The 18 Carat Love Affair formed in 2009, comprised of members of many of Joyzine’s favourite bands. They played some fantastic shows (including one for our sister site Maps Magazine’s second birthday) before splitting up in 2012 and going on to form more of our favourite bands. And that, so we thought, was that.
However, with the release today of their debut single ‘Constructs’, it would appear that they had been merely biding their time. For thirteen years.
Thankfully it’s been worth the wait – ‘Constructs’ is a bouncy electropop banger, based on the teachings of The KLF’s The Manual (Or How To Have A Number One The Easy Way) including lyrics setting out a non-sensical dance routine that’s as likely to cause you to collide with a nearby punter, causing you to spill their drink, get in a fight and be ejected from your local indie disco as it is to win you any admirers for your fancy footwork.
So 18 Carat are back together? I can blow the dust off my best cravat in anticipation of the reunion gig? No, there are no gigs planned. However we can expect a second single in September, and there are semi-formed plans for an EP “if they find time to finish it up”.
We caught up with frontman Steve Horry (also of Prismatiqk and 586, amongst others) and guitarist Jim Rhesus (also of Subliminal Girls and Rhesus, amongst others) to find out more about what prompted this impromptu return and to delve into their musical pasts, as we asked them to share 10 formative songs each from key moments in their lives.
1) What is your earliest music-related memory? What do you remember being played at home when you were a child?
Jim Rhesus: Jilted John on TOTP or ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ being the first number one of the 1980s. John Lennon being shot.
Steve Horry: There was always loads of pop radio on when I was a kid, so my earliest musical memories are amazing 80s pop songs. My mum was (well, is) a big Beatles fan and my dad loves all things Motown, so there was a lot of that and a lot of ska and reggae. Top of the Pops was a must-watch every week. Dexys next to John Foxx next to Madness next to Human League…or stuff like my favourite TOTP transition ever: Guns ’n’ Roses doing ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ into The Beautiful South doing ‘Song For Whoever’. Amazing.
Anyway, picking ‘Digging Your Scene’ by The Blow Monkeys ‘cos it’s the earliest pop video I remember. My mum was obsessed with it and imprinted that obsession on her eldest son. That’s me, btw. I spent a lot of the 18 Carat Love Affair period trying to dress up like Dr. Robert.
2) What was the first record that you ever bought? Where did you get it and do you have any recollection of the experience?
Jim: The first record I bought was Shaky by Shakin’ Stevens . I remember getting a £5 record voucher and thinking that meant I could buy records but could only afford one. I was gutted.
Steve: I’m a massive nerd. MASSIVE. I was introduced at an impressionable age to HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds, so when I heard Ben Liebrand’s 1989 version of Jeff Wayne’s ‘The Eve Of The War’ I was instantly grabbed by it. Yes, the original is better, but LOOK AT HOW COOL THIS VIDEO IS. It was either this or ‘Requiem’ by the London Boys. I liked the acrobatics.
3) When did you really start to develop a passion for listening to music? How did that come about and what were you into at the time?
Jim: My uncle was a DJ in the early 80s, he made me a compilation with all sorts on, Police, the Belle Stars, the Boomtown Rats,I can still picture it. The first band I truly loved was Dire Straits. Alchemy Live is still one of the greatest ever records.
Steve: Just before Britpop, there was that early 90s pop reggae boom, which led to various compilations that put those early 90s records into context with loads of old stuff that I remembered from growing up. Rinsed those cassettes.
4) What was the first gig that you went to? Where was it and what was it like?
Jim: I saw Michael Jackson supported by Kim Wilde at Wembley when I was 12 with my Dad and his then girlfriend who was a backing singer for The Who. They split up soon afterwards. I haven’t thought about her since until now, I wonder where she is. She looked like she should have been in The Bangles. My first adult gig was The Farm live in Jersey. I was pulled up on stage, Ian Hooten gave me the mic and I sang ‘Altogether Now’ with him. He created a monster that day. I since asked him about it on myspace and he remembered it. The b&b owner offered to sell me some speed. I nearly reported him to the police. It was 1992.
Steve: Eternal – original 4 person first line up – supported by Michelle Gayle at Ilford Island. I went with my cousin. I had nothing to compare it to, but it was AWESOME. And look, have a listen to ‘Stay’. Go on. Here’s a link. See? AWESOME.
5) What are your memories of starting out making music? What was the first song that you learned to play?
Jim: Annoying the hell out of my brother with my Encore Strat with 5 strings learning ‘Come As You Are’.
Steve: I tried the trumpet as a nipper but lost interest. Then Britpop happened and guitars took over for a bit. The first song I learnt to play was ‘Babies’ by Pulp. Super-easy to play, and still a banger.
6) What was your first band/musical project? What music was influencing you at that time? What are your memories of playing your first gig and are there any recordings out there?
