Mansun

Mansun biography

Mansun were an English alternative rock band formed in Chester in 1995. The band comprised vocalist/rhythm guitarist Paul Draper, bassist Stove King, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Dominic Chad, and drummer Andie Rathbone.

The band broke up in early 2003 whilst in the process of recording their fourth album. The break-up was announced by Dominic Chad in May 2003.

History

Formation

Paul Draper and Stove King met in the early to mid 1990s, whilst working in the printing industry as photo retouchers for rival companies situated opposite each other on the same industrial park in Little Stanney on the outskirts of Chester. Through their shared love of 80's new wave bands such as Duran Duran, ABC and also David Bowie they started socialising together at weekends, going to gigs in Liverpool and playing along to drum loops together in their bedrooms with the desire of forming a band together. Whilst King was a relative newcomer to playing bass, Draper had previously been in electronic band Grind with programmer-keyboard player Steve Heaton and (future Mansun) drummer Carlton Hibbert who released one 12" single in 1991 on the small "Whats In It For Me Records" label. The band played mostly around London at venues such as The Rock Garden and The Brain and also supported Beverley Craven at the Mean Fiddler. Following the split of Grind, Draper, funded by a grant from The Prince's Trust, set up a music company called "Ambiance Productions" to produce relaxation tapes to be sold in "hippe shops" across the north west. In early 1995 the duo enlisted Maidstone expat Dominic Chad, who was the bar manager at the Fat Cat pub on Watergate Street in Chester opposite the office where Draper would go and see former Grind member Steve Heaton. Chad had previously played with "Floating Bear" formed whilst at Bangor University in 1990/91, where he had been studying French and Russian but was kicked off the course due to lack of effort. Chad would later admit that his routine during university was "get up at three, go down to the union bar at four and stay there until it shut". With the aid of a drum machine, the trio began rehearsing at Crash Rehearsal Studios in Liverpool, where the band were quickly discovered by passing A&R scouts Mark Lewis and Alan Wills (who later went on to form Deltasonic Records) who were there to see Cast and overheard the band through their rehearsal room door. The band were offered a publishing contract with Polygram Music Publishing four days after reluctantly handing over a demo tape of 4 songs that cost £150 to record featuring "Take It Easy Chicken", "Skin Up Pin Up", "Moronica" and "She Makes My Nose Bleed".

Early days (1995-96)

The band were initially called "Grey Lantern", after Draper's DC Comics influenced alter ego which he created to help overcome his nervousness on stage, but soon changed their name to "Manson", after the cult leader Charles Manson. The band's self-financed debut release "Take It Easy Chicken" in September 1995 on their own "Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Recordings" label soon attracted the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJs Steve Lamacq and John Peel and the band found themselves, despite later admitting that they couldn't yet play together as a band very well, at the centre of a record label bidding war. This resulted in the band, having not played a single gig, signing with Parlophone, with whom they released the follow up single "Skin Up Pin Up" in November 1995 on sublabel Regal Recordings, although this time under the new monikor "Mansun" as they were forced to change the spelling due to threatened legal action from the Charles Manson Estate. The band gave several false accounts of this at the time, one being that they were named after The Verve b-side "A Man Called Sun", and that "Manson" was simply a spelling mistake which accidentally went through to production. It was later reported that Charles Manson had started spelling his name with a "u", to which Draper joked that they should sue him in return.

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