The Chefs - The Chefs in London

The Chefs in London

To break into the music business, in 1981, the band all moved to Kilburn in North West London. In April and May 1981, they performed a Monday-night residency at the Moonlight Club at the Railway pub in West Hampstead.

In April 1981, Attrix released a Chefs’ single, Helen’s ‘24 Hours’. It was a song about romantic obsession, and the gulf between real life and fantasy: ‘I know if I catch you it might turn out/That it's not as much fun as I'd hoped that it would be/ ‘Cause wishing and waiting it what it's all about/ And dreams are worth ten times more than reality.’ Helen described '24 Hours' as an 'attempt to write an song that sounded like Donna Summer', and said that it was a true story: 'I fell in love with a fat scaffolder'.On the other side, there was Carl's song 'Someone I know' (‘Someone I know once met somebody’s friend who had slept with a friend of a friend who knows someone who stood next to somebody’s friend.’)

The Chefs’ first John Peel session, broadcast on 11 May 1981, included Carl’s ‘Love is Such a Splendid Thing’ and Helen’s ‘Northbound Train’. Like '24 Hours', these new songs showed a movement away from the nursery rhyme lyrics of the early recordings to more sophisticated songs about relationships. There was also 'One Fine Day', with music by Carl and lyrics by James McCallum, posing a list of comically absurd questions ('What if one morning you woke up and found your eyes either side of your nose? What if the sky was on top of the ground and nothing that stayed ever goes?')

It was hard to label the Chefs' music. Helen told Sounds, 'People keep asking us what sort of music we play but we can't tell them. It's not directly influenced by anything - we all like listening to different sorts of music, and each of us, in our heads I think, believes we're playing that sort of music.' The Chefs' jangling guitar arrangements and bright pop melodies pointed the way towards the C86 sound, but stood out in the fashion-conscious London of 1981, when the Goths and New Romantics were at their height.