the hunger

desperate to be different yet insatiable for success, 30 years ago suede smashed records with their debut album. sexy, febrile, romantic, mysterious, it’s both a timeless wonder and a throwback to a time before 'britpop' was a word. "it felt like we were the only band in town,” they tell victoria segal.

bY FEBRUARY 1993, SUEDE HAD BECOME accustomed to a certain standard of mayhem. After three years slogging around London’s grottiest – and often emptiest – venues, they were gradually drawing an increasingly adoring word-of-mouth audience when Melody Maker turbo-charged the process by putting them on the cover of the April 25, 1992 issue as “The Best New Band In Britain”. It was two weeks before the release of debut single, The Drowners. Subsequent live shows quickly became the stuff of flesh-pressing, shirt-ripping communion. “They were absolutely wild,” recalls bassist Mat Osman fondly. “Quite feral. Genuinely Dionysian.”

Evidently, however, the audience at the 13th Brit Awards, being held at London’s Alexandra Palace on February 16, 1993, have yet to receive the memo. Footage shows host Richard O’Brien – creator of The Rocky Horror Show and therefore au fait with subversive thrills – trying to excite the seated crowd (“Please welcome the already legendary Suede!”) but a wax-museum stillness settles over attendees as Suede crash into imminent third single Animal Nitrate.

A song that keeps a tight leash on pop’s favourite taboos – sex, violence, class and drugs – its transgressions are effectively embodied by singer Brett Anderson and his tight black lace blouse. Every time he smacks the microphone down on his buttocks, there’s an amplified thwack, like he’s wearing a wire on an X-rated undercover mission. Meanwhile, contradicting his “retiring” reputation, guitarist Bernard Butler lunges and rocks at one side of the stage, mirrored by Osman on the other, while drummer Simon Gilbert hammers out the 1977 attitude.

In six weeks’ time, there will be a glorious interregnum between grunge and Oasis when Suede’s self-titled debut album becomes the fastest-selling debut in British history. Brits viewers wondering why this strange band were allowed near Annie Lennox and Rod Stewart might suddenly understand. For now, though, the band hurl down their instruments and sweep off-stage to applause on the rude side of ‘polite’. It’s not the first time Suede find themselves at odds with the mainstream. It won’t be the last.

"WE WERE QUITE CONFRONTATIONAL,” SAYS Brett Anderson, looking back 30 years from his house in the Somerset countryside. “As soon as we were able to polarise opinion, it fired me to be more provocative. I was so proud of what we were doing and the world that we were presenting. I guess there was a hubris there that I used to create a confrontation – like, ‘Look at this. Look at what we’re doing. What are you doing?’ There’s a kind of needling.”