
remember the groups it mentioned in the ad. The Smiths, the Go-Betweens,
Orange Juice' maybe? I remember there being a phone number and David's
address in Hayes, Middlesex [....] David had sent me a demo tape of some songs that included a rather
primitive version of 'She's Always Hiding' with no bass on it. I was of
course knocked out by it, and both the songwriting and John Mohan's
guitar playing. I was so excited by the tape I took it upon
myself to drive over to his place one Friday evening in my 1964 two tone
blue Humber Sceptre [....] David was of course rather surprised at my unannounced arrival but we
got on very well, and arranged to meet up for a rehearsal in his bedroom
with John Mohan the next week. We soon realised that we had one six
string guitar too many, so I ended playing a black short scale Fender
Musicmaster bass (there was also a Peavey combo bass amp there too) that
had been left by their friend Ed who had tried - and failed - to master
it. And that's how I started, and still play, bass." The new partnership of Westlake, Mohan and King paid off in a batch of promising songs, and after having named the band after the 1963 Harold Pinter-written film
The Servant, they booked their first gig in King's Cross, London.
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| Cover of "The Sun, a Small Star" Single |
King: "I remember years later David telling me that I gave him an ultimatum
after we'd spent about a year rehearsing in his bedroom - with a drum
machine - and recording demos on a 4 track Portastudio, that either we
started playing some gigs or I'd leave. I have no memory of this
but I guess the reason I said that, if I indeed did, was because I was
so proud of the songs I just wanted everyone to hear them. Once we got a
drummer (one of the earlier ones, Eamon Lynam, was nicknamed 'Neasden
Riots', in the same way that the Clash's drummer Terry Chimes was called
'Tory Crimes' on the back of their first album, because he'd got into a
bit of 'trouble' in the neighbourhood and was put under a strict curfew
by the police), it all snowballed pretty quickly from our first show
supporting the Television Personalities at the Pindar of Wakefield in
Kings Cross in July 1985 to our last performance supporting Felt (the
'Lawrence Takes Acid' show) at Bay 63 around a year later." After only a few gigs, the band was signed to Head, an off-shoot of Creation Records, and in early-1986 released their first single, "She's Always Hiding," which garnered them much critical praise lauding their unique sound. For example,
NME wrote, "Stop me if you've heard this one before, but there's currently
a group of earnest young men doing the rounds of London's beery
backrooms who play the sweetest, smartest evocations of The Velvet
Underground's sepulchral third LP these increasingly '60s-sated,
guitar-jaded ears have possibly ever heard. Still awake? Good, because The Servants (for it is they) are
- wait for it - different. Not for them the simplistic allure
of dark shades and darker strides, nor the convenient kudos of
easy chords. No, what brings The Servants close to Lou's crew's
gossamer grace-cum-disembodied depth is that self-same timbre;
the giddying suggestion of melodies conjured from the ether; a
recognition of enduring classicism; a similar striving for a sound
as perfect, as profound as (eek!)
silence. Heck, their "She's Always Hiding" is the greatest dark-eyed,
love/hate song Reed never wrote..." On the heels of the first single, and only eight months after their first gig, The Servants were invited to record a John Peel session in March, 1986 and were also chosen to appear on NME's
C86 compilation cassette. However, Westlake, whose ambitions always leaned heavily in the direction of "art for the sake of art," was quite discomfited by the band's meteoric rise; as a result, he only reluctantly agreed to contribute a song to the NME compilation, and the song itself, "Transparent," was a B-side. Despite such early success, this first version of The Servants was destined to fall apart by the end of 1986.
King: "We put out two singles (the second 'The Sun, A Small Star' sadly
posthumously, as we'd split up by then), recorded a John Peel session,
got a full page feature in the New Year's edition of the 1986 ‘NME’
hailing us as the next big thing, appeared on their C86 cassette and
played shows with amongst others the Jesus And Mary Chain, Felt, Primal
Scream, the Go Betweens, the Pale Fountains and the Wedding Present. By
the time we split up we'd only done twenty four gigs. To use the
snowball analogy, I guess it all gathered momentum a little too quickly
for David, got out of control, crashed into a tree, and um, broke up.
It was just a shame really as we had so many songs to record. Enough for
a few albums." Ironically, this is where the story of The Servants would have likely ended if not for the song Westlake had begrudgingly contributed to NME's C86 compilation; the mail-order-only cassette had become a huge success (eventually released as an LP), providing a catalyst for the rise of an all-too-brief D.I.Y. guitar-pop resurgence in the UK. Inspired by the enthusiastic support of John Peel, Westlake decided to reform the band, which now included guitarist Luke Haines (who would later find fame leading The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder). Haines recalling his move to London where he was to shortly cross paths with The Servants: "Brixton was kind of heavy at that time, not like it is now full of middle class people. It was good and full of rastas and good fun. I was sort of a nice middle class boy who had gone to music college and what not, not much, just a couple of days a week. It didn't require much of my presence [....] I had a few attempts at bands and what not in the mid-80s. Then I answered an advert in Sounds Magazine [...] for a band called The Servants who needed a guitar player, so I answered that advert and I kind of got the gig. I was then in The Servants for about five years or something. Unfortunately, The Servants had already had their, I suppose, day in the sun prior to me joining them. So I essentially joined a band that was struggling quite a lot. I mean even in the mid-to-late eighties guitar bands didn't expect to sell any records. You did it purely for artistic reasons. You know, there wasn't really this idea that you could be a big pop star- that all came later on in, I suppose, the nineties." Soon thereafter, The Servants were signed to Creation Records, who immediately began pressuring them for an album. After filling out the new version of the band, Westlake, Haines & co. entered the studio to record a batch of new songs; however, Creation mysteriously chose to only release a mini-album, and did so as a David Westlake solo album, titled
Westlake, which was barely heard. By the end of the 1987, Creation had unceremoniously dumped the band.
