The end of an era, WATP move on without Guru
I met Will Rendle in 2003 when I first came to the UK. He was a student at the same college as me and the director of the college put the two of us in touch.
Will is a great singer/songwriter with huge ambitions for his career. To do something else than writing songs and performing would be pointless to young Will and that has remained the case ever since.
Early days
The initial project we had together, also entitled Will And The People, was containing me on guitar, Will on acoustic and vocals, Jo Wallace on BVs, Andy Nixon on drums and Max Faulkner on bass.
Kevin Nixon (Founding Director of Bimm, ex manager of several big acts like Kula Shaker, Kirsty McCall and ex head of A&R for V2 records, among another 100 things) was managing us and we did some recordings and a huge number of gigs in and around Brighton.
Nothing was ever released and the manager and Will decided after a year or so of intense work to split up the band and start fresh.
The Red Cortinas was formed with Clark Coslett Hughes on bass and Mike Hall on drums. Guru was offered a place in this band and did one gig but decided to focus on his other bands instead. A second guitar player joined and the band came as far as releasing a single on itunes.
After internal conflicts between manager and band they split up shortly after the first single and Will moved on to pursue a solo career.
Will goes solo
With only an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal Will started to gig around London, found himself a new manager and several production studios that he started to collaborate with in order to put down his tunes.
In July 2007 Will was doing a local gig in Brighton, by now he had a keyboard player, a drummer and a bass player on board but the bass player couldn’t make this particular gig.
So Will asked me if I wanted to do it for a laugh, since I never played bass before in my life I thought this was a good opportunity and accepted, half a rehearsal later we decided to just go for it.
After that day I joined WATP again, but now as a bass player.
At the time I thought not much of it, I mainly wanted to learn to play bass so I could make jam tracks for SpyTunes. The party vibe of the band was not as prominent as it would later become so the first couple of months was mainly showing up at gigs, trying to not give a way that I had no idea what I was doing on bass.
RCA/Sony
When meeting Johnny Douglas a few months later (producer of Kylie and George Michael) he also found a new manager in Johnnys manager. This collective effort led Will to get signed by RCA (Elvis label, part of Sony) based on a recording made with Johnny Douglas and the band, the tune was knocking, it remained intact from that day of recording and was released in January 2009.
Guru plays all guitars and bass on the recording (not credited as such but that’s what it is) this was the only release on RCA/Sony.
RCA drops everyone
It’s very likely that Will was the last solo artist before the recession in 2008 who got a big deal.
Today RCA has dropped all but 1 of the 12 acts they signed in 2008, WATP included, and the band have since June -09 been looking for a new label and new management.
What now?
Where do WATP go from here? Well who knows, always having a great response at live shows have led the band to mainly get on different tour supports with famed acts from the U.K.
So it does seem like a natural path to just keep going with that. A change in sound and production might also be expected, unless they simply get a new bass player to recreate my parts.
A high profile manager pointed out that WATP need to reinvent themselves and get out of the teen pop market, what kind of sound did he suggest? The Thompson Twins, an old 80s band, should this happen or not I will eagerly wait to see.
The production of WATP was something that I personally had a difficult time to get on with, I do feel that 'Knocking' might not have been perfect, but it was as close as we got to an original sounding record in my opinion. Shame that they made Will look like a pirate in the video… The tune got played four times on radio 1 over three days before the label pulled it.
I have no doubt that Mr Rendle will simply get up again, dust himself off and carry on his pursuit of world domination, I would personally be the first to go and see him when he does so.
Next gig is on November the 13th in Amsterdam, should contain a reinvention of the band! I’m looking forward to seeing it from the crowd rather than the stage. WATP, party on!
-Guru