David Westlake - The Servants

The Servants

The Servants played their first gig at The Water Rats Theatre in London's King's Cross on July 1, 1985. They were signed by Head Records, a new independent record label started by Jeff Barrett, later head of Heavenly Records. The band's first single "She's Always Hiding" (March '86) is a disarming coupling of Dusty in Memphis with Davy Graham guitars. Well received by the press, the band's appeal was obvious, with Westlake's excelsior, urbane English song writing (that's English as in David Niven, or Rex Harrison). Inevitably the band were invited to record a John Peel session (March '86). Inevitably the session was great; has anyone ever attempted anything like the Brit / Lovin' Spoonful hybrid that is "You'd Do Me Good"? An invitation by the then-popular NME to appear on their C86 compilation was grudgingly accepted, though the band insisted on the track being the B-side of their first single - the wrong-footing "Transparent". Keen to distance themselves from the retarded "shambling" scene, the band earned a reputation for haughtiness. (Never a bad thing.) Unfortunately, the NME compilation sold well and the Servants became known for one of their inferior tracks. Still, with Westlake's song writing becoming even more deft, the band recorded "The Sun, A Small Star" (August '86). The four tracks on this e.p. confirmed that if Westlake had been living in L.A. any time between 1966 and 1968, then Boyce and Hart would've been out of a job, and the Monkees would not have been so keen to write their own material.

In new year 1987, David Westlake recorded a solo record for the then-fashionable Creation Records. Luke Haines plays Verlaine / Lloyd lead interspersed with Steve Cropper chops on six Westlake compositions. (This was the short-lived era of the "mini-album". Cheap to record, impossible to market.) Five days in Greenhouse Studios using the Triffids' rhythm section and Westlake is a minor classic. Obviously, it cuts against the grain of the paisley psychedeliasts and inept Byrds tribute acts clogging up the Creation roster. Westlake, Haines and a Dr Rhythm drum machine undertake a tour of the sceptred isle. Unfortunately, the record company forget to release the record until six months later. Westlake receives decent reviews, but otherwise disappears to a howl of indifference.

Luke Haines is in the Servants when the band returns in 1987. Out of the blue Westlake receives a telephone call from Hugh Whitaker, drummer with the hugely popular Housemartins. Whitaker feels his band have become too big. He offers his services to the Servants. He has made the right decision. The Servants return to the studio to demo new material for Creation; great songs including "Hey, Mrs John" and "Who's Calling You Baby Now", which has more in common with Vegas-period Elvis than anything else going on at the time. At the end of the year Creation Records fearlessly drop the Servants. Goodwill from the music industry is low, and luck is thin on the ground. Mid '88 the Servants are thrown a lifeline by Dave Barker, owner of Glass Records. Glass promise a reasonable budget to record an album. The plan is to go into Elephant studios with Ruts and Magazine producer John Brand (they even borrow a Yamaha DX7, keyboard du jour). At the eleventh hour they hear that Glass distributors Red Rhino have "gone bust". The budget is slashed. They go into the studio, anyway (without Brand and thankfully without the DX7), and record a single, "It's My Turn". It is an epic. One of Westlake's finest lyrics: "The light at the end of the tunnel is a train headed this way / To remind me what love is . . .". They do some gigs and, quelle surprise, the record company forgets to release the record for about a year. The Servants eventually release an album in 1990 on Paperhouse Records. It is called Disinterest. It is Art Rock. Ten years too late and fifteen years too early.

With six bass players, three drummers and two uninterested record labels behind them, Westlake and Haines painstakingly record demos for one more Servants album, provisionally entitled Small Time. "The demos are great," says Haines, "but the album never gets made". Following the inclusion of Disinterest in Mojo magazine's 2011 list of the greatest British indie records of all time, Cherry Red Records issued Small Time in 2012. Small Time is "the Servants' second and best album"; the songs are, says Haines, "looser, more mysterious, strange and beautiful, sounding . . . like nothing else really." And Haines explains the long unavailability of Disinterest in the album's notes: it is "stuck in an irretrievable record company quagmire, where it looks set to remain."

The Servants last gig was at the Rock Garden, August 1991. With no room to manoeuvre and no opportunities left the band finally split. Cherry Red released a 2006 retrospective of the Servants, called Reserved. Reserved features all of the releases prior to the Disinterest album plus Peel session tracks and demos. U.S. label Captured Tracks released a 2011 vinyl compilation of the Servants, called Youth Club Disco.

David Westlake is a solicitor, and he lectures part-time at Brunel University, London.