{"id":2537,"date":"2025-07-16T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2025-07-15T12:43:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T12:43:35","slug":"hard-drugs-egomaniacs-rock-icons-they-redefined-90s-cool-now-theyre-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/2025\/07\/16\/hard-drugs-egomaniacs-rock-icons-they-redefined-90s-cool-now-theyre-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard drugs, egomaniacs, rock icons: They redefined ’90s cool \u2014\u00a0now they’re back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_code module_class=”custom-cat” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]
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\t\tMojo<\/pee>\t<\/div>\t
\t\tFEATURE<\/pee>\t<\/div><\/div>[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Reintroducing The Band <\/h1>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” custom_padding=”||0px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Twice derailed by egomania, hard drugs, and Britpop, Suede sashay on \u2013 wiser, sturdier and, they assert, more creative than ever. An upcoming new album \u2013 Antidepressants \u2013 revives formative influences (Magazine, The Cult, Crass) and points vigorously to the future. One in the eye for the pundits, and at least one notorious German sceptic? \u201cStubbornness is in our DNA,\u201d they tell Keith Cameron.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Words: Keith Cameron<\/strong><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/KW_Mojo_Suede-070_V5.jpg” title_text=”KW_Mojo_Suede-070_V5″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

The thin black line: Suede practise mood elevation at John Henry\u2019s Rehearsal Studios, London, June 4, 2025, (from left) Mat Osman, Brett Anderson, Richard Oakes, Simon Gilbert, Neil Codling.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

On September 14, 1996, Suede\u2019s new album Coming Up went straight to Number 1 in the UK chart. During the four years since debut single The Drowners reinvigorated the British pop lexicon, the band had seen their spectacular initial momentum outrun by brasher rivals and undermined by internal dramas, chiefly the disintegrating partnership between mouthy popinjay singer Brett Anderson and quiet virtuoso guitarist Bernard Butler. <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

When the latter quit towards the end of fraught sessions for 1994\u2019s epically ambitious second album Dog Man Star, and was replaced by a 17-year-old schoolboy fan, Richard Oakes, Suede were written off by critics and disparaged by hardcore devotees. So for Coming Up to reach the highest peak felt like sweet vindication.<\/p>\n

Yet touring Germany a month later, it became very clear that some still refused to accept this new model Suede as worthy of the name. In Hamburg, one audience member greeted Butler-era songs by holding up a sign saying \u201cYou are great\u201d. Whenever a Coming Up song was played, he flipped the sign over. It now read: \u201cYou are shit\u201d. Things became heated when Brett Anderson attempted to confiscate the sign, and in the ensuing kerfuffle the protestor briefly ended up on-stage.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-1265049152.jpg” title_text=”Suede” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Suede circa 1993\u2019s debut album, (from left) Osman, Bernard Butler, Anderson, Gilbert<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cI do remember a couple of gigs in Germany where things like that happened,\u201d frowns Neil Codling, who joined Suede via his cousin, drummer Simon Gilbert, during the Coming Up recording sessions, initially as a keyboardist, with his remit soon encompassing guitar, songwriting and production. \u201cThere was another one where someone had a sign saying \u2018Coming Up is going down\u2019. We were always a Marmite band, even among our own fans! That hasn\u2019t changed, it\u2019s still this \u2018I can\u2019t believe the wrong line-up of Suede has been going for 20 or 30 years\u2026\u2019 The fact that we\u2019re still here, despite being outsiders in whatever sphere you care to look at, must be a motivating factor. Stubbornness is in our DNA, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brett Anderson remembers his German nemesis with something like nonchalance. \u201cIf I\u2019m not mistaken,\u201d he says, sipping tea in his west London flat, \u201che was throwing coins at us as well. He was just really pissed off with us for making Coming Up. He probably wanted Dog Man Star II \u2013 lots of people did.\u201d Anderson laughs. \u201cYeah, quite an exciting gig! But I think the best gigs have a little bit of tension. There\u2019s always got to be confrontation. Look at footage of a Sex Pistols gig, it\u2019s like a fucking war zone. Mutual love-ins don\u2019t work. And an audience changes how you respond to your own songs. I listen back to the early stuff we recorded compared to how we play it live now, and it\u2019s toothless. So Young feels like we\u2019re half asleep. The intent with Suede now is always to remind ourselves we\u2019re at our best when we\u2019re energised, and bring that to the studio. I like a bit of grit in the lens.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-86118482.jpg” title_text=”Photo of SUEDE” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

