News
Happy New Year!
Hey there everybody,
Hope all is well with y'all. I would just like to say that my thoughts go out to Willie Mitchell's family at this difficult time. If you have not heard, Willie died last week. He was a great man to whom we owe so much. I wrote an article that the Independent published on Saturday about my experience with working with Willie Mitchell. You can read it online here.
We got Xmas and New Year out the way and then the snow hits us – it’s been bad down here where I am. Although we are not snowed in, it’s pretty white, but I have had enough of the cold now. The central heating is a permanent fixture and I'm really looking forward to getting my gas bill!
As December and January are notorious slow months in the Wets calendar there is not really that much to update. You will no doubt know that Marti is back treading the boards so I will be getting stuck into some of my own music in the next 6 weeks so - hopefully have some news soon. I know I keep threatening to do more of my individual music but hopefully I will be able to let you hear some of the things I've been working on. It takes a long time - you know how long a Wets album takes - so treble that and maybe we're somewhere near how long it takes for me!
I have a twitter site, and I see some of you guys have found it already, you can keep up with the day to day personal stuff on there, but I will be posting on here as usual, every other month or thereabouts!!!
'til next time
love Graeme x
Holiday Delivery Cut-Off Dates
If you plan to wrap up some wonderful Wet Wet Wet merch this holiday season, please place your order by December 10, 2009, for shipping to North America, Europe, the UK, and Japan.
New Songs Up on the Audio Player!
You voted and we listened! We're happy to announce that we've added your top three tracks to the audio player.
Also, just a head's up that the fantastic Wet Wet Wet goods in the shop have been selling fast! So get over to the Holiday Sale and get gifts for your loved ones early this year!
Pop Fiction
Hey there everybody,
Hope you are all well. I must admit I'm not surprised at you guys having a bit of a cob on what goes on the site - or more accurately, what is not going on the site...I cannot disagree with anything you are saying but for now, you'll just have to make do with me...
Right now we are working on some songs with Grant Mitchell, our resident co-producer. These songs have been written in the last wee while. We decided that we were not going to go to a residential studio this time, partly because of the cost, but mainly due to everyone's availability, or lack of it. Honestly, to get us together these days in the same room at the same time is a struggle. We can be as frustrated as you guys sometimes, but summer always has that knack of enticing people on holidays, etc...
The working title of the album is POP FICTION and I'll give you more details and titles on the individual songs a little bit later.
I'm excited about these tracks and feel that these are the best songs we have written since the last century! I am gonna say that though, but I genuinely believe it.
They all have a 60's theme running through 'em as well as a Beatles influence from The White Album period. I love that album and I'm surprised that it comes in for so much flak (only by the critics, of course). We know they were all having their problems working together, but we all have problems.
Dear Prudence, Blackbird, Julia, Sexy Sadie, Helter Skelter, Cry Baby Cry..... if that's a band having problems.....!
Some say it should have been a single, instead of a double album, but I disagree. I wouldn’t change any of it, even the Stockhausen-fused Revolution 9, love it, self indulgent, arrogant, but totally engrossing, for me anyway.
So, yeah, we might do a double album, totally alienating everyone who listens, with a Stockhausen-influenced, atonal album with no musical instruments used, only household appliances and industrial implements, but with auto-tune! Now there's an idea :-)
We are also now wondering about the best way to get new material out into the public domain, do we:
1. As convention would dictate, release an album on cd, through high street retailers (if there's any left!)
2. Digitally release them only - through the website, and the likes of iTunes, etc
3. Or is there another way of re-inventing the wheel that perhaps you can tell us about
Any ideas, I look forward to hearing them.
Graeme xxx
Massive Summer Sale in the WetWetWet.co.uk shop!
As some of you may have noticed, the WetWetWet.co.uk shop is currently hosting a huge summer sale! Almost everything from t-shirts to books, hats, and magnets is on sale for a limited time, so get your Wet Wet Wet merch while quantities last. This is your last chance to be the proud owner of a variety of fantastic Wet Wet Wet items so head on over to the shop and check it out!
