The birth of SS, or two very unlikely sisters come together......

Siobhan and I met through our mutual friend Richard Feldman who lived across the street from her and Dave Stewart. He and I had worked together for years. When Siobhan and Dave moved in across from him, he went over and introduced himself. Richard had a 24 track studio in his house, a very good studio.. He soon introduced me to Siobhan who was very pregnant with her first child, Sam, at the time. She was about 8 months preggers. She told Richard she was in the process of leaving Bananarama and already had an idea for a new project which she was going to call Shakespear's Sister. So, they began writing together. Soon, he called me in to help and we wrote several songs together. The first song we wrote was, "Break My Heart". We also wrote "You Made me come to this" and "Remember My Name", and did a cover of the Bob Marley tune, "Could you be loved?". Well after recording several of the songs at Richards, Shuvs had her baby. She and Dave went back to England and a few months later, Richard went over to continue recording with her and writing for the record doing the production, of course with the occasional input from Dave Stewart. I got a call from Richard asking me to come over to help write, sing, play, whatever I could contribute, which I was happy to do. So, I went over in March of 1988 and continued to work on the record. We worked for several weeks. After coming back to America, we then met up in New York because London Records felt we were still missing the "hit". so, we came up with "You're history" at the 11th hour, phew!!

Then, after the record was done, we all went back to England to begin promotion for the album, Sacred Heart and the promotion of the single, "You're history" which made it to number 7 in the British charts. But I should say, that before the record came out, we met up in Leningrad to do our very first show with this amazing Russian singer named Boris Grebenshikov. We played to a stadium of 10,000 people very exciting!! it was a good experience. Gully, who would later be in SS, was playing guitar with us.Dave was on stage with us as well. Video Directer Sophie Muller came along and filmed the whole thing as a promotional video. it was great, she's phenomenal. So, then we went back to the UK to finish work on the record.

 For the first record, I was a "hired hand" so to speak. I was on a salary, paid by the record company. [well, I was supposed to be paid by them, promptly, but believe me I had to fight for what was due to me. One funny story: I had been working with Shuvs for several months, nearly a year, and i still had not been paid my fee. So, one day, I went in to Shuvs and her manager and Richard and said, I haven't been paid, and it's not fair so I'm going to go on strike till I'm paid. They agreed that it was cool with them for me to do that. So, I called the label and told them that I was not going to work with her until I was paid what was agreed. I stayed in my hotel room all day, gave myself a facial, took a nice bath, read magazines, and finally at 6pm, they sent a messenger over on a bike with my check!!! amazing isn't it? and there were many times where I'd be checking out of a hotel after working for weeks and London Records didn't pay the bill, so I was left having to call ss management at 7 am one day saying, I think there's a problem here-London haven't paid the bill and I'm certainly not going to!!!! I couldn't beleive the ineptitude of London records, it was such an insult. and made me feel very "less than".

With the moderate success of Sacred Heart, Siobhan wanted to start writing the second album, just she and I. Which didn't sit too well with Rich.......pt two?

Coming soon.