beats or other dance elements. The next big thing in rock music, grunge, was still very much an underground concern and it was only just starting to filter through to the UK with Nirvana releasing their debut album Bleach . It was still the time of raves and ecstasy and although none of Flickernoise were exactly ravers, they were heavily influenced by the scene.
“They had a track called ‘MDMA’” remembers Shaun, “which tells you a lot about the time, the early 1990s. It was a really beautiful song. There was one song (‘Apocalypse’) where Thom did a guitar solo, which I was very impressed by. I thought, ‘Oh, he can do that as well!’ It was his singing that struck me but he was always a good guitarist as well.”
“It was an amazing guitar solo that he did,” agrees John Matthias. “Really quite astonishing.” But Thom never felt entirely comfortable in Flickernoise and he only stayed with them for a handful of gigs. He described it later as a “computer-with-dreadlocks” band. However much he might have appreciated elements of electronic music, he was still an indie kid at heart and, having already written many of the songs that would later appear on Pablo Honey , he knew where his destiny lay and it wasn’t with Shack.
“Shack didn’t want to play guitars anymore,” John says. “For a time we all worked together and then Thom went back to Oxford and … that was a fait accompli, really.” Despite his keenness to get back to On A Friday, Thom’s eyes had been widened by his experiences at Exeter. Although his new influences wouldn’t come out in his own music for almost ten years, with 2000’s Kid A , he’d already begun experimenting with new sounds.
“That was really the most influential period for all of us,” he said to Rolling Stone’s Mark Binelli later. “The Happy Mondays. The Stone Roses. At the end, Nirvana. It was just an interesting period of transition: lots of electronic stuff, lots of indie bands, and it was permissible for it to be all mixed up.”
He also took part in a performance called the Contemporary Music Festival, set up by John Matthias, which was an art ‘happening’ far removed from the grunge bands he was increasingly listening to. John and Shack wrote a piece of music called ‘Flickernoise’, which was based on a mathematical formula that was found in many sounds in nature. It was semi-random and Thom’s role was to sing behind a curtain, almost wailing his vocal over the top.
“It was interesting,” Shaun remembers. “John, Shack and Thom worked together to create this semi-random music. It was determined by chance. Thom did an imitation of an Islamic singer calling people to prayer. He was doing it quite convincingly, standing behind a curtain.”
In his third year at Exeter, Thom also became increasingly politicised. It was towards the end of Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister and the country was changing. In 1990 she introduced the Community Charge, better known as the Poll Tax. Thom was one of approximately 200,000 people who congregated in Trafalgar Square in London for what turned into the biggest riot the city had seen in the 20 th Century. What he saw shocked him. The police couldn’t disperse the crowd and they were terrified that they would attempt to force their way past the newly installed gates in front of Margaret Thatcher’s residence on Downing Street. They ended up charging the crowd on horseback and driving police vans right through the centre. Five thousand people were injured. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before and the images stayed with him. Years later he’d use the footage in the video for his single‘Harrowdown Hill’, using it as a symbol for on-going government oppression. Thom was also involved in the protests against student loans, which were brought in by the then Conservative Government in 1990. Thom’s time at Exeter had an enormous impact on him in numerous different ways. He’d been
“They had a track called ‘MDMA’” remembers Shaun, “which tells you a lot about the time, the early 1990s. It was a really beautiful song. There was one song (‘Apocalypse’) where Thom did a guitar solo, which I was very impressed by. I thought, ‘Oh, he can do that as well!’ It was his singing that struck me but he was always a good guitarist as well.”
“It was an amazing guitar solo that he did,” agrees John Matthias. “Really quite astonishing.” But Thom never felt entirely comfortable in Flickernoise and he only stayed with them for a handful of gigs. He described it later as a “computer-with-dreadlocks” band. However much he might have appreciated elements of electronic music, he was still an indie kid at heart and, having already written many of the songs that would later appear on Pablo Honey , he knew where his destiny lay and it wasn’t with Shack.
“Shack didn’t want to play guitars anymore,” John says. “For a time we all worked together and then Thom went back to Oxford and … that was a fait accompli, really.” Despite his keenness to get back to On A Friday, Thom’s eyes had been widened by his experiences at Exeter. Although his new influences wouldn’t come out in his own music for almost ten years, with 2000’s Kid A , he’d already begun experimenting with new sounds.
“That was really the most influential period for all of us,” he said to Rolling Stone’s Mark Binelli later. “The Happy Mondays. The Stone Roses. At the end, Nirvana. It was just an interesting period of transition: lots of electronic stuff, lots of indie bands, and it was permissible for it to be all mixed up.”
He also took part in a performance called the Contemporary Music Festival, set up by John Matthias, which was an art ‘happening’ far removed from the grunge bands he was increasingly listening to. John and Shack wrote a piece of music called ‘Flickernoise’, which was based on a mathematical formula that was found in many sounds in nature. It was semi-random and Thom’s role was to sing behind a curtain, almost wailing his vocal over the top.
“It was interesting,” Shaun remembers. “John, Shack and Thom worked together to create this semi-random music. It was determined by chance. Thom did an imitation of an Islamic singer calling people to prayer. He was doing it quite convincingly, standing behind a curtain.”
In his third year at Exeter, Thom also became increasingly politicised. It was towards the end of Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister and the country was changing. In 1990 she introduced the Community Charge, better known as the Poll Tax. Thom was one of approximately 200,000 people who congregated in Trafalgar Square in London for what turned into the biggest riot the city had seen in the 20 th Century. What he saw shocked him. The police couldn’t disperse the crowd and they were terrified that they would attempt to force their way past the newly installed gates in front of Margaret Thatcher’s residence on Downing Street. They ended up charging the crowd on horseback and driving police vans right through the centre. Five thousand people were injured. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before and the images stayed with him. Years later he’d use the footage in the video for his single‘Harrowdown Hill’, using it as a symbol for on-going government oppression. Thom was also involved in the protests against student loans, which were brought in by the then Conservative Government in 1990. Thom’s time at Exeter had an enormous impact on him in numerous different ways. He’d been
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