Writing in the small banana
4th July
I left Nashville on Thursday and that was a trip. I met some fantastic writers and I hope we wrote some good songs. The one thing I'll remember 'bout Nashville is that it’s the only place I know that heats up when the rain starts!!! But it was amazing all the same.
So now I’m in NYC finishing off my writing sessions, and we never realised that the 4th July is like the biggest deal next to Xmas and Thanksgiving. I knew it was a big event but being a Brit, I clean forgot all 'bout it. I feel like Carrie "sex in the city" sitting at my mac in NYC, a few subtle differences though, I prefer flat shoes with ma gucci spandex hot pants! hehe
I’ve been out of Manhattan as well for a bit and as soon as you get off the island the pace changes, quite dramatically. So it's been good to see some other places I would never have seen otherwise.
I had to take a bus as the people I was working with lived out of town and because it was the 4th the bus was the only way to get there. I was gonna take a cab but because of the holiday it was costing $125 as opposed to a 12 buck bus ride. It was nice not knowing where I was getting off having never been there by bus, asking the crazy bus driver to let me know when he gets to my stop, unfortunately he couldn’t understand a word I was saying, even though I was trying to speak in an USA accent... that usually ends up somewhere between a Irish lilt and a Glaswegian Indian, with a bit of Australian thrown in....Anyways I got there despite everything.
It has been an interesting couple of weeks, writing songs out here is quite different from writing back home, and I don’t think it will necessarily make you a better writer, it might make you a quicker writer, as you have to be fast over here, so its been productive I guess.
I subscribe to the Lenny Cohen School of Writing, that if you persevere with the idea, the song will eventually endure, and I can’t short cut that songwriting process, I have to wait for them to drop. It makes me smile when Gary Barlow says “I wrote that in an hour", I always think "yeh but its the 20 years of sitting at a piano that allows you to write a song in an hour. I’m not having a pop at Gaz as you have to tip your hat to someone who superbly paraphrased the chords to ‘Love Is All Around’ with ‘Back for Good’! Only joking people....... :) We had the title ‘Somewhere Somehow’ for a long time until it fell into that chord sequence, probably 2 years, so theoretically it took us over 2yrs to write, even though it came together in an afternoon.
Enough enough, I've written enough for the time being but I'll be back when I’m back home...
Y'all keep comin’ back ye hear,
love graeme c
x
Out to lunch in Nashville!
Hey Y'all, howdy!
Greetings from Nashville, home of the Country song!!
The picture looks quite intense but I'm taking it myself and you try looking moody in a busy street, when people are looking at you as if you’re insane! Which I am anyways.
I've been out here all week writing away and sharpening my pencil, crafting my couplets, if you'll pardon the expression! It’s hard work out here, there is a heat wave over the South and it’s in the mid 90's and getting warmer. It’s not humid so it’s not repressive, but it is blistering for a Scots lad! I’ve been working with some great people and hopefully it won’t be too long before you hear what I’ve been up to.
I’m excited doing all this stuff and it is a learning curve for me. In Wet land we tend to take our time when we write songs for ourselves, (I know you don’t need me to tell you that!) but out here that does not apply at all, sometimes you write 2 a day, that’s the norm!!!
So I was thinking ‘bout y'all and thought I'd drop a wee line to let you know what’s happening - we ain’t forgot bout yi, so..........
Y'all keep coming back now ye hear?!
love graeme x
Tommy's birthday thank you message
21 again, 21 again, I’ve got the keys to the door, I’m 21 again... I wish!!!
On my 21st Birthday Wet Wet Wet were in a studio in the great city of Liverpool writing, and recording our first set of demos for “Popped In, Souled Out”. The studio engineer "Gil Norton" bought me 12 cans of lager, cheap lager - it was heaven. 4 cans each and we were all drunk as skunks. Oh yeah, and the recording went really well too.
