After 35 years away, Manchester indie legends The Man From Delmonte are back playing live shows and releasing a brand-new album ‘Better Things’ in November, with its first taster, the fabulously hooky single ‘Believe Me’ backed by B-side ‘The International’ out now.
Between 1988 and 1991 TMFD weren’t part of any music scene. They were their own movement, sounding nothing like anyone else at the time. Selling out 3000 capacity venues, hitting the top of the Indie charts and having Inspiral Carpets and 808 State as their opening acts. Mike West, Sheila Seal, Martin Vincent and Howard Goody delivered classic pop tunes including ‘Water in My Eyes’ and ‘My Love is Like a Gift’ that were lyrically ahead of their time. Mike wrote and sang about loving men just as easily as he did about relationships with women. The audiences always loved it. The press often treated them with outright biphobia.
After a chance conversation with TV presenter Iain Lee, The Man From Delmonte are back. Their first reunion gig at Band on the Wall sold out in 12 minutes. Their following show at Manchester Academy 2 sold out in days. Over 600 copies of a double CD reissue of the band’s two albums ‘Big Noise’ & ‘Good Things in Life’ have been bought by fans desperate to get their hands on anything TMFD related.
Bassist Sheila Seal said: “Who knew that we had such AMAZING fans that had been listening to TMFD all through those years and would want us to come back and play live. Someone said to me: ‘You go into a Man From Delmonte gig in your fifties and come out in your teens’.”
Original manager Jon Ronson (The Psychopath Test, The Men Who Stare at Goats) flew over from the US to introduce them at the first reunion show and comedian Chris Addison was seen dancing on stage with the band. The band’s upcoming show at the O2 Ritz on December 21st is the biggest gig of the reunion and will be a double celebration. It’s 36 years since they last played it and it will also be the launch party for the brand-new studio album.
Drummer Howard Goody said: “When the idea of putting down a new set of recordings was suggested me being me, I wasn’t sure if I Iiked it’. ‘We got together at Our Lady studio and right from the start it was a pure delight mainly due to Mike’s super recording engineering skills and in 4 1/2 days we recorded 12 songs. It all felt so natural and relaxed, playing as a band. For me it was stress and anxiety free – I couldn’t believe how good it all felt and sounded. I think we have made a really good and honest record of us playing and singing without any fanciful studio production tricks.”
The songs on the new album are a selection of old and new material. Some tracks, including the band’s new single ‘Believe Me’, were rediscovered on forgotten demos and live cassettes that, fortunately, friends and fans of the band had kept hold of for all these years. Other songs were written long after the band broke up but somehow seem to relate to the same time and place. There are also three songs on the album that were written just a few weeks before the recording, including ‘The International’, a eulogy to frontman Mike West’s favourite rock club of all time and the B-Side to ‘Believe Me’.
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