TS: This was my first encounter with the band. There was a vibe around 'Creep' before it went ballistic, so I was dispatched up to shoot them for a small feature. We met in the Jericho Tavern, a pub they used to play in back when they were called On A Friday. As with a lot of new bands, I think there was a slight reluctance to having their photograph taken, which is fair enough — for any young band, unless they’re those types that set themselves on fire, it can be uncomfortable for them, they don’t want to do it. So I felt they needed a little direction, but not too much. We went for a wander towards the Pitt Rivers Museum and saw this great mural of a creature and a note in massive letters next to it: “remember what happened to the dinosaur”. A warning for any band! Perhaps over the course of their career as they pushed to break musical boundaries they were glancing over their shoulder at that sign on the wall, who knows?
The shoot was great. It was short, sharp and swift but we got some nice introductory pictures of the band. Ed kindly gave me a lift back to Oxford train station and I remember he was plugging me about all the times I’d worked with REM — a year later they were on tour with them.