In the early months of 1994 the world was totally transfixed by all things F/P, reveling in the glories of “Feed The Monkey” and “Genius Part 1”.
For Chris however it was back to University to complete his education. In May Chris would be taking his final examinations and a lot of hard work and buckling down was obviously expected.
It came as a great surprise then when in April 1994 it was leaked to an unsuspecting public that Chris had crossed the waters to the mainland and was, in of all places, Northwich, England. To be precise he was in Hartford, seated at a piano stool in the Coach house.
Fawcett / Poustie were again challenging the constitutions of the rock world and entering the studio just 5 months after completing one of the greatest albums of all time.
Of course the corporate big-wigs would have told them that there was no logic in it and that all they could possibly expect to achieve was to detract from the acclaim being heaped upon “Monkey”. For F/P however marketing strategies and corporate itineraries meant nothing. They felt that they had enough choice material to have a crack at demolishing “Monkey’s” legacy and were sure that the fans would be more than happy to be swapped by new material.
The recording schedule, as usual, was exceedingly tight. The boys were allowing themselves 4 days (one more than on “Monkey”) to concoct a vintage F/P opus. Following in the formula of its predecessor the new album would rock-out in the potent ten-song format. “Monkey” had packed an incredible punch and Chris and Nick both agreed that 10 songs was the perfect amount with which to launch an aural assault on the F/P army of fans.
As soon as the recording got underway it was evident to the band that the album was going to be a worthy successor to “Monkey”. Apart from a few typical early-session jitters the songs were coming out quickly and powerfully. A new 4-track was introduced and the band’s music was sounding louder and more lucid than on previous occasions. The introduction of a wa-wa pedal also added a further dimension to not only the guitar tracks but also to the vocals on a couple of songs most notably the storming opener “Alive Like 1975”.
Mid-way through the recording sessions the band had agreed upon the album title whilst supping beers in the “Rockin’” Red Lion. Credits to the title were split 50/50 with Nick contributing the “Bally Rotters” theme and Chris adding the enigmatic “The Oath of” prefix. Unlike “Monkey” however which was a concept-heavy album, “The Oath of Two Bally Rotters” would be a straight down-the-line, no messing rock’n’roll album with no all-encompassing theme in sight.
Following the success of the mighty opener “Fairway Revolution” once again Chris took the reigns on the opener to “The Oath”. “Alive Like 1975” was a stomping rock and roll, star-studded, punch-packed strutter of an anthem ! Written ‘mentally’ by Chris whilst walking the streets of Manila prior to the release of “Monkey” it is a tribute and dedication to all of F/P’s ‘70’s rock influences.
A monster piano riff backed-up by huge, chunky, guitar chords opens the song before Chris screams a wa-wa echo-enhanced “Alive” and the guitar joins the piano in strutting to the riff at a fist-punching mayhem tempo ! The song is big, brash and bold in true 1970’s rock fashion. It is as solid as a 7-inch platform heel and as subtle as a smoke bomb.
Singing in a rough and raspy voice Chris pays respect to all his heroes in the verses “There’ll be Purple, KISS and Aerosmith, guess the Trick’s are gonna be there to” . The pre-chorus is a fantastic rock’n’roll fanfare of tasty chords and building blocks of vocal layers piling up the pressure until the chorus finally explodes ! The chorus is a crowd-like chant of multiple Chris and Nick voices counting down the years of 1972-1979 with ring-leader Chris yelling rallying one-liners over the top. Not before too long the inevitable happens and Nick launches into a classic guitar solo heralded by a sharp and inviting “Tommy Bolin-esq” echoplexed lead lick. The solo is an extreme marathon of an extravaganza that hits several heights before reaching a stupendous climax at the end of the pre-chorus. Chris also adds a typical solo laced with several of his classic and customary trademarks before the song ends bombastically with a memorable OTT wailing from a Mr. P on top vocal form.
Just as soon as the smoke fades away and the confetti has fallen to the ground in lurches Mr. F strumming a happy Latino-style rhythm which brings forth “Long Way To Go”. A good-time number with a romantic, uplifting air “Long Way..” sets new standards of creativity for an already accomplished, consummate song writer. The chorus is one of the catchiest and most memorable of all F/P choruses that positively begs the listener to participate “Our Love has a long…LO-ONG way to go!!”
Mid-song an off-the-wall bridge reminiscent of the Barry Manilow classic “Copacabana” emerges with Chris playfully experimenting with dodgy “Love Boat” inspired chords and rhythms and Nick too playing the guitar of a cruise-line serenade-waiter singing his heart out like an experienced and worldly wise gigolo.
