This Autumn, Somerset rockers REEF will play a special run of dates across the UK to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘Replenish’. 

website - REEF

Return To Sound: “So, straight away, we're talking about the debut album, Replenish, and this tour, where you’ll be playing the whole album, I take it? 

Gary Stringer: “Yeah, everything on the album is going to be live”.

RTS: “Obviously, you've got two different band members now that you didn't have when the album came out, was it 30 years ago? My first thought was, I'm guessing you're rehearsing these tracks with the newer members. Do you think that's added anything, or does it just sound a little bit different, are they just nailing it as it was?”

GS: “Well, the band's as good as it's ever been. It's a pleasure to play with everybody. Luke Bullen, he's a world-class drummer, he's played with Brian Ferry and Joe Strummer, all sorts of people, he's tip-top, and he actually came in and recorded the drums for Shoot Me Your Ace, our record, two years ago, and he nailed it. In the morning, it was quite crazy, really, the talent that he's got.

“And Amy Newton on the guitar, she's a superstar. She can sing, she can shred, and everybody just fits together. So, it's a great line-up at the moment”.

“It's crazy to be going on tour, playing an album that you wrote 30 years ago, but we did have one rehearsal, because we're playing all the time anyway, and a few of these songs are already in our set, but we went up to Luke's studio up in Norfolk, and we went up there for a couple of days, and I hadn't listened to the record for 30 years. You don't listen to your own music. You don't play your own music. You master it, and then you move on. I said in an interview the other day, the last time I listened to this album, start to finish, was 30 years ago at the Mastering, getting the running order right, and all the top and bottom levels, and making sure it's in the right pocket, sonically. I was driving back from London, maybe a month ago now, and played it, and it's funny, the first line is “driving home, back from the city", on the song “Feed Me”.

“So it's quite fitting. So I'm driving out of town, and it sounded banging. It sounded great. There were no real cringe moments. And when we went up with Luke, and had a run through, I remembered all the words, so it must be some sort of muscle memory in there, man”.

RTS: “It's a great record, indeed. Were there any of the songs that you'd sort of forgotten, just surprised you a bit when you went back to them, and started working through them again?”

GS: “I mean, probably apart from Luke's, we've pretty much played most of these, you know, on and off. Obviously, we've got however many records we've got now, five or six. And yeah, it was really easy. I remembered everything, and so did the band, and yeah, it was great".

“And, you know, I can't wait. So we'll come out, we'll play the whole album, go off, and then come back on and play, you know, 30, 40 minutes, 45, whatever, from the rest of our catalogue”.

“On the South Coast, you've only got Bournemouth now. That's the one left down there not sold out. We're going up to Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, going over to Wales. So it's all in the UK. We're off to Norway tomorrow, but the Replenish tour is just through the UK”.

RTS: “It's a different angle, the focus is normally your latest album, isn't it? And this one's like, looking backwards, I mean, it happens to every artist eventually, I suppose. But the numbers are scary, aren't they? When you start looking at these anniversaries of any album, it's like…”

GS: “Yeah, I know what you're thinking, I don't look old enough to have a record, 30 years old?” (chuckle and smirk).

RTS: “Exactly that, yeah haha”.

GS: “Yeah, 30 years ago, well, probably 31 years ago, we were recording. We started off at Moles in Bath. We played a couple of shows and they had a studio above so we did a few songs there. And I can remember the sun coming up, sitting on the balcony right at the top of those Georgian houses, you know, high as a kite and happy as Larry. We went down to Sawmills, you know, loads of bands have been down to Sawmills on the River Foy. We finished it off there with a fantastic producer and engineer called Clive Martin, who really did everything. And, recording to tape and learning for the first time, making that record, that you could cut the tape. So, if you did three takes and the start of one was really good and the end of the other was really good, get out the razor blade and slice and splice, you know. It's crazy”.

RTS: “ Yeah, now it's click, click, click, there you go all done. And those songs, were they rehearsed down to the last beat because they sound quite fluid and funky, particularly that album, sound sort of jammed, but I'm guessing that's maybe how you wrote them?.

GS: “We knew what we were doing because we'd been playing them probably for a year. We'd been playing in back rooms of pubs for about a year. We got signed quite quickly. We went to London. Me and Jack had been in a band, we played down in Cornwall for six months. We lived in a room with four other guys and we went home with dysentery. And then we went off traveling. I went to Morocco, came back with “Good Feeling".

