1998 was but a few days old and it was back down to business when the group were offered a date at Gavin and Richard's old college on 7 January. It had been one of the first venues the band had played in the very early days and it was strange experience to return and as Rich recalls, "Blow away a few cobwebs!" The gig set the tone for a very hardworking year. Neil, by now, knew enough songs to play a full length concert and so the band's aim was to consolidate their newly revitalised live act. A torrent of concerts ensued throughout the winter months including a date Neil arranged at the University of Hertfordshire: one of the band's biggest concerts in recent months and the first of several to be played at the venue with the band scoring dozens of new fans there...largely made up of the newfound Neil Robinson appreciation society!

Away from the stage, the band were on a bit of a publicity campaign. After attending the recording of Chris Evans' TFI Friday show at the Riverside television studios in Hammesrmith, Gavin and Simon accosted the ginger one and thrust a demo in his face: "He looked grateful if puzzled!" remembered Gavin afterwards. Tapes of the Sonic Bunker session were sent out to various music industry big wigs on almost a daily basis. As always, the cassette sleeve featured a striking design: this time a coloured up photo of Gavin's sister Shona being suspended from her limbs by 20 foot ropes to look like a marionette (Marion being her middle name funnily enough). Her sanity in question at the best of times perhaps this was Gavin's most tactful way of suggesting that she needed help: I'll Help You was the lead track! But we digress...One such cassette made it's way to the editorial room of Melody Maker magazine for review in the 'Holly's Demo Hell' column. A temptress of a critic at the best of times, Holly Hernandez spared few unsigned bands a roasting as each sent in their offerings to the slaughter. In the event The Secrets came off quite well, being admonished as "above average at the churning out of of serious boy pop armed as they competently are with mandatory guitars and a snarly mouthed singer"!! (although Simon's hair came in for a knock and the caption accompanying the ban's photo did read "The Secrets...best kept that way...": fiends!)...so not a bad first shot at national press!

Away from the band, extravagance was the order of the day. It was Gavin's 24th birthday in March and for no particular reason he decided to throw a James Bond theme party...although this may have something to do with a near Star Wars size addiction to Bond films and beautiful female ex-Eastern block operatives in general. Hiring out a huge mansion in darkest Hertfordshire he invited hundreds of guests to be entertained by DJs and set up a fully functional casino for the evening. Presented with a replica Walther PPK loaded with blanks by a friend of Gavin's, Simon decided to test it out firing the gun directly at the croupier, André ("I think his real name was Dwayne or something but at £50 per hour I was having none of it" - Gavin). A splash of blood sprang up and the croupier fell backwards. An important lesson for all you marksmen out there: blanks still hurt! Simon was clearly guilty and very worried: Richard Poth (Gavin's flatmate): "We had fun winding him (Simon) up by for days afterwards by pretending to be the police on the phone. He was going to get a lawyer and everything!"

Anyway back at the ranch, songwriting was taking on a very new slant. With all new material being written with the new four piece lineup very much in mind, the band's sound was becoming significantly 'bigger' with the band really for the first time letting their instruments do more of the talking. Gavin: "I wanted us to 'butch up' a bit. We always had a heavier side - if you think of songs like This Spring and Glove Puppets - but we were always a little cautious about wheeling it out because we never wanted to be labeled as sad old rockers! But with so much frustration and anger building up over the previous year it was only natural that the songs would be the medium we could use to vent spleen...so we ended up sounding much more sharp and aggressive." Songs started pouring out: The Next Big Thing - a highly autobiographical effort with a big sound and since used to open many shows, Violent Faces - a very muscular sounding song with it's mechanical drums and keyboards coupled with a monolith of a guitar riff, and Turn with Simon and Richard's guitar parts cascading back and forth over Gavin and Neil's almost dance-orientated rhythm section. On 23 April the band gave the songs a very public airing when they were invited to play a gig arranged by promoters, The Talent Scout featuring '5 of Britain's best unsigned bands' at Cairo Jacks, a venue right in London's west end just off Regent Street.

By now working during the day in a top west end graphics studio, Gavin used his expertise in that field to start designing The Secrets' own website. Intended to work in conjunction with the mailing list as a more elaborate information service, the site was an exciting new development giving the band an ideal opportunity to show the world what it was about with photos, interviews and concert information and so on. Eventually it was hoped the band could also add downloadable versions of their songs to the page. On 28 May Secretservice Online finally hit the web following about a month of solid work and remains a successful window on the band to this day!

