Episode 22


Chemicrazy

by That Petrol Emotion

Episode 22 - Preview

Chemicrazy (Virgin Records, 1990). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

Episode Notes

Episode 22 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on Chemicrazy by That Petrol Emotion.

“That Petrol Emotion have never made a bad record” NME

In this episode Raymond Gorman and Steve Mack join me to discuss Chemicrazy, That Petrol Emotion’s fourth album, but we end up have a long chat about the band’s entire career: forming in Derry after the split of The Undertones, moving to London, The Fast Show’s Paul Whitehouse auditioning, Steve joining the band, the highs and lows of ten years together, recording Manic Pop Thrill with Hugh Jones, touring the US and Europe, writing and producing Chemicrazy with Scott Litt in California, putting the soon-to-be released career-spanning Boxset together and much, much more.

When I told my old friend Pádraig Collins, that I was doing an episode on Chemicrazy he wrote, “Chemicrazy is an amazing achievement considering their main songwriter had left, and then they go on to make their best album.” Now I wholeheartedly agree with Pádraig but I know that a lot of others will disagree – indeed Steve Mack the band’s charismatic frontman believes that The Petrols final album Fireproof is their finest moment. I know loads of people love Manic Pop Thrill or Babble just as much as I love Chemicrazy. For me it has everything to do with timing. I was 17 when the ‘Groove Check’ 10” EP was released, I had a part-time job and disposable income for the first time in my life. I bought that 10” and I was primed for the next record. Chemicrazy was a huge album for me and when I first told Pádraig that I was starting a podcast I had Chemicrazy towards the very top of my list.

I first saw That Petrol Emotion when the Chemicrazy tour reached Sir Henry’s in Cork on the 22nd of October 1990. It was electrifying. The drumkit was in the righthand corner of the stage, amps were positioned all along the back wall and Steve Mack had room to prowl that stage as only he could. He remains one of the greatest frontmen of any band and that night he and the lads just went for it – I’ve told people over the years that it was just a brilliant, brilliant gig. That Petrol Emotion were just phenomenal live.    

They released five albums, Manic Pop Thrill on Demon Records, reached the top of the Indie Charts in 1986, they signed to Polydor and Babble followed in 1987 reaching No. 30 in the UK Album Charts. They switched labels to Virgin and End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues was released in 1988 but fell short if its predecessor only reaching No. 53. Founding member John O’Neill left. Drummer Ciaran McLaughlin and guitarists Raymond Gorman and Damian O’Neill wrote some of the band’s strongest material and they flew to the States to record the next album Chemicrazy. This would surely be the one to break through. It contained a string of brilliant singles – ‘Abandon’, ‘Hey Venus’, ‘Sensitize’ and ‘Tingle’ – but inextricably only reached No. 62 in the UK Albums Chart. What the hell! They were dropped by Virgin and released the next record Fireproof, themselves. They ultimately hold a record for having the most singles – seven – that entered the Top 75 of the UK Singles Chart but failed to breach the Top 40. It’s a bittersweet record.

Manic Pop Thrill (Demon Records, 1986), Babble (Polydor Records, 1987) and End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues (Virgin Records, 1988). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

Raymond Gorman thinks that ultimately the politics just got in the way. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know. I do know, that for me and many, many others the civil rights messages on their sleeves were completely inspiring, an Irish band using their platform to discuss the reality of life in Northern Ireland.

That Petrol Emotion eventually broke up in 1994. Ten years and five albums.

Speaking in 2008 around the time of their reunion Raymond said: “We just had bad luck. We were on different labels and that didn’t help really. We didn’t have one continuous label and we changed between Babble and End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues. Babble was Rolling Stone's record of the year but we’d already left the record company so they didn’t want to promote us and Virgin didn’t want to do any promotion as it wasn’t their record so we completely fell in the middle and I think that momentum was definitely lost.”

In the same interview Steve pragmatically said: “As easy as it would be for us to blame the record company and some machinations of the music industry, it’s like people didn’t buy the fucking records for whatever reason and that’s OK. You just have to be Zen about it. It is what it is and we tried our best and we got to live our dream for ten years.” That’s a great attitude to have about it all.

For Further Reading/Listening:

To Here Knows When column in The Goo on Chemicrazy…

The career-spanning Boxset Every Beginning Has A Future: An Anthology 1984-1994 was released on 25 November 2022 via Edsel/Demon Records.

That Petrol Emotion - Every Beginning Has A Future: An Anthology 1984-1994 (Edsel/Demon Records, 2022)

In the episode I talk to Raymond about a piece he wrote for the book In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland’s Music Community about seeing Dexy’s live in Coleraine in 1979. The book was published by Hope Publications in 2017 but because it is long since sold out I’ve reproduced the piece here.

I mentioned in the outro of this episode that Hope Publications have just published Punks Listen. It is designed to raise funds for the Red Cross Ukraine Refugee appeal. The new book, “is a collection of pieces of writing from musicians, writers, actors and music fans. They were asked to write about a record (or a gig) that was significant to them and includes over 200 contributions.” I highly recommend it and it can be purchased here.