Underneath it all, however, serious problems were looming. Tensions within the band were becoming ever strained for various reasons. Simon had been going out with Nina for a brief few weeks in the early part of the year which had led to an obvious rift developing between himself and Rich.

By the time the band made their second appearance at The Orange on 4 June, things had just about reached breaking point. Gavin recalls: "Richard's split with Nina was really painful for anyone involved or close with the band. He wrote Not Forever which was directly about that and had become seriously depressed. His whole 'feud' with Simon was causing him a real problem enjoying being in the band. It was very ironic because, at that point, we were playing tighter than ever before but it belied a lot of discourse. He (Rich) had always felt a bit out of place anyway playing bass which wasn't his chosen instrument and now other matters had stopped him enjoying even that...so he seemed to close down. In turn, that infuriated Simon who got really annoyed at Richard's lack of help in the group. It was really weird because it was like cold war within the band; they wouldn't actually talk to each other about what was really pissing them off and so arguments were reserved to just stupid stuff. I remember Rich got really annoyed that Simon wanted to start singing I'll Help You instead of him...and Simon, in turn, didn't think Rich deserved things like that because he never helped lift any stuff into gigs and silly things like that. Most of the time they each moaned about each other to me and I'd end up being a kind of messenger between the two!" One such argument ensued after the gig at The Orange with Gavin telling Rich on Simon's behalf that he had just looked disinterested on stage and should try harder. This hit Richard's limit and at the end of the evening he told Gavin he wanted to leave the band. He told Gavin that because of their close friendship he would not leave him or Simon in the lurch and would fulfill live duties until a replacement could be found but, ultimately, he could not go on like this.

Gavin was horrified at this prospect and spent most of the night trying to talk Rich out of the decision. "This was the real low point. I thought 'it cannot be allowed to come to this'. We had all worked too hard. I tried to think fast of ways in which we could solve the situation. You can never undo the past so you have to try to move on and make situations fresh and new. It was time we brought somebody else into the equation." The solution as far as Gavin could see would be to give Rich the chance to be what he had always really wanted to be: a guitarist. Another bass player would have to be found (which is never easy) and, in return, Rich would have to start pulling his weight rather more. Rich agreed and, telling Simon the situation the following day, he too seemed willing to give this a go. If The Secrets have a real strength, it is surely their unswerving self-belief and a willingness to make situations work and turn problems to their advantage. The question however remained: who was the lucky new Secret to be?

They didn't have to wait long. However, Gavin recalls: "Bass guitarists are always the real bastards to find because hardly anyone wants to take up the instrument. I don't know why but it seems to be perceived as being less flashy than guitars or drums but if I wasn't a drummer, I'd choose to be a bassist...I LOVE playing bass!!" With this in mind the band went for a risky alternative. Gavin's flatmates, Laura Watson and Richard Poth, both Performing Arts students suggested that a good college friend of theirs, one Neil Robinson, was really into The Secrets and would love the chance to be in the band. A couple of years younger than the band members he, like Richard, had never picked up a bass guitar in his life before although he had some experience of singing in a couple of school groups and was really into similar music. All The Secrets had met him on several previous occasions and he had been in attendance at many Secrets gigs. Simon: "I know it was a huge risk taking on somebody with so little experience but we've always thought that if you liked and got on with someone really well and they would be really committed, then that's a good enough reason for them to be in the group...very punk!" Gavin: "For lots of reasons he (Neil) fitted the bill. We all got on really well with him which was good because at last Simon and Rich would have someone other than me in the middle: he's just one of those really nice people you meet every so often. I remember it fell to me (as usual) to ask him to join. We were sitting in my front room and I 'popped the question' and he leapt up, circled the room several times and said 'I've got to call my Mum'!!" So in June 1997, three years into their career together, The Secrets expanded to become a four piece.

