Background
After four years of commercial failure, We'll Bring The House Down made Slade big news once again; back in larger venues for live performances, back on UK music show Top of The Pops and back in the charts.
With a three-quarters full 1977 theatre tour and after the unsuccessful 1977 album Whatever Happened to Slade, the band were taking any gig they could. The band could still sell out performances at University student union bars and draw respectable crowds at small to average sized venues. However, it was only four years since the band had headlined Earls Court and even the earthiest band had to admit it was a bit of a comedown. Bassist Jim Lea however was unfazed. "I still thought the band was great," he told Chris Charlesworth in 1983, "We were playing as well if not better than we ever had...Now we had something to prove again." The band would prove their worth night after night in clubs and colleges up and down the country, often running at a loss bringing their own PA and lightshow. The band were still releasing singles through manager Chas Chandler's Barn Records which sold little.
The band's luck changed when Slade found themselves in front of 65,000 rock fans at the Reading festival in August 1980 (thanks to a late cancellation by Ozzy Osbourne. In the aftermath of the Reading triumph, the band rush-released the Live at Reading E.P. on the band's own label Cheapskate Records in October 1980, which became the band's first chart showing in three years, while Polydor records issued the compilation Slade Smashes which went on to sell 200,000 copies.
In January 1981, Slade released the single We'll Bring the House Down which took Slade to the upper reaches of the charts. Shortly after, the album with the same name was released, consisting of previous tracks from Slade's little known Return to Base album with a few new tracks. The follow-up single Wheels Ain't Coming Down stalled at #60 but was just enough to keep the momentum until the fresh campaign later in the year.
Read more about this topic: We'll Bring The House Down
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)