In Conversation: Shed Seven

For the irrepressible Shed Seven, it's been a big week in a gargantuan 30th anniversary year. After landing on the BBC Radio 2 B-list with their current single Waiting For The Catch and being named as ambassadors for National Album Day, the band now share the new version of the classic Chasing Rainbows. The track is taken from their upcoming orchestral reworks album Liquid Gold, which follows on September 27th. Ahead of the release and their impending epic UK tour, we caught up with Rick Witter to learn more.


Hi, how are you?

I’m very well, thank you. Very busy, but that is exactly how it should be.

Wow! What a year 2024 has been. How does it feel to finally have a No. 1 album under your belt?

Getting the No. 1 was pretty mad, really. It took us 30 years to get there as recording artists, but that's all good. I honestly think if we’d achieved the top spot as youngsters, it wouldn’t really have felt the same. Probably due to being cocky young upstarts. This way we can really appreciate the facts and take things on board a lot better. Getting a No. 1 isn’t really the be all and end all, to be honest, as we just love creating art, but to finally get there is very satisfying after so long.

When you were writing and recording A Matter of Time, did you anticipate such a huge response?

We had been touring and busy writing for quite some time before A Matter of Time and really putting in the groundwork, so to us it hasn’t really felt like it came out of nowhere. I guess we’ve been bigging up our brand for a while and so could sense things bubbling up nicely over the last few years. So having such a great 30th anniversary year makes it all feel much more special.

2024 has also been fuelled by some huge shows. What has been your personal highlight?

We have so much more to do before the end of the year, and some big shows are still on the horizon, but the two homecoming shows we put on at the Museum Gardens in York in July were very special. We used to hang around in those gardens as young teens dreaming about writing songs and achieving things, so to stand on a stage in the same place as (very) early 50-year-olds was definitely a big thrill. Everything about those gigs was pretty amazing. The crowd, the weather, the atmosphere, and the songs all came together.

And there's more to come! Tell us more...

Yes, we will embark on a huge 23-date UK tour in mid-November right through Christmas, which we are looking forward to. I think it might be our biggest ever headline tour. We'll be reflecting on our 30 years as recording artists and giving the A Matter of Time album some love and attention. We've been so busy focusing on Liquid Gold that we feel we've been neglecting our new studio album, which is only a few months old. We will also be visiting record stores up and down the country in the next few weeks, singing songs and meeting fans in the build up to Liquid Gold’s release.

Liquid gold is drawing closer. What prompted the orchestral reworks?

We lovingly revisited some past hits and added an orchestra. We wanted to do something more than release another greatest hits album; same songs, new artwork. We wanted to re-record some of our classics and reimagine them as if we were writing them now. We haven’t moved the goalposts that much, as we are aware people love those originals and wouldn’t want to hear something too far removed, and I think we have straddled that boundary well. It’s like Shed Seven gone widescreen.

How did you decide which songs made the cut?

We have a big back catalogue, but it seemed pretty obvious, really. We wanted to choose some songs that didn’t necessarily have strings on the first time round, hence Going For Gold, Speakeasy, etc., but we still have enough, which we didn’t revisit to perhaps do a Liquid Gold 2 at some point.

You have some very special guests on the record. Who decided who to approach?

We wrote a song called Waiting For The Catch back in 2016 and ran out of time in the Instant Pleasures sessions, so we couldn’t give the song the justice it deserved, so it became a quality demo. We wanted to go back and make that song into how we were hearing it whilst writing it, and we are really pleased with the result. We invited Issy Ferris to sing with us as she has an amazing voice, which really fits well on the record. It’s the classic ‘can’t live with you, can’t live without you’ sentiment, and in the modern world of dating, where finding a match is all important, it kind of fits the bill. On A Matter Of Time, we invited Rowetta, Laura McClure, and Peter Doherty to join us, and they all brought their wonderful trademark voices to the party.



Was there anyone you wanted on the album that didn't quite happen this time around?

We didn’t really think of anyone else at the time. We didn’t want to be greedy! However, I already have a few ideas for future collaborations, so watch this space.

Having now achieved the No. 1 album, what else is left on the ambition list?

There is always something to aim for. We are going to enjoy promoting Liquid Gold and getting out there to perform, and then we'll sit down next year and work out our next move.

For more information on tour dates click here