Gavin continues: "It was like a new lease of life. We've had a lot of criticism from some very good friends for making that decision but we fully understood it would take a while for Neil to get up to standard. We knew full well that our playing ability would probably take a hit for a while whilst he was learning and some people really didn't like our performances for a while after we took Neil on, but we definitely made the right decision because what we might have temporarily lost from a technical point of view we have more than made up from a good-karma point of view which is every bit as important. If you're not in a band like ours, you probably won't understand. In any case, here we had a terrific opportunity to actually fashion and mould someone into a bass player whose style is totally geared up for Secrets music...our very own prodigy!" Rehearsals ensued with Neil being taught first how to actually play a bass guitar and second each Secrets song one by one starting with the easiest first (Laughing Like A Chimpanzee) and working upward. His aptitude was truly outstanding and although it would clearly be some time before Neil could truly call himself an expert, he had made an excellent start.

Neil's abilities also extended to playing keyboards so, anxious to 'blood' him early the band spotted an ideal opportunity. Pete Curtis had been the key figure in booking bands for the 1997 Rainbow Festival to be held in Watford's Cassiobury Park; now a bigger and more popular version of the Environment Fair The Secrets had performed at two summers previously. The event was expected to be bigger than ever and the band had been offered a slot on the main stage. The date was 13 July and, in many ways, was a special day for the band. It was no coincidence that this was the day the band was ready to release their second cassette album. This time self-titled, the twelve song album was strongly themed as what Pete would describe in his later review: "The emotional diary of a band who had been through many changes." Gavin had again designed the cassette sleeve this time featuring the distorted face of friend Mark Brooks peering through a water jar.

"A good photo that seemed to represent well the twisted up nature of things at the time" (Gavin). The songs were deeply intimate and included some truly heart-stopping moments: the Let It Go recording with "bitter resignation behind every line" (Peter Curtis), the bleakly beautiful The Final Pause (pretty much a Simon solo effort and to this day never performed live for personal reasons) and Richard's pain-stricken vocal on Not Forever at the album's climax. This was not to say it was all miserable stuff: the band's joyous rockabilly workout on How Does It Feel..? with it's call and response chorus is still one of the high points of any Secrets show. And the sheer buoyance of Everything Just Swell Again and I'll Help You would send shivers down any spine.

With friends of the band setting up their own stall to sell the album to the gathered throng, The Secrets made their way to the backstage area of Cassiobury Park's huge main stage featuring the biggest sound system they would ever (to date) play through. A humungous 15,000 people had made their way into the park for the music and festivities. This, as Neil knew all too well, was the moment The Secrets would reveal their newly expanded line up to the public. Rich would still be playing bass at this stage but Neil was to play keyboards (for the first time in a Secrets show) on the first two songs and tambourine it through the rest Bez-style just to "crack the boards" as Gav would say. Driving through the throng a huge cheer went up from people standing by the backstage entrance as Gavin and Neil arrived...another (if short lived) taste of true stardom. "I was absolutely pet-ri-fied!!!" remembers Neil.

The Secrets live at The Rainbow Festival 1997. Photography: Laura Watson

They found Rich and Simon waiting nervous as usual...and drinking the complimentary beers...as usual. 3pm came, the hour of reckoning, and up stepped Neil, alone at the front of the the huge stage to play the opening swirling notes of the introduction to Playhouse. He was shortly joined by Rich, Gav and Simon and, to quote Peter O'Sullivan "they were off". The set was a neatly crafted combination of old 'classics' like Inside with the newer strains of A Cruel Madness et al and was quite the loudest sound they had ever heard themselves make!! It was a badly needed success in the middle of a crooked year for the band leaving them with the sense that it might all work out after all! The show was so successful in fact that their hundred strong first run of the new album sold out almost instantaneously making this gig one of the most profitable days in The Secrets' history. The group was also asked back that evening to perform a short impromptu three song set on the acoustic stage. This time Neil made his bass playing debut, showing off his newly learnt lines to The Hole In The Wall, One More Time and Just For Me!! A party round at Pete's afterwards rounded off an exhausting but massively fun day.

And so it continued that way for the next few months: Neil coming on stage at each gig to play as many songs as he had learnt and all the while, Rich and Simon adapting their guitar lines and learning to lock them together in the new line up.

