Making Music August '96 All About Eve singer Julianne Regan talks to Rikky Rooksby about her new band Mice and her fist album in four years.

Once upon a time there was a rock band called All About Eve. They were candlelight and oceans, casements and meadows, apples and velvet. They had acoustic ballads that shone like icicles in moonlight and rock-outs that grabbed handfuls of clouds. They had the best female voice to come though British pop since Kate Bush.

In 1988 they had a highly successful debut album, a top 20 single, "Martha's Harbour", and were headlining major venues. The stars beckoned. By 1992 they had parted company with their guitarist, their management, two major labels, much of their audience and their record sales. All About Eve had become Whatever Happened To Baby Jane ? Julianne Regan reflects on their demise :

"There was a point where we were definitely on the verge of being enormous. All the signs were there. The money was behind us from the record company [phonogram]; but there was the proviso that we had to be Fleetwood Mac. The record company wanted Lindsay Buckingham to produce the next album. I found this a little too obvious. It was too karaoke for me. Stevie Nicks is Stevie Nicks - I'm me. They said, "If you do this, this and this you could get the Beverley Craven market". I found that ridiculous .... I had a band that was loud and electric as well as acoustic. They wanted to airbrush us up too much."

Managerial suggestions that Julianne project herself on-stage by adopting the Kerr/Bono rock messiah persona were treated with the contempt they deserved.
Tension between Julianne and guitarist Tim Bricheno had been building for some time. He left soon after their three gigs at the Royal Albert Hall in April 1990, much to the disappointment of the fans. Marty Wilson-Piper of The Church took up the new vacancy and the new band recorded an album, 'Touched By Jesus', from which came the single 'Farewell Mr Sorrow'. Many interpreted it as an attack on Bricheno, so casting Julianne as the wicked witch. "I think it was a bit shabby of me. It was a really immature thing to do. But at the time I was smarting. I feel awful about that. Sorry, Tim ... but at least it wasn't a whole concept album called 'I Hate Tim'.

Thereafter, things went from bad to worse. Angered by a music press bent on portraying her as an airhead bargain-bin Lady of Shalott, Julianne tried to trash the caricature in interviews. Fans thought she was betraying them. In 1993 , a fourth album, 'Ultraviolet', on a new label (MCA) brought a new sound, but by then it was too late. "There was one night wen we sat around and sort of shrugged ourselves out of existence. There were no fireworks, no arguments. It just wasn't working. All About Eve was dissipated." INTENSE The Eves might be over, but Julianne couldn't give up music. In the past few years she's been writing with various people, gathering songs, and has a new album out on Permanent Records, 'Because I Can', credited to Julianne Regan & Mice. The Mice line-up isn't fixed yet, but they recently did a 19-date UK tour playing a set of bright, snappy songs that sounded as contemporary as anything you're likely to hear from the current crop of female fronted bands.

Of the tour Julianne says : "It was a strange one. I embarked on it with a lot of anxiety because I hadn't played for about three years. On the first gig I was so scared I couldn't even play my guitar for three songs. It was a bit of a baptism of fire, because I didn't know how many people would be there - I think we made a mistake going into venues that were too large for us. You can't expect an audience to be sitting around dying to come and see you after three years."

Those who did see Mice caught a band obviously having a lot of fun. By contrast, Julianne recalls a night at London's Splash club last year, a gig she describes as "seriously intense". That line-up had no key boards, and Christians Hayes of Levitation on guitar. "He's played on a lot of the album - his approach is more intense and full-on and quite manic. It was a more serious affair - I think it went too far and was too intense. Music should be fun as well as emotive and all that stuff".

Julianne looks forward to getting a line-up together that will give her the sense of a proper band again - "when you're doing it partially for the rent and mostly for the love of it. There's a chemistry that's not there which I need. They have to be passionate people. I still write with Andy [Cousin, bassist with the Eves] and find him a great collaborator. Because I've experienced it I really love that telepathy thing you can get when you've been writing with someone for a while". SPECIAL So far there have been three singles from Mice : "Mat's Prozac", " The Milkman" and "Dear Sir ", all co-written with bassist Tim McTigh. You'll find al three of the album, along with gems like the spacious, atmospheric "Miss World", which quietly charts a rags-to-riches-to-rags story.

"That's a special song." says Julianne. "Lots of people respond to that instantly. I feel proud of it because it was one of the first songs I wrote after All About Eve, and that was scary because I hadn't written songs on my own for a long time. I like collaborating but I realised I can still write a song on my own as well. A lot of loving care went into that. I didn't want to do some embarrassing autobiographical song, but there are parallels."

The track is graced by some very tasteful lead guitar played by Julianne herself. "I couldn't do a blistering intro, which was a blessing. To be simple suited the song. The thing people liked about Tim was he said in four notes what other people take 24 notes to say."

One stand-out track for Julianne is "Blue Sonic Boy", "because we indulged ourselves but managed to have a lot of directness and dynamics about it. It goes sonic overdrive in the middle bit, and we mixed it with heavy mono and stereo effects - it's a real headphone track. I love "Battersea" too. That was the last song the Eves worked on before we split. I took the music away and did the vocal and lyrics."
Once the band line-up is finalised you can expect to hear these songs from a club stage near you, maybe in the autumn. In the meantime Julianne is sorting out a set for the Phoenix Festival - it looks like she may even be relenting on her earlier decision not to play any old songs. Expect an Eve classic or two.
And where next ? Having done this album, she's ready to call again on the deeper emotion that drove the Eve's music. "

There's a streak of anti-All About Eve rebellion on this album. But I've done that now. All the positive things about what I did before I can allow through now. This album reveals sides to me people didn't know were there - I was only the Lady Of Sharlott and nothing else. I need to point out there's more to me than that. I can be 'Pre Raphaelite' but I also have to get on a bus and go to Tesco".

MAKING MUSIC * AUGUST 1996