But the story starts earlier.. EMI wanted a new hit single, I was still living with Magenta at Pindock mews. The plan was to get the producer of ZZ TOP to work with us, they wanted to record REBEL REBEL for the single.. the producer flew over and we couldnt see how he could do it! our dreams of recording in Memphis evaporated... the demo of it appears on First generation.

One sunny afternoon we wrote Success and sequenced it and we went to the pub to celebrate, without saving. When we came back the sequencer had crashed and we were convinced we’d never find the dream beat again! The Waterman Saga started..

Meanwhile LIMINHA (who was delightful) was brought in to work on Rio Rocks and the SSS Experiment camp years started. All the summer of 87 we worked, Gary Langham came to set up the sound.. he was great.. it all culminated in a great party at the studios as we finished.. every thing’s on video... see it on the history pages.

The record was finally mixed over 3 weeks at Great Linford Manor in Milton Keynes...

The sleeve was conceived from a famous Picasso photo I'd seen in a newspaper.. the typeface from a book about the Mafia (it's a common face now.. standard on a Mac even). The references to William Gibson and Bruce Stirling were prominent, a long time before the rest of the world of cyber punk caught up! I loved the Caligula 1990 bit .. a decadent future...

EMI were being really difficult with the band by now and it was hard to get proper promotion for the record..or money to finish it, its always the same, you find the people who worked with you when you signed have left and the new people don't like you unless you have sold enough records to get the grovel factor required..

Success was almost a big hit but just lost out to the Christmas rush, videos were made for Albinoni and Dancerama and fun in Marbella with Success.... but I’d let some of the fundamental ideas slip like never being photographed in daylight. There we were in swimming trunks, drinking champagne on the beach. It wasn't the vision of the future I’d worked so hard to create. As soon as you let go it takes a long time to get it back.

We mixed special versions of all the tracks to release in the future...