The band’s Small Time album was well received on its 2012 release, more than twenty years after its 1991-recording. The belated release followed the inclusion of 1990’s Disinterest in Mojo magazine’s 2011 list of the greatest British indie records of all time.[2]
Westlake’s urbane English songwriting was well received by the press, and first single “She’s Always Hiding” was released on Head Records in March 1986, the band having declined offers from Statik, Stiff, and Él.[5] A Peel session followed.
Keen to distance themselves from the “shambling” scene, The Servants earned a reputation for haughtiness. They grudgingly accepted an invitation by the then-popular NME to appear on their C86 compilation, insisting on the track being the B-side of their first single – the wrong-footing “Transparent”. The NME compilation turned out to sell well and The Servants became known for a lesser track.
Four-song EPThe Sun, a Small Star (August ’86) showed Westlake’s songwriting becoming still more deft. Its title-track was later described as “a 24 carat ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ classic”.[6]
Luke Haines was in The Servants from December 1986 to August 1991. Drummer Hugh Whitaker left The Housemartins and joined The Servants in June 1987 (staying until August ’89),[6] as the band returned to the studio to demo new material for Creation Records.
In early 1988, The Servants moved to Glass Records, who invited the band to record an album. Plans were made to go into the studio with John Brand, producer of Hayes punk band The Ruts. At the eleventh hour, the band were told that Glass distributors Red Rhino had “gone bust”. Budget slashed, the band went into the studio to record third single “It’s My Turn”. They played live to support the single but Glass delayed releasing the record for a year.
The Servants released debut album Disinterest in July 1990 on Paperhouse Records. “It is art rock”, Haines later said, “Ten years too late and fifteen years too early.”[6] The record company took The Servants’ fourth and final single, “Look Like A Girl”, from Disinterest.
Westlake and Haines recorded The Servants’ second album, Small Time, in 1991. Not until twenty-one years later – following the inclusion of Disinterest in Mojo magazine’s 2011 list of the greatest British indie records of all time,[2] – was it released, in 2012 on Cherry Red Records. Small Time is Westlake’s own favourite Servants record.[7] The songs are, says Haines, “looser, more mysterious, strange and beautiful, . . . sounding . . . like nothing else really.”[1]
The long unavailability of 1990’s Disinterest is explained in the Small Time notes: it is “stuck in an irretrievable record company quagmire, where it looks set to remain.”[1]Hey Hey We’re the Manqués, a seventeen-track album released at the same time as Small Time, contains demos and rehearsal versions of first-album material.
The Servants’ last gig was at the Rock Garden, London WC2 on 21 August 1991 – “With no room to manoeuvre and no opportunities left”, the band finally called it a day.[6]
Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch told U.S. music magazine The Big Takeover (issue 53, 2004) that he was a huge Westlake fan and that he had tried to locate Westlake in the early ’90s in the hope of forming a band with him, before starting Belle & Sebastian.[8]
Cherry Red Records released a 2006 retrospective of The Servants, called Reserved. The compilation features all of the releases prior to the Disinterest album plus Peel session tracks and demos.
Westlake and Haines played live together for the first time in twenty-three years at the Lexington, London N1 on 4 May 2014.[9] Westlake and band played at an NME C86 show on 14 June 2014 in London to coincide with Cherry Red’s expanded reissue of C86.[10]
David Westlake solo
David Westlake recorded an album for Creation Records in 1987. He was backed by Luke Haines (making his recording debut) and The Triffids’ rhythm section. If not for the lack of a full-time rhythm section, the album would have been The Servants’ debut.[11] Haines later described Westlake as “a minor classic”.[6] Under the title D87, the album was reissued in expanded form in 2023.
Westlake released self-pressed album Play Dusty for Me (Mahlerphone, 2002) in a limited issue that quickly sold out.[8]Play Dusty for Me was reissued in limited form in 2010 and 2015.[12][13]
^Mark Carry (19 May 2014). "Time Has Told Me: The Servants". Fractured Air. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014. Retrieved 4 May 2015.((cite web)): CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Strutt, Anthony (June 2014). "David Westlake Interview". pennyblackmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 25 August 2023. [Small Time] is my favourite Servants record.