I’ve now had 24 other birthdays. Every one is just a little different from that one. One thing that hasn't change over this time is.... It still only takes 4 drinks and I'm anyones.
This year I shared my day with family. Elaine and the very grown up kids, Tayler and Stephen, my Mum & Dad and some Glasgow pals. We had a big meal at a local restaurant, then onto a nearby bar and finally back to my house - with my Ipod as the karaoke, we partied ‘till 4am. I find that now I don’t want much by way of presents. That is not important to me now. It’s the company that makes it special.
The band’s management sent me a new fangled e-card. Very funny.
My humble thanks go to each and all who sent in their kind words of commiseration on my big day. It’s great and very surprising that you lot ever remember it’s my birthday. After I had blown out the candles on my cake l made an extra wish. My wish was that I could have been doing a gig on this date and then after the show, we all could just hang out and party. In fact next time I see you at a gig, remind me I said this and we will all go out for a shandy or two.
Again from the bottom of my heart I thank you...
21 again - Tommy C x
Note from Graeme C
Hello Everyone and I hope you're all well.
Here's me thinking I could do a small gig under the radar without you guys getting wind of it. Who am I kidding? As always with the best laid plans, sometimes they don't work out quite the way you imagine they would!
So, to keep you all posted, I'm playing a couple of solo numbers on Thursday at Oran Mor for a charity called Spirit Aid. I was asked at short notice and I agreed as the timing is good for me because it coincides with some exciting bits and pieces I've been putting together. In the near future you'll be hearing all about this and we can get together and listen to the results. I'm hoping that you'll like what you hear and you'll certainly be the first to know the when and where.
Mean time, I hope you're not too disappointed with me or HQ for not announcing the Thursday gig. It just felt better to do something unannounced first time out.
Lookin forward to seeing you all soon.
Wet Wet Wet featured on BBC Radio 2 show ‘The People's Chart’
We are excited to announce that Graeme Clark features in ‘The People’s Chart’, a one off show on Radio 2 this Easter Monday (13 April 2009), on air between 1pm and 4pm. Presented by comedian Rob Brydon, the show is a countdown of the UK’s most-heard recordings of the last 75 years, covering everywhere music is consumed from the radio to high street shops, pubs, clubs and supermarkets. As you can imagine, Wet Wet Wet do feature in the countdown but to find out where they chart and to hear Graeme talking about his experience and memories of hearing Wet Wet Wet songs in public you’ll have to tune in! You can listen to Radio 2 on 88-91FM, or online. 
First week of our writing session...
Hello everyone,
I hope and trust you are all well and good when this note reaches y'all .
2009 eh - what happened? As usual time is flying by at an unbelievable rate, I can’t keep up. One minute it was 2004 and we were releasing a Greatest Hits - next its 2009 and our 7th studio album (9 if you count 2 'Greatest Hits', 10 if you count 'The Collection', 11 'The Big Day'... I'll stop there as you guys will probably know more than me and point out a few things that I've forgot about..!)
That's us finished the 1st week of our writing session (some new photos in the gallery)... Only 2 yrs to go until its ready then. Seriously - who knows how long and we are only 2 songs started. Marti is on his other gig just now, so we can only start songs - we can’t really finish them until his time isn't so intense with the WOE.
It’s always great to get a start and although we had been sending around mp3's, it's better to be in a room with the instruments in our hands.......than to be playing with ourselves!!
I'll keep you posted on when we reconvene - its looking like March will be a busy month with a few sessions booked in so far.
Take care y'all
love Graeme C
Is it Christmas yet?
Hello, how are you all doing? Well, I hope. Just a quick one to let you know that we are still alive and working, albeit on a part time basis! Neil and I are exchanging mp3s at the moment so a start has been made on the new material. Sorry it's been a few months since my last update but life keeps on at me and the only thing for certain about life is that nobody is going to get out alive! Sometimes we just have to calm down and let life go the way it goes.
