Jim Reid from The Jesus And Mary Chain has revealed that when he and his brother William presented the final mixes of their debut album Psychocandy to bosses at their record label, they were told that the record was "a piece of shit.”
The Jesus and Mary Chain's frontman shared his memory of the meeting in an interview conducted for the Life of the Record podcast.
Psychocandy, the East Kilbride band's debut album, was released on November 18, 1985 on Blanco y Negro Records, a subsidiary label of Warners co-founded by Geoff Travis from Rough Trade. The record received rave reviews in the UK's influential weekly music papers, but the Reid brothers recall being initially fearful that their label might refuse to release the album, such was the reception they received from key figures at Warners.
'When we took the finished mixes of Psychocandy down to Warners, they just said it was a piece of shit," Jim Reid remembers. "They said, 'These are the demos. When are you going to make the record?' And we're going, Look, you don't get it. This is the record, and there won't be another one."
The Reid brothers were never under any illusions about the polarising nature of the band they formed in 1983. If they had been blind to this fact, the very first reviews they received in national music papers would have clued them in
"NME said we were the best thing since the Sex Pistols," William Reid recalled. "And Sounds said we were the worst group they'd ever seen. So that was kind of amazing."