Jim: I am still in the same band, Dizzy Moth formed in 1993. All but the drummer are Subliminal Girls. First gig I had food poisoning. I had a bucket on stage. Covered ‘Vision Thing’ and ‘Pretty Vacant’. My guitar lead ran off the stage at the back. I had no amp and didn’t know any chords. Punk Rock Son. Danny Le Pelley’s talent carried me, as it does now.
Steve: Ignoring a school-age covers band…my first originals-only band: I was on bass and doing what was – in my mind – stuff influenced by Beck and Alex James and disco. We played our first gig at The Red Lion in Gravesend and it felt amazing. Finally! A stage! A big PA! People in the audience! I felt almost cool. After we finished this guy came up to me and said “I really loved your band! It reminded me of Ocean Colour Scene.” I quit the next day. Thankfully no recordings exist from that period, bar a video of the covers band rehearsing in a church where I’ve got really bad hair. For obvious reasons – it was a really bad haircut – that’s not online. Looking forwards is always better than looking backwards (he says, in an article about an old band), so here’s the dancey, 2-steppy, synthy pop duo I play in now instead.
7) What are your memories of starting 18 Carat? What was the first song that you wrote/recorded and what do you think now when you listen back to it?
Jim: I bumped into Steve on London Bridge. He said he had an idea for a band. I was in. Sub Girls had started to breed, Arran was doing Bridport Dagger, remember any of those melodies? Nope? Nor me (I wasn’t bitter)* so I thought why not. We rehearsed in Bowker’s bedroom in Balham. We saw sunrise every Sunday for two years.
* (Editors note: we do, I was particularly keen on ‘Wolves‘ and ‘Magpie’s Nest’)
Steve: HA! Bowker’s bedroom, all of us squeezing in between the bed and Bowker’s discarded clothes (ew), pissing off his housemates with our racket. On one occasion, having had enough, they threw a smoke bomb in the room. We tried – stupidly – to play through the increasingly thick blue smoke, but eventually gave in and stumbled towards where we thought the light must be. We were sneezing blue bogeys for weeks after.
Other than that…? Anxiety. During those rehearsals my anxieties meant that in the run up to our first gig the band were rehearsing instrumentals with no idea of how the actual songs went. It wasn’t until the week before the show I started actually singing in front of them. I gather it was a relief that the songs weren’t terrible…I think ‘Constructs’ was the first song I wrote for this band, actually. My previous band – 586 – had gone pear-shaped and I wanted to write something that made me happy, something to dance to. Listened back to the original demo of ‘Constructs’ just now and tbh it’s not far off where it ended up. There’s stuff I’d do differently now (yes, I know I only mixed it last Summer, but shhh), but it makes me happy.
So I guess, memories: STRAP IN, LADS. LONG VERSION INCOMING: when I was in 586 we were lucky that we got to meet loads of awesome people in awesome bands. It was a great time, all creativity and joy and ADVENTURE in the air. I made amazing friends at that time who are still friends now. During soundcheck for a show at The Old Blue Last, this guy from one of the other bands started talking to me. He was friendly and knew more about my guitar – a 1978 Gibson ES345 – than I did. I just thought it looked cool and was a nice colour. His band – Subliminal Girls – were great, we got on, and we stayed in touch. When 586 started falling apart, I bumped into him on London Bridge and we went for a pint and enthused at each other about The KLF and Julian Cope’s memoir Head On and talked about doing something musically together. This was Jim Rhesus, and he’s still enthusing about guitars and The KLF to me to this day.
The weekend after 586 split up, a guy I knew from Trash with excellent hair was playing a gig down the road from me. I’d bonded with him over a love of Suede and New Order, and have many fond memories of watching bootleg live videos of both in the post-club small hours with him. While his band played I got very drunk and once his set was finished, he asked me what I thought. Being very drunk and therefore very charming, I told him that his bass playing was amazing, but his band were shit, and he should join my new band instead. Then we enthused about how amazing Girls Aloud were and he agreed to join. This was Patrick Barrett.
I worked with Bowker, the drummer, in my day job. He’d tried to get me to ‘jam’ with him for ages, but I hated the word ‘jam’ and I was a bit of an angsty twat and wanted to keep work and not-work very separate. I eventually relented, went round to his house and he was such a great drummer I was actually intimidated to play in front of him. I forced him to stop doing all that clever stuff with his foot and play four-to-the-floor disco beats and he was in.
Kate Dornan was going out with a friend of mine and I knew she could play piano. What I didn’t know was that Kate is one of the best musicians I would ever meet and – even better – has excellent taste. Kate would play parts that elevated everything, and Jim and I learned very quickly that if we were offered an acoustic gig, we really couldn’t do it just the two of us, we’d need Kate to hold it all together. Even if she was more drunk than we were, she’d never hit a bum note. Jim and I did.