Luckily for Gavin he had only to do pretty much what he had always done although, at Simon's request, he took on more responsibilities as a backing vocalist so that Rich could be left to concentrate more on his guitar work. It was going to be a long and hardworking process...but The Secrets had never before shied away from a challenge and they weren't about to start. In the midst of all this the band threw a 3rd Birthday bash at the Alley Cat Café in Watford's high street on 25 September: another mad occasion with a wild crowd and Neil's first brush with true Secrets adulation! "This year's Cheerleaders" Gavin would comment later.

Gavin was also acutely aware that the band's efforts at making inroads into the industry had slipped up somewhat due to the turmoils of the summer. In September, on a long weekend visit to his parent's home in Belgium he met one of his father's old college friends who said she knew a chap called Steven Moore who was involved in setting up Soundbase; a new studio in Hemel Hempstead that had been established recently with the help of Princes Trust funding. Giving Gavin his card he called him up on his return to England and shortly afterwards the band met up with both Steven and his colleague and old rocker Trevor Dilks. Trevor was an old cohort of John Peel and had certainly been about. Liking what he heard of The Secrets music he was full of suggestions as to how the band could progress and gave them a huge list of contacts. His main suggestion however was to record a new top class demo as the 8 track recordings were beginning to sound quite limited. A hunt ensued for an appropriate studio and gigs were set up to finance the project.

One such gig (a return performance at the Mean Fiddler) was video taped by Gavin's oldest sister, Shona. Usually cursed in front of the camera The Secrets 'broke their duck' and actually turned in a fine set. Noticing an ad in the music press the following week appealing for footage of new groups for the new cable TV station The Talent Channel, Gavin sent in a copy of the video. Almost immediately the station responded sending release forms to be completed as they wanted to broadcast the video. Placed on weekly rotation from mid-October to December, The Secrets gained their first national television coverage!...another gratefully accepted boost.

The band made the local papers again in November when it was reported that after a successful show at the Horn Reborn in St. Albans, Gavin had been stopped by the police when driving home rather too fast. Having recently taken to wearing copious amounts of make up on stage to "improve stage presence" he quickly realized that this was perhaps not the best time to look like a clown with a bad smack habit! "All right then, Alice Cooper..." giggled the young policewoman"...if you'd just like to breathe into this bag!"...

The larks continued into December. Starting with a Christmas party again at the Alley Cat Café the band enjoyed watching several of their friends get up onstage and blunder their way through the vocals on several Secretsongs and they themselves performed a ludicrous reggae version of I'll Help You (truly their 'hit' of the year)! The band themselves were all decked out with Santa Claus hats and threw chocolates out to the crowd as they took to the stage. It was a fine evening.

Another fine evening came along when, on 11 December the band were invited along to the annual Trash Club Awards ceremony (kind of a Brits awards for unsigned bands held by that venue). Only Gavin was on hand to attend although it was worth the trip as he picked up the Best Songwriters award on behalf of his bandmates and himself. More serious matters arose when, just before Christmas, the band entered the Sonic Bunker Studios in Hackney to record the new demo: the session marking Neil's studio debut.

Re-recording I'll Help You, A Strange Place and It Could Be You the band, aided again by producer Haresh Patel and engineer Rob McClymont produced a big sounding and wonderfully pop tape. Simon on Haresh: "He can be quite a tough taskmaster at times and really bully a good performance out of you!" The band also recorded a brand new song Lies & Unconsciousness which Gavin describes as "the ultimate new-era Secretsong": it's acidic and aggressive undertones hinting at things to come...

Gavin on 1997: "I was just relieved that we had made it to the end of the year without busting up: that would have been the easy option. We had all been pushed right through the mill and back again. Simon and Rich had gone through a lot of real shit as had I for other reasons: we all I think came to the conclusion that if we could get through this we could get through pretty much anything and, if nothing else, all the problems had made us stronger people. Plus now we had Neil on board which in many ways counted as a fresh start. He really helped us get our energy back: he's younger than us and tells us off when we are being old farts!"

1998 >>>