1994 was a momentous year for music. Kurt Cobain booked himself in for early retirement...Blur and Oasis began squabbling...the Spice Girls mail order was put in and, oh yes...The Secrets started...Just as Grunge was grinding to a halt and the illegitimate bastard that became known as Britpop was being born, something actually quite important happened...

Having recently split from his band The Unknown (ironically quite well known locally in fact!), guitarist and singer Simon Herriott saw an ad placed in a (now defunct) music shop in Watford placed by drummer and art student Gavin Richardson for musicians interested in starting a decently dark pop group. Liking what he read, Simon called Gavin up and the two met for the first time the day after Gavin's 20th birthday in March. Well, what can you say?...sparks flew, ideas were banded around and a very jolly time was had until realization sunk in that they were minus a bass player before they could even think of starting a band. Over Easter, Simon hooked up with a Watford boy named Pat Carter who had pretensions about playing the four strings and so rehearsals started in the spring. However it wasn't long before all involved realized that this particular line up would not work...after all, a bass player whose idea of the avant garde extended to playing bad renditions of "Born to be Wild" could not be trusted.

Nonetheless gigs had been booked and having mutually decided to part with Mr. Carter, the two remaining Secrets found themselves with a problem...Richard Nicholson

...was the man who saved the day. A close college friend of Gavin's, Richard was a guitarist who had done the usual round of garage bands whilst living at home in Kent before moving to Watford. Knowing Gavin and Simon were in a spot over their lack of bass player, Rich offered his services despite having never actually played bass before. However, he was very confident he could pick it up and with the others not knowing any appropriate specialist bass players themselves, he was the obvious replacement. Now all that was left was to find a good name; the choice of band name being one of the most difficult and important decisions a group ever has to make. To this day memories are sketchy as to why The Secrets was chosen: Gavin maintains that it was a short and easily remembered name with good "marketing and headline potential". Also he feels it is a good reflection of the songs and their intimate subjects. Rich, however, is more of the opinion that "We opened up a dictionary and threw a dart at it"!! ...make of it what you will..

T shirts were made, posters printed using a now well known logo Gavin designed for the band: "I had been tearing my hair out for hours trying to think of something appropriate and I was pottering about with this knackered old airbrush and just doodled this little pacman-ish creature with teeth to the side of a page in my sketch pad before I tried something a bit more elaborate and I thought...hang on! It's really weird how you can work on something for ages and it still looks or sounds crap and then in one brief moment you can do something that's far superior...very unfair!!"...all that now remained was to actually get out there and play.

Rehearsals resumed with Rich on board and much better karma in place before The Secrets' live debut supporting the oddly named Wiggy's Trousers at the Jubilee Hall in Amersham, Buckinghamshire on 16 July 1994. The gig was a very good start with the set including covers of material by The Cure, The Wonder Stuff and The Police amongst others. Also included were four original songs: This Spring, Laughing Like A Chimpanzee, Another Time and Times Like These. These songs had been written by various band members before they met each other and had found a new home in this band and were a very good indicator of what was to come: quite heavy leftfield pop. They still feature in the band's sets from time to time to this date. Also at this gig the band started gaining names on their mailing list, the aptly named Secretservice which is still running today with membership in the hundreds! For the remaining months of 1994 the band continued their getting-to-know-each-other process rehearsing tirelessly and playing pub and college gigs as such opportunities arose.

Songs like Room With You, Dream, The Hole In The Wall, Veil and Always came to fruition and made their way into the live set with collaborations in songwriting between the three band members becoming increasingly the norm.

By December, the group felt it was time to commit some of these gems to tape. Gavin remembers: "The next step was to get into the London live circuit and we badly needed a demo to send out to promoters...plus it was an exciting thought to get into a proper studio together for the first time." Saving money earned from their pub gigs the band entered Element Studios in Hampton, Middlesex, on 11 December to lay down The Hole In The Wall, Room With You and Laughing Like A Chimpanzee. The studio was located in a boathouse on a small island in the middle of the River Thames. Hearts were in mouths as the band watched their equipment being driven over a very shaky looking iron footbridge in a "specially streamlined" (beaten up) Mini Clubman to the studio. Once inside work started with resident engineers Jody Sherry and Tim DuBoisson at the controls. Slightly intimidated by the new environment, Gavin recalls: "I always used to get terrified when going into studios because you're so aware of the time constraints and it that all costs so much that you're really afraid of making mistakes. Plus I always have to lay down my tracks first thing in the morning and drumming in the cold light of day is never really easy: I'm much more a creature of the night!" Still, soon enough everybody relaxed and played well and a day's hard work paid off resulting in a session everybody was pleased with: the only hiccup being Simon's car breaking down on the motorway in the middle of the night on the return journey (Mr. Herriott has since learnt an important lesson that automobiles need oil)...and that was the end of 1994: a fantastic first year for all concerned.

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