By the summer the group was gigging and rehearsing more frequently than ever. Anxious to capture something of the new sound and excitement on tape, they were overjoyed when an opportunity of some free recording time arose at the brand new Boom! Studio complex (now known as Power Studios) in Chiswick, west London. The band had been recommended to the resident engineer, Sean Cronin, by the nice people at Sonic Studios as a good group to come in and do a test recording. Over the weekend of 6 and 7 June, the band recorded three songs in a session which, according to Rich, "completely outdid all the previous ones on a performance level." Having packaged the project with a sleeve featuring a wacky clock which was a nod to the lead track (The Next Big Thing), the recordings were very highly regarded by all involved. The engineer, Sean (himself the frontman of The Marionettes: a group with gothic tendencies who had enjoyed some chart success in Europe), clearly took a shine to the band and future collaborations seem likely. The following weekend the band returned to Watford Bandstand for their fourth appearance at the annual Month of Sundays jamboree. Despite dismal weather a good audience showed up to witness a set featuring predominantly the heavier songs which Peter Curtis went on to describe as," a deeper, darker and altogether tougher sound."

The next few weeks were spent in buoyant mood and, following another triumphant show at The Horn Reborn in late August, the band felt it was time for a pub crawl in St. Albans. Not unknown for their love of the lunatic soup, the band staggered from pub to pub for several hours (St. Albans has more pubs per square mile than any other town on Britain! - Ed) before arriving in the garden of the White Hart (often suspected as a haunt for witches, pagans and other heathen types). For some inexplicable reason and in a state of some questionable disorientation, Simon decided that this would be the perfect moment to demonstrate his impression of a jungle primate (possibly he had a certain Secretsong in his head at the time...we don't know). Leaping off a bench he swung up to clasp a high branch of a willow tree, grabbed hold for a fraction of a second before tumbling several feet to the ground!

(all he really wanted to do was...fall from a tree - Ed) Landing awkwardly on his left foot, he hit the ground with a terrifying thud. Several crunching sounds, agonized howls and tearful laughs later the assembled Secrets realized something serious had happened. Troopers as ever, Simon's fellow bandmates hauled him up, propped him up on their shoulders and led him off...to the next pub! Neil: "It was daft...Simon was in severe pain but still drinking like a fish, Rich was throwing up and Gav passed out in a toilet! I apparently just kept pulling this really odd face...I think it must have been a reflex action..." On their return to Gavin's house Watford in the wee small hours, Simon decided to make his way home on his bike!!...not the brightest idea. Pedaling with one foot he made it half a mile home before collapsing again in the middle of the road, only to be woken up by the terrifying glare of a lorry's headlights coming menacingly in his direction!...was this it?!!?...the end of Simon Herriott?...the end of The Secrets?

Unfortunately not. Dragging himself clear of the oncoming jugganaught just in time, Simon clambered back on his bike and struggled his way home. The following day at Watford General Hospital Simon was diagnosed as having 'shattered' his ankle (clever deduction that): an x-ray revealing a chunk of bone about the size of a large marble floating about just above his foot! (urgh...puke...sorry! - Ed) Having to remain interned for several days to await corrective surgery to have a metal pin to inserted, he received a visit from Neil and Gavin. Neil: "He was going to be all right...we brought him food and porn..." Again, The Secrets' extravagance made the papers. Local journalist Tim Bowdler wrote: "I thought rock and roll was dead but this is just mad! Mad I tell you!" The band's progress, nonetheless, had received a severe blow: Simon would be out of action for months. With several London concerts arranged, dates were renegotiated and an enforced sabbatical ensued. Using the time as best they could, songwriting became the obvious resort. Gavin continued his drive to push the band's music into a more leftfield sound, working closely with a somewhat limited Simon on new titles such as Closer and A Clown plus a song Neil had initiated (his first real songwriting effort) with a very zippy bassline that was to become Depart.

By 24 October, the band were ready to hit the road again starting with a date at the Robert Peel in Kingston, Surrey: a coachload of Secrets-starved fans and friends making the trip down from Watford to see the gig. In their time away, the band had been doing some serious thinking about how to improve the more theatrical and visual elements of their concerts and in the remaining dates of 98 various new 'gimmicks' were tried out on stage. Simon: "I always thought we sounded good but we lacked a definite image." Huge white drapes were cast all over the set, a large banner featuring the group's new logo was hung above Gavin's drumkit and he himself tried out a number of new 'guises'. Gavin comments: "It's all a lot of fun. We are trying to establish our characters on stage rather more now. Simon wears his stetson, I do my make up bit, Rich looks like the fly and Neil...well he thinks he looks pretty enough anyway!" Simon: "We wanted to put on more of a 'show' and not look like just another boring unsigned band. We had to sharpen up our image and our sound. We also had several technical problems equipment - wise which needed sorting out."...referring to the band's last gig of the year when Richard's Fender amplifier decided to conk out. It had been another hardworking year for The Secrets: perhaps a little less prominent in terms of profile but an essential process of reinventing themselves and honing their sound. Now big things beckoned...

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