“Jack went out to New York and he had the riff to "Mellow" and we met up in Somerset plotting a campaign wrote "Mellow" together. If you listen to "Mellow", it's all about the sun and sea of being in Morocco and how happy I was with it and how stoked I was to be young and, you know, into surfing and into music. So we had those two songs and went up to London. I got a job, but we were lucky to be signed up within six months. We used to rehearse in my bedroom, pull the double mattress up against the wall”.

“Most of that record was written with the boys in that room. And we were sending out photos and tapes, back to old school to U2's management and all the labels in London and da-da-da. And we had a bite, with Sony S2 we got the tape to Lincoln Elias and he played it. They came and watched us play a show at the Marquee and they signed us like the next day. So it was quite quick once we went to London. I think they loved the fact we were living in the same house and most of the songs were written in there”.

“I think we probably recorded 14 songs and there were a couple of B-sides that we used. When we got signed, they sent us out. We cut a 7-inch with “Good Feeling” and “Choose to live” on the B-side. They bought us a van, sent us out doing pub shows all across the country. Luckily enough, Paul Weller heard the 7-inch and really liked the B-side, "Choose to live", which is obviously on Replenish, he put us on his Wild Wood Tour. So we were off”.

“We were rocked going from, you know, 50, 100 people a night to Aston Villa Leisure Centre, Birmingham!”.

RTS: “That would have been, 94?”

GS: “Yeah, so I don't know what year the Wild Wood Tour would have been. 94 or was it 95? 

RTS: “I was just thinking that's at the height of Britpop and you're at the end of grunge. How did you fit into all those scenes?”

GS: “ We always wanted to be a rock and roll band and the roll part was really important to us. We never wanted to be just a rock band. But I think that made us quite hard to place at the start. We got a lot of press, with Kerrang! and Raw and those rock mags. And that was all. And, you know, with the first record, “the Inkeys” gave us quite a hard time. You know, they'd be taking the piss. There was the odd good review, but basically, they were gnarky about everything. But by the time we made our second record, they'd given us front covers. We had the highest selling front cover of The Enemy when Glow came out. So funnily enough, they changed their tune. But yeah, where do we fit in? I don't know”.

“I don't really care. I mean, you know, we loved grunge. We were banging to Nirvana. But if you think about the decade of the 90s, it was crazy, really. I mean, I was working in a record counter, you know, in 1990. You had that World Cup, you know, The La’s released their debut album. Banging from start to finish. So you had those seeds of Britpop there, maybe. And I remember Massive Attack being released early doors in the 90s. That was brought to my record counter. The reps would bring in stuff. They brought a 12 inch in of "Unfinished symphony". And, you know, it was just fantastic, it was already off to a good start that decade. And then you had grunge, what grunge did was bring guitars onto Radio One. You know, whether the Britpop boys want to admit it or not, that paved the way to get guitar bands onto the mainstream radio and that really helped. And yes, middle of the 90s onwards, we had the Britpop thing and, you know, the rest is history”. 

RTS: “Then, of course, a bit of TV exposure. Thanks to your good man, Chris Evans?”

GS: “I mean, that really happened more around the second record. But before that, there was The beat and stuff like that. But, when TFI came out, it was a gift. It was an absolute gift for bands and everyone would go on there and play and then go off and do a show somehow, or stay drinking”

RTS: “Was it as crazy as it looked behind the scenes there?”

GS: “It was absolutely, as there was a pub across the road. Go and get steamrolled in there. But yeah, it's just a great vibe. And having, live music on TV, Chris Evans, deserves a lot of applause for that. Obviously our second record, he really picked up. Yeah, his energy was fantastic. And that show was great fun”.

RTS: “ Here we are in 2025. If you could go back, meet yourself in Glastonbury, have a chat with yourself as you are now with the knowledge you've now got. What would you say to your young self?”

GS: “I’d probably think I was a bit of a twat. But, you know, you're young and you're ambitious. You're full of it, aren't you? But what would I say to change? Maybe beware of when the businessmen get involved, you know, they're always fucking you up the ass. There's no doubt about that. But you have to make your peace with that”.