The Coming Up-era Suede (from left) Gilbert, Oakes, Anderson, Osman, Codling, August 10, 1996<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Grit has come to define Suede. September sees the release of Antidepressants, their tenth album and the fifth since 2010\u2019s reunion, a remarkable creative streak when re-formed groups of their age typically regard making new music as an obligation to boost profile and tour revenues. Yet beneath the Byronic languor of their early public image, there was always a steely edge to the band. It took substantial quantities of grit to tough it out through the dog days of Britpop, the cultural moment that Suede arguably ignited but with which they never felt comfortable. Even after his band graced 19 music magazine front covers prior to releasing its first album, Anderson still felt like he was on the outside of everything: a Crimplene Camus, the latest manifestation of a fatalist romantic persona that coalesced in Haywards Heath, the Sussex commuter town marooned between London and Brighton, where Brett Anderson met future Suede bassist Mat Osman at sixth form college and started a Smiths-smitten bedroom band called Geoff.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Their alliance tightened at the University of London, where these two gauche products of penurious lower-middle-class England met moneyed, confident Justine Frischmann \u2013 \u201cone of the two great loves of my life,\u201d Anderson wrote in his 2018 memoir Coal Black Mornings \u2013 with whom they began the band that became Suede in 1989, recruiting Bernard Butler via an NME advert: \u201cGuitarist wanted for inexperienced but important band. Influences \u2013 Smiths, Lloyd Cole, Bowie, Pet Shop Boys. No musos, no beginners.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cWe were always a Marmite band, even among our own fans! That hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Neil Codling<\/h3>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

What had seemed wishful thinking then looked remarkably prescient four years later when the self-titled debut album revealed those influences virtually intact. Although de rigueur at the twilight of indie\u2019s defining decade, by 1993 Suede\u2019s kitchen sink bohemian glam of knee tremblers, drugs and milky tea stuck out amid the laddish fag-end of Madchester and grunge\u2019s pained authenticity. Their fluid otherness and media ubiquity \u2013 Suede became the fastest-selling UK debut and won the Mercury Prize \u2013 made them an easy target, fatally puncturing the group\u2019s fragile equilibrium. With hindsight, Coming Up\u2019s Number 1 was a pyrrhic victory, heralding the long downward spiral to 2003\u2019s dispiriting split in the wake of Anderson\u2019s drug addiction and Neil Codling\u2019s ill-health (he\u2019d left in 2000, suffering from ME).<\/p>\n

In this context, reuniting the Coming Up-era line-up in 2010, initially for live work then 2013\u2019s Bloodsports, was no straightforward decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last year that Suede were together, in terms of the general mood, that really was one of the worst times of my life,\u201d Richard Oakes tells MOJO at his home studio in the west London suburb of Hanwell (\u201cnot very rock\u2019n\u2019roll, so it suits me down to the ground\u201d), where the last three Suede albums have been written. \u201cI was at an all-time low. So I took a lot of convincing to do the reunion. It took me months to decide, a lot of soul searching: Is this Suede thing going to drag me down again? Writing the comeback album was very difficult \u2013 it\u2019s like painting a target on yourself. If Bloodsports had failed, you wouldn\u2019t have heard from us again.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-492606829.jpg” title_text=”Suede Live” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Anderson on-stage at London Camden Underworld, June 3, 1992.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Reuniting them with Ed Buller, producer of the first three albums but neither 1998\u2019s fried Head Music nor 2002\u2019s hollowed-out nadir A New Morning, Bloodsports pragmatically offered an older, wiser Suede. Although the album\u2019s modest sales amid a transformed music industry landscape dispelled any notion that Suede could simply revert to the glory days, it did however restore them as a viable creative entity. Their next move would be a crossroads moment.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cI thought, Let\u2019s embrace the fact that we\u2019re not part of the mainstream,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cLet\u2019s not make an accessible album, but deliberately do something a bit more conceptual and meandering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repositioning Suede as an art-rock experiment in intensity and catharsis, 2016\u2019s Night Thoughts was a mighty neo-gothic song cycle with orchestral undertones, launched at London\u2019s Roundhouse with the band behind a screen, accompanying a film made by Roger Sargent. The warm reception from critics and fans, thrilling to the work\u2019s evocations of full-tilt Dog Man Star-dom, emboldened the onward journey to 2018\u2019s The Blue Hour, a loosely autobiographical piece where Anderson, now the father to a young son, explored the neuroses of parenthood amid haunted soundscapes pointing Suede further toward the abstract realm \u2013 exactly the direction a band in its mature phase is supposed to take.<\/p>\n

