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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Interviews by Chris Broughton

‘The song got us signed but I hated it’: how Haircut 100 made Fantastic Day

Haircut 100 with Les Nemes, left and Nick Heyward, centre, on American Bandstand in 1982.
A nod to Sheena Easton … Haircut 100 with Les Nemes, left, and Nick Heyward, centre, on American Bandstand in 1982. Photograph: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images

Nick Heyward, songwriter/vocals, guitar

If I’d been sitting down when I wrote Fantastic Day, it would have been a different song, but I was standing up in front of a chocolate-brown wall with the names of all my favourite punk bands scribbled on it. I was envisioning the future. It was 1978, and my family had moved across London to a place called the Ski Club of Great Britain where my parents ran the bar. We lived in the basement and I had a tiny room that was like a ship’s cabin.

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