The song peters away gracefully with a gentle acoustic guitar solo closing an intriguing song of subtlety, style and character.
Third song up is altogether more serious and brooding. “Don’t Let Me Die” reveals a more reflective and gloomy side to Chris’ normally upbeat persona as he contemplates his mortality and family values in this superb, dark and almost sinister classic. Probably the only F/P song ever likely to be considered morose, this is also one of the best F/P songs lyrically, hosting a variety of poignant and chilling lines including the following;
“Tell me woman was I your toy ? Some voodoo puppet to destroy A poisoned bottle placed in my hand, your reason I do not understand, You watched me woman drink it all, you watched my broken body fall”
The music is similarly dark, menacing and paranoid and boasts two of the best solos on the album. Chris’ solo is mysterious and perplexing adding a thrilling element to an already intriguing song. Nick’s solo is simply extraordinary. It is utterly frenzied and manic early on confronting the syncopated accompaniment of Chris’ piano in an outrageous and child-like manner. The recalcitrant solo develops further to a point where the guitar is screeching and screaming and is so emotionally charged you can almost hear the tears and see the blood dripping from the exhausted body of the Les Paul. An absolutely breathtaking example of Fawcett’s genius ability to adapt a solo perfectly to the mood of a Poustie song. In fact both solos are excellent examples of how the boys are able to brilliantly craft solos to perfectly capture the ambience of any kind of song be it romantic, sexual, happy-go-lucky, or in the case of “Don’t Let Me Die” frighteningly paranoid.
Directly after “Don’t Let Me Die” crashes to a stunning climax up pops one of the best known Fawcett / Poustie gems, “Sunshine Girl”.
Where “Feed The Monkey” was a great example of songs of a similar feel contributing to the overall texture and ambience of an album, the lead from “Don’t Let Me Die” to “Sunshine Girl” is a perfect example of how on “The Oath” Fawcett / Poustie decided to move between completely different genres reflecting the vastly different emotions and experiences and challenges life has to offer.
Where “Don’t Let Me Die” was dark and ominous, “Sunshine Girl” is bright and colourful, happy and positive. It is a brilliant contrast that never fails to impress upon the listener at each and every play of the album. Just as soon as the screeching guitar and crashing piano rap up “Don’t Let Me Die” in bursts Nick with the cuddly line “Raise my head from the pillow” and the mood is utterly and irreversibly transformed.
“Sunshine Girl” is an instantly recognisable classic. You can spot it a mile away. It is a song of enormous mass appeal and winning commercial formula. It is however so much more than just a commercial good-time song. It is rich in intricacies and subtleties that separate it from other “hits” and push it head and shoulders ahead of the pack. “Sunshine Girl” is a song full of flavour, charisma and sex appeal. It evokes so many feelings and paints a beautiful and tasteful portrait of the “Sunshine Girl” who comes to life through the brilliant poetry of Nick Fawcett.
There are too many achievements and advancements made by Fawcett and Fawcett / Poustie on this track to mention. Directly after Nick finished laying down his vocals he is reputed to have told Poustie “I have just finished recording the greatest Fawcett / Poustie song of all time “. And he was right.
“Sunshine Girl” was single-handedly the greatest progression made in Fawcett / Poustie’s illustrious history of rapid development. It represented boys growing to men, or even of a beast turning into a monster. And it came as something of a shock even to Fawcett / Poustie themselves.
Chris, who had himself just finished adding the vocals to the track that directly follows “Sunshine Girl” on the album was a bit taken aback by Fawcett’s euphoria. Chris was already desperate for Nick to hear “The Walls Of Our World”, a song Chris considered to be truly fine and groundbreaking. But on hearing the final mix of “Sunshine Girl” it was too evident and overwhelmingly obvious that the song they had just recorded and Nick had written was their greatest song to-date bar none. It was irresistible. Chris could taste a song that not only F/P would love, it was apparent that everyone would love “Sunshine Girl”.
The pure class is evident early in the first verse as Nick’s note-perfect harmonies dazzle radiantly adding rich textures to the golden lyrics and flourishing again brilliantly in the second verse accentuating the lyric “Her voice is heavenly music….” Accompaniment on both verses is totally tight with guitar and piano playing in top-notch sync. A great little pre-chorus checks-out with a suitable count down of high piano chords heralding the end of the verse and summoning the chorus. Fawcett’s chorus is, as usual, utterly memorable and immediately familiar with the mix giving prominence to both Nick and Chris’ vocals adding a friendly sing-a-long atmosphere.
