Altered OUTLOOK
DOUGLAS MCPHERSON
Clare Grogan’s chart tenure with Altered images was but fieeting, but the post-punk pop band definitely left their mark on the 80s music scene
”I had an 18-year gap when I didn’t go near these songs at all” CLare Grogan
For a bright (but all too brief) period between 1981 and 1983, Altered Images and their charming singer Clare Grogan were one of the UK’s most popular new wave acts. Loved equally by both Smash Hits and the NME, the group fiirted fieetingly with the charts before going their separate ways after the release of third album Bite.
“I had an 18-year gap when I didn’t go near these songs at all,” says Grogan. “Then, when I went back on tour in 2002, I had to listen to them again and I was really surprised. I kinda thought: ‘We were okay. We had something going on there!’”
Music fans now have the chance to make that rediscovery for themselves. New boxset The Epic Years unites all three of the Scottish band’s albums and includes their biggest hits, Happy Birthday, I Could Be Happy and Don’t Talk To Me About Love, plus a selection of rarities and 12” remixes that together comprises just about their entire recorded output.
“The album I feel closest to is Bite,” Grogan declares. “Just as an overall experience. Stephen [Lironi – drums], Johnny [McElhone – bass], Anthony [McDaid – guitar] and I had gone to LA to record with Mike Chapman and we were like ducks out of water. None of us could drive. We were too young to go into bars. We were sneaking drinks into our hotel rooms. I just remember how extraordinary it felt being in the studio next door to Shalamar and recording in the same room that Blondie had worked in. We were all big Blondie fans so I insisted on having the same mic set-up as Debbie Harry.”