Still, however, Suede couldn\u2019t shake the grit from their shoe. When it came to touring The Blue Hour, Codling recalls audiences \u201cstanding stock still and nodding along politely\u201d. Oakes, although \u201cimmensely proud\u201d of the record, notes the proliferation of outside musicians and a disparity between the writing\u2019s cerebral constructs and Suede\u2019s intrinsic attributes. \u201cIt was difficult to put those songs across in a setting where it\u2019s all about energy, adrenaline and direct injection of your personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not for the first time in his life, Anderson had gone too far. But now, with the benefit of age and experience, his analysis of the situation was clear-eyed, decisive\u2026 and quite unexpected. With three-fifths of the group into their fifties, Suede made their self-proclaimed \u2018punk album\u2019: recorded during lockdown then released in 2022 into a chastened world, Autofiction mainlined the febrile post-pandemic mood and was acclaimed by an audience starved of mass communion. It felt like what Suede had been missing too: a taste of the band\u2019s primordial self.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we re-formed,\u201d says Osman, \u201cone thing we did was look at bands of our era, and bands that have re-formed, what they did wrong. What they always seem to do wrong was have this big static thing and the fucking orchestras and backing tapes and stuff. There was no sense of them being the band they\u2019d started off as. And we\u2019re always trying to get back to that \u2013 that physical feeling of the first time you\u2019re in a band, making a racket, making yourself heard. Autofiction was very much made that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strictly speaking, the songs were more attitudinally \u2018punk\u2019 than they were, say, Live At The Roxy, but its raw sonics and emotional purging made for a Suede album unlike any other. Autofiction was launched with two tiny club gigs in London and Manchester under an alias, Crushed Kid: a new name for a new beginning. Standing stock still and politely nodding along to Crushed Kid was not an option.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always feel like we can stretch Suede and get arty and do unusual things,\u201d says Anderson, \u201cbut it always snaps back to being a rock band. When you\u2019re young, you want to come across as sophisticated, don\u2019t you? The younger you are the more pretentious you are, because you don\u2019t really understand these things. You\u2019re using pretension as a mask. Then as you get older, you go, What music do I like? I do like some pretentious music. But what music do I really like? I like rough, angry passionate music. It\u2019s like Picasso \u2013 he spent years painting incredibly sophisticated paintings, then went back to something primitive. If you stick around long enough, that\u2019s an arc you\u2019ll go through.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cI took a lot of convincing to do the reunion, a lot of soul-searching: Is this Suede thing going to drag me down again?\u201d<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Richard Oakes<\/h3>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Brett Anderson\u2019s Notting Hill abode is as bright and meticulously well-kept as its owner. While he busies himself in the kitchen, MOJO notes the Bruce Springsteen documentary paused on the television and the vintage record player midway through Joni Mitchell\u2019s Clouds. Tea arrives in a Sex Pistols Pretty Vacant mug, brewed to the perfect blend of astringency and comfort. \u201cThank you!\u201d Anderson exclaims. \u201cI pride myself on my tea making. The key is to warm the cup beforehand, then it brews at 100 degrees. Whereas, if you just tip the water into the tea bag, it brews at 80-something degrees. Swish some boiling water in first and then put the bag in and it brews at that temperature. A top tip there from a tea bore.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