An unusual bridge known to the band as “The Sorry Section” in bizarre reference to the early ‘80’s Ronnie Corbet sitcom is home for the first guitar solo in which Nick down-plays somewhat holding in the reigns for later in the song. As the bridge, which is in a minor key, changes to the third verse, in a major key, the effect is beautiful and adds a splendid happiness and reminiscent air to the excellently dreamy line “We named a few stars as we made love through the night, ten thousand degrees of pure paradise”.
Chris too leaves his genius stamp well and truly on “Sunshine Girl” through great piano playing, backing vocals and especially with his god-damn-perfect solo. The delicate piano solo two-thirds of the way through the song is an utterly integral part of the song adding a soft and delightful passage of exquisite beauty and charm. Over the top of the second half of which Nick enters on vocals with the gorgeous line “Sunshine Girl, cover me in kisses ‘till the sun rises again” and then the chords drive in hard and rocky as the emotions build and the song changes direction.
Soon the beauty of the piano passage is a passing memory and Fawcett is picking up the tempo and charging the song forward to a blinder of a rock-out section. From then on the main man positively rages with first a choppy rhythmical rock’n’rolly solo and later a sizzling Bolin-esq widdle-diddle metalfest that finishes the song off dynamically, rewarding the more hard edged fans with some F/P meat and potatoes.
And there it was. An all time classic. 4th song on the 4th album; Sunshine Girl.
How do you follow that ? Well quite nicely actually answers Chris with another piece of genius “The Walls of Our World”. Incredibly Chris refers to this as “The song I wrote in my sleep”, the story being that he woke up one night in Northern Ireland with a good 50% of the melody to the song brewing in his head and waiting to be poured. And so as not to look a gift horse in the mouth he rushed to find a pen and paper and wrote down some lyrics in order to be able to remember the tune the following morning. Within about 20 minutes he had completed a good 90% of the song that stands today. After which he turned out the light and went back to sleep. This was not a unique experience. Chris claims to write songs in his sleep quite often. However much to his disappointment never again has he woken up and bottled the goods.
The song itself is a lushly arranged ballad with a superb production that emphasises the grand piano and Chris’ vocals and blends them nicely with a sprinkling of the Fawcett magic. The structure is a little more complicated than that of the typical F/P song and includes several passages, bridges and more than one chorus. Poustie produces one of his wildest vocal performances during one particular bridge climaxing in the Graham Bonnet-esq scream “I’m gonna break ‘em, break ‘em, break ‘em, break ‘em, BREAK THEM DOWN !” Before Nick launches into a solo similar to the one on “Those Were The Nights” from “Nancy’s” which is commercial and high-spirited. This is followed by a brief piano interlude and later by a guitar-strumming take it down section that leads into a full-blown chorus to fade. A quite brilliant song which in the passage of time has been somewhat overlooked, hidden in the Shadow of the “Sunshine Girl”.
Side two opens with the adventures of “Traveler’s Tale” in which Fawcett captures a vintage ‘70’s rock’n’roll sound through his use of acoustic and electric guitars. It is an exotic and mysterious number that definitely has a very colourful character all or its own. Additional middle-eastern flavours are detectable towards the end of the song as Chris produces a weird solo that evokes feelings of magic carpets and snake charmers. Quite bizarre but totally in tune with the song and the song’s travelling theme.
“Mr. Rainbow” springs up next, a coincidental relation of side One’s more notorious girl. Apparently it was proposed by Nick at the time of recording to name the album along the lines of “The Sunshine Girl Meets Mr. Rainbow” however the proposal was later shelved in favour of the better moniker “Oath….”.
“Rainbow” is a cool happy-go-lucky bopper that encourages the audience to get up and dance. The harmonies are sweet and the rhythms infectious. A very commercial and radio-friendly good-time song which climaxes in a whole host of choruses joining together in an enormous mega-fade out sing-a-long.
Third song on Side 2 is time for Nick’s big ballad “Forever Was Her Name”. A classy ballad with dreamy verses and heartfelt choruses, like the title itself it sails on seemingly ‘forever’. Nick’s style is part Beatlesy and part Lenny Kravitz and makes for an excellently mellow number with authentic, soulful, black-American blood running through the veins of a romantic dreamer. Chris again produces a soft solo worthy of highlight that adds a whole new flavour to an already sweet production.