Then loads of great gig memories. We played shows with people like Les Carter, Rizzle Kicks, Black Daniel (featuring members of Warmduscher and Decius), a Japanese Ramones tribute band and…Lloyd Grossman? One show was attended by Peter Perret from The Only Ones, which was nice. Then another time we turned up to play a show at Proud in Camden thinking a barrier to keep the audience at a distance from the band was a bit unnecessary, but then spent a whole show being clawed at by an excitable front row.
Funny story about our worst show: Patrick was ill, so – not wanting to cancel – I decided to try singing and playing bass. Turned out this is very hard to do without rehearsal. Someone had given Jim a distortion pedal to try out. Jim didn’t really test it beforehand. As the first chorus kicked in of the first song, Jim decided to give the chorus a boost with this shiny new pedal. CUE TINNITUS-INDUCING WTF LEVELS OF GUITAR DISTORTION. MBV STYLE, BUT LESS SUBTLE. IT WAS SO LOUD YOU COULDN’T EVEN HEAR THE DRUMS, LET ALONE THE VOCALS. THE WINDOWS WERE ACTUALLY SHAKING. We struggled through the rest of the set, each chorus drowned in white noise. When it was over, I turned to Jim in the foulest of moods, and he just looked up thoughtfully and said: “Wow, did you hear that distortion pedal?”
YES JIM, I COULD HEAR YOUR DISTORTION PEDAL.
Oh! And there was this one time I did an interview with a French music magazine called Magic and forgot all about it, then took a trip to Paris on a whim and was confronted with my own face on Parisian newsstands. It was literally EVERYWHERE. That was a bit crackers.
In the absence of any previously-released 18 Carat, have the first 586 single instead.
8) Which band/artist do you think has had the biggest influence on your music over the years? What is it about them that inspires you?
Jim: Carter USM. Stalked them, became friends. The rest is history. Thank you for everything Les.
Steve: You wouldn’t think it based on listening to anything I’m making now, but Suede. If Britpop made me want to be in a band, Suede made me want to embrace being different. Supported them once, maybe 5 years ago. They’re still incendiary live, and they still hit a part of my brain no-one else can.
9) Who are some of your favourite current artists? What do you like about them?
Jim: Jason Isbell. The best living songwriter. Listen to ‘Elephant’ and tell me otherwise.
Steve: Buckle in, I’m going to ramble again, because: oh, loads. My listening tastes are all over the place at the moment. The last couple of Kiesza singles have been amazing. There’s a Melbourne based, multi-genre bass music artist called Pugilist who has made possibly my favourite 12” single of the year in the shape of his Monument EP. Steven Weston is a former touring buddy who makes phenomenal deep/progressive house records with some beautiful sound design. My friend Mark Heffernan makes eclectic, inventive art pop as Pocket Lint – it’s all lo-fi Casio keyboards and drum machines and tape machines, very Roxy Music in places. Parenthesis Dot Dot Dot are fabulous – I’m obsessed with For The Time Being from their last EP. 18 Carat bassist Patrick’s Silent Star are fab. Also really enjoying a lot of the 3 step stuff that emerged last year, Thakzin’s The Magnificent Dance, for example. Jonathan Bree…loads.
10) You have a new single out soon – your debut, 13 years after you split up. What took you so long and what happens next?
Jim: There is more. Steve is a perfectionist . He keeps wanting to “put another donk on it” We formed during Donk. By the time every song is out I will be drawing a pension or, more likely, dead.
Steve: lol. Less ‘perfectionist’, more ‘had other priorities!’ This single wouldn’t have happened if Jim hadn’t nagged me every couple of months for over a decade, bless him. The next single is a 9 and a half minute stadium Electroclash epic and is out in September. It’s ridiculous. I’ve just finished mixing a third track. The second half of the year is going to be mad busy, ‘cos if all goes to plan there will be the last couple of 18 Carat tracks, and I was talking to Jim yesterday about maybe sticking a 12” out. Also just finished recording the (amazing) final vocals for a Prismatiqk album that we’ll mix over the Summer for an Autumn release, and I’ve produced two tracks for the upcoming Kenton Hall & The Necessary Measures album which should also be out before the end of the year. Fun fun.
‘Constructs’ is out now as a digital download via Bandcamp
The 18 Carat Love Affair don’t have social media due to that whole splitting up over a decade ago thing, but you can find the current projects of the various members here:
Steve – instagram.com/stevenhorrymakesstuff or instagram.com/prismatiqk
Jim – instagram.com/subliminal_girls
Patrick & Bowker – instagram.com/silentstarband
Kate – http://shuntabalkanband.com and https://soniccollaborations.com/
Interview and colour photograph by Paul Maps
Header photo provided by the band
Keep up to date with all new content on Joyzine via our
Facebook | Bluesky | Instagram | Threads | Mailing List