MADE FRIENDS.INFLUENCED PEOPLE

In the 90s they were high flyers, then the fall hit them hard. Having picked themselves up, Terrorvision are back with their first new album in more than a decade, and it’s full of top tunes.

- Dave Ling

When Terrorvision frontman Tony Wright is asked how it feels for his band to be releasing their first album in 13 years, there’s a note of triumph in his voice when hereplies: “How does it feel? It just feels right. Tempus fugit [Latin for ‘time flies’] and all that.”

Classic Rock is talking to Wright over Zoom. Back in the 1990s, the interview might have been conducted around a record company boardroom table, or in a posh hotel or swish bar in a foreign country. In those days Terrorvision were no strangers to selling large quantities of records, travelling all over the world and living something of the high life you might have expected of a commercially successful band. Having risen to prominence during the anything-goes era of the Seattle explosion, the Yorkshiremen had the best of both worlds: an obtuse, colourful sense of humour, and, crucially, songs with choruses to die for. Their second album, and debut for EMI Records, 1994’s How To Make Friends And Influence People, spawned no less than five UK Top 30 singles, and as the decade ended it took The Offspring’s Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) to deny Terrorvision the No.1 spot with their annoyingly addictive party banger Tequila.

But nothing lasts forever, and by 2001, with chart success dwindling, the group had decided to call it a day.

Following a one-off reunion in Scarborough in 2005, two years later they became active once again, eventually released a comeback album, Super Delux, in 2011, and later were part of the Britrock Must Be Destroyed package tour alongside The Wildhearts and Reef.

During Classic Rock’s 40-minute conversation with Wright, two important themes surface.