Another Chris heavy rocker emerges next as the end of the album nears. “Cold Shower” which relates a tale of a killer hang-over following a particularly fruity ‘night before’ is a dangerous rocker housing unusually dainty falsetto-choruses. The frantic excitement of the night before and all it’s escapades are delivered over the hard rocking, blusey verses whilst the therapeutic relief of the cold shower is depicted in the soothing choir-boy choruses. It is an absolutely unusual and curious musical combination that portrays the lyrical message precisely. The song ends with a fantastic almost hallucinatory power-bridge with an excellent progression of chords and melancholy lyrics. Finally the song raps up with a final super-fueled chorus and quick blast of a riff as Mr. Poustie signs-off.
Signing-off the album is left to Mr. Fawcett who much to the delight of all the fans decides to Close the show with a big loud bang. “Spider’s Web” is a heavy metal riffarama complete with a wicked guitar-licked riff, chunky-chorded verses and menacing descending choruses. Although it is a rather nasty and twisted rocker that Fawcett wields it also houses some rather overshadowed melodies. The opening riff, cranked out on multiple metal guitar tracks is actually a classical structure and the lyrical tune over the verses is a pretty melody albeit delivered with the Fawcett full-throttled larynx.
Suitably the fingers of both musicians start to widdle come chorus time as Nick cranks out some wicked Frehley-esq trills in a blistering solo and Chris gives it some dangerous diddling on the ivories likewise. The baton hand-over from guitar solo to piano solo is a brilliant moment of band genius as a twisted key change in the Purple vain allows Poustie to do some seriously hard-core soloing ! A shattering exchange !
Finally the chords start to descend rapidly as the piano slides down a scale note-by-note building up the tension excruciatingly before a final bomb-blast of a guitar chord brings procedures to an almighty halt in a huge cloud of smoke. A cracking finale !
“The Oath of Two Bally Rotters” had delivered. With ten great songs and not a single “filler” in sight it had easily replaced “Monkey” as the pinnacle of F/P genius. It was an album steeped in all the vintage trimmings of a 1970’s classic. There were numerous improvements in every area and although “Sunshine Girl” takes a lot of the glory, it is really an all round achievement to which each and every track contributed.
Production-wise the recording was much clearer and more punchy than on “Monkey” and the songs positively crackle as a consequence. Solos shine out vividly and vocals emerge richer and more in-yer-face.
Solos continued to be top notch although as on “Magic” Poustie’s best efforts came when he was dabbling outside of his beloved blues scale and along more romantic lines. He excelled on “Mr. Rainbow”, “Forever” and “Sunshine Girl” through delicate melodies although he did display the old ability to pulverise on “Spider’s Web”.
Nick continued to solo with brilliant versatility and dexterity on several classic solos, none more so than the breath-taking masterpiece in “Don’t Let Me Die” and the glorious widdle-fest of “Alive Like 1975”.
Lyrically further progression had been made from the “Nancy’s” and “Magic” days. Whereas once the band relied on personal experiences for lyrical inspiration they were now just as likely to create characters and ideas away from their own personal life. “Mr. Rainbow”, the “Traveler”, and “Sunshine Girl” are all examples of this.
It was quite a remarkable feat that they had amassed such a large and diverse collection of songs in just the 5 months since completing “Monkey”. As songwriters Fawcett / Poustie were at their prolific peak at this moment in their career. The ideas on “The Oath” were always fresh. There is not a single, standard F/P song amongst them; each is a unique and new statement, individual and innovative. From the weird “Traveler’s Tale” to the twisted “Spider’s Web” from the soulful “Forever Was Her Name” to the paranoid “Don’t Let Me Die” each song led to pastures new and territories unexplored.
Released in April 1994 “The Oath of Two Bally Rotters” was greeted by followers and friends alike as being without question the greatest Fawcett / Poustie album yet. It was a timeless classic and at the same time totally commercial and appropriately contemporary.
Again the Champagne flowed as F/P for the 4th consecutive time had attempted to and succeeded in bettering themselves in the studio.
The cover of “The Oath” is probably the most famous picture ever taken of Fawcett / Poustie. Taken by Nick Fawcett, it shows the boys dressed in bow-ties and Dinner Jackets with slicked-back hair smoking cigars. They were “The Rotters” in the complete get-up of the sharp dressed cad. A brilliant photo with band members back-to-back in contrasting black and white jackets sporting suave expressions. It immediately caught the attention of the public who warmed to the hilarious “Rotters” theme.
And so as Chris headed back to take his Finals and subsequently return to a home in England in June, the future of the band looked as promising as ever before. They had recorded their perfect album and were about to be united at home for the first time in well over 7 years.
Fawcett / Poustie's golden year had begun triumphantly.