If Autofiction was \u201cpunk\u201d, then Antidepressants is \u201cpost-punk\u201d. That\u2019s the official Brett line, at least. The truth is more nuanced: both the first and second records of Suede\u2019s fourth act derive substantially from the spidery fundaments laid down at the end of the \u201970s and the start of the \u201980s by Magazine, PiL, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Joy Division, The Cure et al, links in the chain of being that nurtured Suede from its roots in the I\u2019m-so-bored-with-Haywards Heath heads of \u201c15-year-old Cult fan-club member\u201d Brett Anderson and \u201cteenage goth\u201d Mat Osman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the music of my and Brett\u2019s adolescence,\u201d says Osman, his six-foot seven frame nestled into a sofa in Suede\u2019s management office near London\u2019s Marylebone Station. \u201cI mean, I had the full backcombed hair and paisley shirts and I loved the Banshees and The Cure. The first band I went to see a lot were Echo & The Bunnymen. But the weird thing is it\u2019s Richard who\u2019s written most of it, and he comes to that music as history.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was thanks to the Banshees, Cure, Bunnymen et al, that Mat Osman discovered David Bowie, Scott Walker and Leonard Cohen \u2013 the artists that Suede insisted new kid Richard Oakes imbibe upon joining the band in 1994. The irony being that thanks to his older sister\u2019s collection, the teenage Oakes was grounded in exactly the same post-punk records at exactly the same impressionable age as his new bandmates, who were all at least 10 years older and publicly keeping quiet about their dubious pasts \u2013 with the exception of Simon Gilbert, a diehard punk from the Cook, Topper and Budgie drum school whose tribal rebel revelry transformed the proto-Suede when he joined in 1990 and which would introduce the band to the world with the opening tom rolls of The Drowners. (As per his preference for several years now, Gilbert declined to be interviewed for this piece. \u201cHe\u2019s like royalty,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cHe just waves from his carriage occasionally.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first couple of years I was in Suede was about fitting in,\u201d says Oakes. \u201cLike, \u2018You have to be this type of person now.\u2019 That went down to everything. I was expected to dress a certain way. I was expected to listen to certain records. They said, \u2018What\u2019s your favourite David Bowie album?\u2019 I said, Well, I don\u2019t really know, I think my mum\u2019s got a copy of Ziggy Stardust\u2026. So they bought me his back catalogue and said, \u2018Learn this.\u2019 I\u2019d come straight from school and was basically a bedroom nerd, and that\u2019s not cool. So I had to keep the bedroom nerd hidden, and create this cool, snotty, rock\u2019n\u2019roll attitude for myself. I look back now and it\u2019s all a bit (winces), You could have just been yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it a stretch to suggest one reason for Oakes\u2019s foundational template being so prominent now is that his Suede seniors feel a little guilty for bending him to the brand identity?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much emphasis on the early version of Suede,\u201d says Anderson, carefully. \u201cAnd not enough emphasis on the current line-up. Richard is such an underrated guitarist. He\u2019s been in the shadow of Bernard so much, because Bernard\u2019s persona is so huge, and Richard never competed but quietly got on with just being brilliant. He was encouraged to make \u2018Suede-like\u2019 music, which meant he could never quite be himself as a guitarist. Autofiction is such a good record because it\u2019s Richard. You\u2019re hearing Richard for the first time. And again with Antidepressants, I wanted him to lead. Richard is the most natural musician I\u2019ve ever worked with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oakes has a more measured perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s very gratifying to hear. But of course, immediately my thought is, Well, I\u2019ve put just as much of myself into all the other records. My teenage influences \u2013 Keith Levene, John McGeoch, The Fall, Wire \u2013 didn\u2019t really have a place in the writing in the early years. And I had to wait. When we did Autofiction, suddenly I felt it did have a place. The frame of mind when we started writing Autofiction was, Let\u2019s try and play to our strengths, be a band in a room again. One of the most prominent features of the band is the guitars. That\u2019s why my presence is a lot more obvious than it was. Certainly wasn\u2019t me elbowing my way to the front \u2013 because I\u2019m just not that guy.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/SUEDE_BW_IMG6067%C2%A9WESTENBERG.FIN_.v5.gr_.jpg” title_text=”SUEDE_BW_IMG6067\u00a9WESTENBERG.FIN.v5.gr” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Suede and their shadow selves, (from left) Oakes, Codling, Osman, Anderson, Gilbert, London, June 4, 2025<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