“The record deals you're signing were pretty average, but they allowed us to tour the world. The tour support was a big deal with the record company. You know, helped you to go to America and all the way through Europe and spent huge amounts of money on making records. We made three records in America and we were there for, you know, six months at a time. It was fantastic. And I wouldn't swap that. So as much as artists might moan about that situation, that is the situation. And now it's probably worse with Spotify, I mean, good luck to the youngsters, you know, trying to make that money. That's the way it is for a musician, not a month goes by when someone doesn't drop into my inbox and say, Oh, would you come and do this? It'd be great exposure. After a while, you're like, you know, man, no, I just do stuff I want to do”.

“And, you know, to get out with the Reefs to tour this record, we've had a fantastic year. This year has been probably our busiest, well, since we released Shooting Your Ace a couple of years ago. It's been storming. So we're doing all right, man. I'm 50-odd years old still making a living out of music and still enjoying it”. 

RTS: “So it sounds like you wouldn't have much to say to your younger self except enjoy the ride, really?”. 

GS: “The first 10 years was bonkers, you know, from Replenish being released. Our first single, "Good Feeling", went top 30, our second single went top 10. The album went top 10, Replenish. Got a gold record out of it. We released a single in the meantime, "Weird", which went top 40, then we released "Place Your Hands", which went crazy. Yeah, yeah”.

“That was 96, I think we released that. So it was all so quick. And we went and met George Drakoulias, I think we toured with Kyuss over on the west coast of America, and did some support with them. And then we met George, and he came over to Abbey Road to start recording Glow for us. But he didn't like the white coats, the rules and regs with the timing then with the engineers and whatnot. He wanted us to come to his house, you know, come to his place”.

“So we're out in American studios where if you want, you can have your drums tuned at 4am in the morning, someone will come out and do it. If you want a percussion track laid down, you know, you can ring at any time and you'll find someone to come out and do it. You can get whatever you want, it's great fun. And we were into surfing, so we loved that. We'd be surfing points at Malibu and Zeros and having a really fun time. And he did a fantastic job, and it was wonderful to be over there in Los Angeles having the best time”.

RTS: “While you were over there, did you get to meet any of your heroes?” 

GS: “I didn't say a word, you know. We just clammed up. I pretty much just shut up and ate dinner, with Joe Strummer. But George knows everyone, you know. I remember Billy Duffy coming in the studio and we had Rose Stone sing on "Place Your Hands". Fantastic. Yeah, we went for coffee one morning and Ben Stiller was there. It's just good, honest fun. Yeah, anything could happen”.

RTS: “So talking of famous people, Andy Taylor. Did he just produce the last album or did he play on it as well?”

GS: “ He played on it. He helped write it. I'd gone out and sung a couple of songs on his solo record in Ibiza, I had a nice time and I said to him, maybe would you want to come and play a show, I think he joined us to play two or three songs at Glastonbury then came and saw our studio, which at that time was in Bruton, Somerset. We're up in Bristol now, but, you know, he walked in and we started playing at 11 in the morning, finished at seven at night, just rocking out”.

“I don't think he'd done that for a while, out in Ibiza, maybe he was doing his own thing. I'm sure he was playing of course but just to come in and play in a band, I think he really enjoyed it. And we certainly did so we wrote Shoot Me Your Ace. We wrote that so quick and recorded it so quick. Rocking out for sure, it's a good rock and roll record.

RTS: “So the shows keep coming up. All these shows singing, your voice, do you have to look after it? Do you have to be a little bit careful?”

GS: “Well, I always warm up for about an hour before each show. But, yeah, I mean, I don't drink on show nights now or if I'm singing the next day, singing's important to me. And it's more important now than going and getting fucked up”.

RTS: ”Yeah, it's your livelihood”.

GS: “Yeah, yeah. It's pretty full on. It's not a hobby, Dan”.

Interview for Return To Sound by Dan Reddick

‘Replenish’ UK Dates

16th October – Rock City, Nottingham

17th October – SWG3, Glasgow

18th October – UEA, Norwich

23rd October – O2 Academy, Bournemouth

24th October – O2 Academy, Bristol

25th October – 1865, Southampton

30th October – O2 Ritz, Manchester

31st October – O2 Academy, Liverpool

1st November – De Valence Pavilion, Tenby

2nd November – Patti Pavilion, Swansea

6th November – O2 Academy, Leeds

7th November – O2 Institute, Birmingham

8th November – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London

Tickets for all dates available here.