Last Words
Although we’ve never officially split up – how can we – we’re all still good friends – the band stopped playing music around about the beginning of 1996.
As is so often the case – differences of musical opinion and direction have devastating consequences. Jamie and Scott, the songwriters since day one, we’re moving in opposite directions. Scott was more interested in the soulful punky pop music that Dean was starting to write and Jamie was increasingly interested in a more obscure but inventive approach. Although the music of Secret Shine always sounded very derivative – Jamie could be famed for creating some of the more breathtaking moments through his unconventional approach to music.
Our last outing as a band was a gig in Oxford at the beginning of 1996. The passion had gone. It was a crap gig and no-one was up for it. For 5 years the band had meant everything to us. Through University and rubbish jobs we’d only been interested in one thing – Secret Shine. It consumes your life. So much more happened that we could write here. Every gig has a story, every recording has frustrations and sublime pleasure and all the bits in between – interviews, radio sessions, reviews, audiences, letters from
people who bought the records, t-shirts and badges, from all over the world.
To everyone who was ever part of it!