June 22, 2024. Midway through their set at the Isle Of Wight Festival, Suede debuted what would become the title track of their next album. A charged approximation of Sonic Youth covering Magazine\u2019s Shot By Both Sides, the acclaim which greeted the song during a subsequent three-week co-headlining UK tour with fellow Britpop dissenters Manic Street Preachers indicated its significance.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cThe response to Antidepressants was immediate, people were jumping up and down,\u201d says Codling. \u201cTwo gigs later and people had learned the words! Only half the record was written then, and we took that as a sign we were going in the right direction. That\u2019s why I think there\u2019s more up songs, more angry songs, than you\u2019d often find on Suede records. We realised the extent to which we leant on big, sweeping, romantic ballads was not necessarily what we needed to be doing at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Codling is part of the Suede songwriting inner circle, alongside Oakes and Anderson. Sometimes the three work together in Hanwell, with the singer bringing along a specific idea for the others to work around \u2013 for example, Autofiction\u2019s That Boy On The Stage \u2013 but more often it\u2019s the Suede \u2018new boys\u2019 going down what Oakes calls \u201cavenues of weirdness\u201d then sending a piece of music to Anderson. If he\u2019s inspired by it, he\u2019ll write a song. And if he isn\u2019t, the idea gets put aside. Or he does write a song, but it doesn\u2019t pass the subsequent filters: Gilbert and Osman, then Ed Buller. Oakes estimates Suede have \u201chundreds\u201d of unrealised first drafts for each album. In the Covid hiatus between Autofiction\u2019s recording and its release, Suede wrote what they thought would be its follow-up \u2013 a ballet soundtrack, the polar opposite to the record they\u2019d just finished. But such was the eventual response to Autofiction, the ballet idea was binned. Two of its grandiloquent mood pieces \u2013 Somewhere Between An Atom And A Star and Life Is Endless, Life Is A Moment \u2013 were, however, repurposed for Antidepressants.<\/p>\n

\u201cSongwriting is a strange puzzle to work out,\u201d Codling states. \u201cIt\u2019s about making the right choices. Towards the end of the \u201990s there were lots of bad decisions made. That we got back together at all is like, We\u2019ve got unfinished business. We still have to prove people wrong. There\u2019s still records to be made. We know we can\u2019t fuck up like we used to. If we\u2019re making a record once every three years, you can\u2019t have six years between decent records. So we can\u2019t afford to make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-77531105.jpg” title_text=”Suede Portrait Session 1994″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

New dog, old tricks (from left) Oakes, Osman, Anderson and Gilbert, New York City, November 1994.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

The sleeve art for Antidepressants features the words \u201cBroken Music For Broken People\u201d imprinted in the shape of an X. Both the stencil block typography and the slogan\u2019s elliptical logic suggest Brett Anderson paying tribute to his teenage love of Essex anarcho-punk pioneers Crass.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a homage to Gee Vaucher,\u201d he says. \u201cHer artwork for those Crass albums is absolutely fucking brilliant. The Feeding Of The 5000 [Crass\u2019s 1978 debut], I can just stare at that. I think she\u2019s a genius. Bizarrely enough, we were going to do some work together for A New Morning, the last [pre-split] Suede album, but my head wasn\u2019t in the right place and it didn\u2019t work out. Lots of things in those days didn\u2019t really work out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grafitti\u2019d wall on Antidepressants\u2019 inner sleeve is a nod to the cover of the second Crass album, 1979\u2019s Stations Of The Crass, while the scrawled words \u2013 \u201cDesolation as an art\u201d; \u201cThis life belongs to you\u201d; \u201cI look in my house it\u2019s a luxury design but there\u2019s shit on the walls that I\u2019m hiding behind\u201d \u2013 similarly evoke Crass\u2019s negationist diktats. In fact they\u2019re lyrics from three separate Antidepressants songs \u2013 Disintegrate, Sweet Kid and the title track \u2013 while \u201cBroken Music For Broken People\u201d was an album working title and the song of that name one of the thematic keystones. It\u2019s in the Suede tradition of beautiful loser anthems such as 1996 hit single Trash, albeit with a very different sonic landscape: instead of druggy insouciance there\u2019s fractious anxiety, a gleeful post-millennium psychosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThematically, it\u2019s a lot different from Autofiction,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cMore paranoid and neurotic. The little tannoy voices you hear going through the record was an attempt to reflect that sense of the 21st century where it feels like you\u2019re being issued with commands the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like \u2018Mind The Gap\u2019 or \u2018See It, Say It, Sort It\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, this sense of being a citizen in a benign yet oppressive world. When you get on the train, you\u2019ve kind of been issued these commands, and then you put your headphones in and it\u2019s \u2018Connected! Disconnected!\u2019. But also I like the joy in defying that control. Broken Music For Broken People is a the-weak-shall-inherit the earth song \u2013 a song of defiance. Like, if there\u2019s hope, it lies with the proles, that kind of sentiment.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-1397496491.jpg” title_text=”Suede Perform In Berlin” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Ghostdancing in the dark: Anderson and Codling, Berlin Columbiahalle, May 15, 2022<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