Is it Christmas yet? Can't believe that it's this time of year again, as this time last year we were just about on our first gig..... wow, great days!!! Let's hope it's not too long before we are out again, hope it's 2009, but we can't be sure as everyone has commitments, pouring pints, theatre shows, writing songs....
I have been writing away myself on the new album, "Pop Fiction" - it's still a long way away at the moment, but you guys will be the first to know when it's ready, and I hope y'all will come and have a listen.... I played some of it to my friends and they said "it's a bit Wet Wet Wet". I said "I can't really help that", that's a bit of a dilemma for me and that's why it's not the easiest album to do!
Anyway, I hope you all have a brilliant Xmas and a Happy New Year, and let's hope we can announce something soon regarding gigs and some new material....
Loves ye all
Clarky
New range of customisable merchandise!
We are extremely excited to announce that we have now launched a BRAND NEW range of official Wet Wet Wet merchandise! This variety includes new items which have never been made available to you before! You can choose from hundreds of items including hoodies, t-shirts, keyrings, hats, bags and even shoes and skateboards!
What's more, all products are customisable and the new shop has fun functions that will allow you to upload your own photos and personalise your purchases.
A few of our favourite items are below, however check out the full store to see what takes your fancy!
**Due to immense popular demand we are pleased to announce that today (12th Nov) Zazzle has launched its website in the UK. We are delighted to let you know that all the new Wet Wet Wet merchandise is available to buy from the UK site. Click here to visit the shop, and here for shipping information**
News from Graeme C...
Hellooo,
Hope you are all well. I include Al D in this and we are all sorry if you feel that way, I saw your posts and hoped it could all be worked out. Sometimes the moderators do certain things in a certain way because they are the moderators and that is their job. It should never be taken personally - easier said than done I know. Cyberspace can really confuse communications sometimes, and before you know where you are there is a full force gale going on. I know I sound a bit smug saying that, and it's different when you feel a bit frustrated about some of the threads being moved, but Al, I will say this - you have a right to speak up as you are a valid member of YOUR forum. When we speak up about things it's because we care about the forum, and I know the mods care as well. This is the only way we make things better, by speaking up. I hope that doesn't sound too patronising to anyone, as it's not meant in that way.
I'm sure you will do what is right, but it would be a shame to lose the singer of ‘Picture This’ from our forum.
OK- that said, back to business…
On Friday I went to see the Witches of Eastwick. It's great to see my old mate up there and really cutting it. It was quite a dramatic performance. He is by no means out of place in that environment, and from what I saw he brings a tremendous comedic value, as well as a believable portrayal of the character. Superb, and I'm sure it's not the last time we will see him in this environment or if he chooses TV or film or anything.
Also, my good mate James Fox has a new single out on 20th October called ‘Higher’ you should all check it out, and can pre-order it from HMV now.
Anyway back to grind for me, we got some songs to write!!
Happy posting.......
See ya later,
Love Graeme C x
Busy Busy Busy
Hello everyone,
Busy, busy, busy, yep busy doing absolutely nothing!! That's not strictly true - I've been writing away doing some stuff for wet3 and also my solo project, a play I'm writing just now called the witches of prestwick......or has someone already done that!!
It's been awfully hot where I am but I’m enjoying it and as you know the rain is never far away. I’m heading north next week to see my family and catch up with everyone and everything. Hopefully we can get together with the other guys and maybe do some work for our new album, that would be good and I have kept some time aside for that. Should maybe let NM MP and TC know.
It was good to read on the forum that we are touring in 2009, that's the beauty of the website when I have a question about what we are doing, what's the point in talking amongst ourselves when its all on a public site and all I have to do is check it out from time to time. I must add that there is an element of truth in that though....TC said so!
A massive thanks to everyone for all our birthday cards you have sent this year, they really are great and we really appreciate them all. Roll on 2009 - better get our skates on with the album.
Anyway did you watch the EUFA cup final.....team did well just didn’t get the result but we had a great day.....
Speak soon love Graeme C xxx
