The Servants

Singer-songwriter David Westlake started the band in Hayes, Middlesex with school-friend Ed Moran.[2] The Servants played their first gig at The Water Rats Theatre in London's King's Cross on 1 July 1985.

The line-up for most of the early gigs was: David Westlake, John Mohan, John Wills and Phil King.[3] Declining offers from Statik, Stiff, and Él,[2] they signed with Head Records, set up by Jeff Barrett, later head of Heavenly Records.

Westlake's urbane English songwriting was well received by the press, and the band was invited to record a John Peel session soon after the release of first single "She's Always Hiding" (March '86).

Keen to distance themselves from the "shambling" scene, the band 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.

The band's next release, the four-song EP The Sun, a Small Star (August '86), showed Westlake's songwriting still becoming more deft, the title-track later being described as "a 24 carat 'Brown Eyed Girl' classic".[4]

Luke Haines was in the Servants from early 1987 to late 1991. Drummer Hugh Whitaker left The Housemartins and joined the band as they returned to the studio to demo new material for Creation Records.

In early 1988, the Servants moved to Glass Records, who promised a reasonable budget 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". The budget was slashed, and they went into the studio to record the single "It's My Turn". They played some gigs to support the single but Glass delayed releasing the record for a year.

The Servants released its debut album, Disinterest, in 1990 on Paperhouse Records. "It is art rock", Haines later said, "Ten years too late and fifteen years too early."[4]

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,[1] – was it released, in 2012 on Cherry Red Records (then in 2013 on Captured Tracks). Small Time is Westlake's own favourite Servants record.[5] The songs are, says Haines, "looser, more mysterious, strange and beautiful, . . . sounding . . . like nothing else really."[6]

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."[6] Small Time was issued with a second disc, Hey Hey We're the Manqués, containing demos and rehearsal versions of first-album material.

The Servants' last gig was at the Rock Garden, 21 August 1991 – "With no room to manoeuvre and no opportunities left", the band finally called it a day.[4]

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.[7]

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. US label Captured Tracks released a 2011 vinyl compilation of the Servants, called Youth Club Disco.

Westlake and Haines played together for the first time in twenty-three years at the Lexington, London N1 on 4 May 2014.[8] 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.[9]

David Westlake recorded a solo album for Creation Records in 1987. Backed by Luke Haines (making his recording debut) and the Triffids' rhythm section, Westlake cut against the grain of the paisley psychedeliasts then on the Creation roster, Haines later describing it as a minor classic. Westlake and Haines undertook a tour of Britain to promote the record, but Creation failed to release it until six months later. Westlake received good reviews, but otherwise disappeared.[4]

Westlake's Play Dusty for Me album appeared in 2002. Captured Tracks re-issued Play Dusty for Me in 2015.

• Derek Sozou, David Westlake site
• Luke Haines, Bad Vibes (London: William Heinemann, 2009), 5–10.
• Luke Haines, sleevenotes to the Servants' compilation Reserved (Cherry Red Records CDMRED 297, 2006)
• Luke Haines, sleevenotes to the Servants' album Small Time (Cherry Red Records CDB RED 535, 2012)
• John Peel session information
• Servants Retrospective