In George Orwell\u2019s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith ultimately has his hope crushed by the machine. But before the bleak denouement, Orwell offered a dream vision of another country, the \u201cGolden Country\u201d, a half-remembered rural utopia that possibly never really existed. Suede\u2019s version of the Golden Country is Dancing With The Europeans, its title inspired by a gig in Spain which lifted Anderson out of a low phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a \u2018Heroes\u2019-esque romp around Europe,\u201d he laughs. \u201cWell, a metaphorical romp. I\u2019m well beyond the actual romping age, I\u2019m afraid!\u201d<\/p>\n

Being that we are now deep into Suede\u2019s black period, Dancing With The Europeans naturally features a flagrant suggestion of the introductory guitar riff from The Cult\u2019s \u201980s student disco staple, She Sells Sanctuary. Mat Osman looks pleased when MOJO extends the Cult analogy, suggesting Antidepressants could be their Love to Autofiction\u2019s Dreamtime. \u201cTotally!\u201d he says. \u201cMe and Brett loved Dreamtime. I saw them in Brighton on the tour before that, which would have been Death Cult. They were dressed completely in black. And the next time it was the full Native American stuff, properly loud and unashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suddenly looks thoughtful.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I get older, music becomes more important to me. That sense of music, especially of live music, as being this joyous, elevating thing, that wipes away the grey of late-stage capitalism, it\u2019s wonderful! As you get older, there\u2019s less magic in the world. There\u2019s less transcendence. But quite soon, when we start playing gigs, there\u2019ll be a moment when I think, What the fuck am I doing? I\u2019m a 50-something-year-old man, why am I throwing myself around the stage? I should be writing books, doing civilised things. Then something happens, a song goes off, and you see faces in the audience, people moving as one, and you just think, Fuck it. That\u2019s it! I mean, that\u2019s exactly it. And it\u2019s truly anti-depressing.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

\u201cWe can stretch Suede and get arty and do unusual things, but it always snaps back to being a rock band.\u201d<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Brett Anderson<\/h3>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Much is made of the weaponry that Suede lost during the band\u2019s first two phases. Understandably so, because both Justine Frischmann and Bernard Butler are significant figures whose departures had major ramifications. When future Elastica frontwoman Frischmann left in 1991, frustrated at her preferred vision being drowned out, Butler raised his game, without which Suede would never have emerged from London\u2019s early-\u201990s indie morass. Butler\u2019s exit threw the band into crisis, forcing a panicked rebuild that should never have worked, yet somehow did. Would Suede be such a potent force 30 years on had either of those two stayed, or indeed had anyone else other than Richard Oakes or Neil Codling joined?<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

Today Suede are, in Codling\u2019s words, \u201ca cottage industry\u201d. They self-finance each album, recording in brief, intense, diligently prepped sessions. Budgets are tight and resourcefulness a must: the guitar parts for Autofiction and Antidepresants were laid at Benny Andersson\u2019s RMV Studios in Stockholm after Richard Oakes\u2019s Swedish wife negotiated a half-price deal. \u201cThis is the new reality,\u201d Oakes says. \u201cBack in the \u201990s, we\u2019d be funded to spend months and months in the studio, where we were just sitting around reading the paper and smoking. And rather than complain about how great it was in the old days, we make it work now, in the present.\u201d He pauses. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t so great in the old days anyway. Piling money onto a bunch of irresponsible young men is not a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the author of 2019\u2019s traumatic rise and fall memoir Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn, Brett Anderson can certainly attest to that. It seems fair to suggest the vitality of his and Suede\u2019s present is a function of just how fast they rose and how hard they fell. The sleeve of Antidepressants features Anderson silhouetted between two animal carcasses, in tribute to the famous 1962 Vogue photograph of Francis Bacon. Not exactly subtle \u2013 but that\u2019s a luxury Suede can no longer afford.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about mortality, the fragility of life, the fact that we\u2019re not here for long,\u201d Brett Anderson says with a smile. \u201cI\u2019m plummeting towards my sixties, and it\u2019s terrifying and liberating. There\u2019s not much time left. Get your shit together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antidepressants is released September 5 via BMG. Suede Takeover is at the Southbank Centre throughout September 2025. Full info at suede.co.uk.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

IMAGES:<\/strong> Kevin Westenberg<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reintroducing The Band Twice derailed by egomania, hard drugs, and Britpop, Suede sashay on \u2013 wiser, sturdier and, they assert, more creative than ever. An upcoming new album \u2013 Antidepressants \u2013 revives formative influences (Magazine, The Cult, Crass) and points vigorously to the future. One in the eye for the pundits, and at least one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"akindell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}