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May 15, 2025 Issue #72 - The ‘90s Issue with The Cardigans and Thurston Moore By Ian Rushbury

To paraphrase William Shakespeare “Some are born Britpop, some achieve Britpop, and others have Britpop thrust upon them.” Supergrass definitely belong in the “thrust” column. Mick Quinn (bass), Danny Goffey (drums), and Gaz Coombes (vocals, guitar)—with Coombes’ older brother Rob Coombes becoming an official member in 2002—appeared to be the precociously talented, slightly mischievous kid brothers of the Britpop top tier, but while many of the A-listers were flirting with the paparazzi, Supergrass were polishing up their act to such a point that it outshone the vast majority of the output of their peers. Quinn and Goffey managed to survive a meteoric rise to fame, relatively unscathed.

“It was quite a lot to take in at the time, we were just doing so much and didn’t really have time to stop and think about it,” says Quinn.

The fact that they came from sleepy, rural Oxford seems to have helped. “In London, we probably would have got a lot more attention,” says Goffey. “We had a little bit of a gang around us in Oxford. People that worked with us. My brother did all our early videos on a Super 8 camera and recorded a lot of the early gigs and made some little films that he edited together—like [our debut single] ‘Caught by the Fuzz.’”

For young men at the time (the youngest, Gaz Coombes, was only 18 when “Caught by the Fuzz” came out), they seemed to acclimatise quickly to their new status. “We started as a band at the beginning of ’93,” says Quinn, “and it all really started kicking off in the summer of ’95. It was quite gradual getting up to that point, but when it did take off, it just shot up like a rocket. I think we released ‘Caught by the Fuzz’ a couple of times—once for Fierce Panda and again when we signed to Parlophone. And it made John Peel’s Festive 50 before we got signed. It was like a snowball rolling down a hill. And then suddenly by the time of ‘Lenny,’ our third single, it was just getting massive. It just went stellar for about two or three years.”

Their first two records—I Should Coco (1995) and In It For the Money (1997)—are two of the defining records of that time in UK alternative rock. Both Quinn and Goffey are proud of them both. However, they both have some reservations.

“I can’t find a bad tune on I Should Coco,” says Goffey. “Apart from maybe ‘We’re Not Supposed To.’ It’s actually not quite right lyrically. It’s a bit wrong. I think that’s aged really weirdly. For the second album, we had to sit around a lot more together and really bash our heads in to try and finish songs and get the right lyrics together. Whereas I think some of the best songs just flow out.”

Quinn adds: “I think we could have worked harder on the sequencing and been harder with the editing of the albums in some ways, but I think the songwriting is still interesting on there. We never just relaxed and rested on our laurels when we were making them. And with the B-sides, I think we could have been even more experimental.”

Supergrass went on to release four more albums, ending with 2008’s Diamond Hoo Ha, before splitting up in 2010 and reforming in 2019 for several years of touring. Goffey, who seemed to spend the entire decade with a drink in his hand and a smile on his face, sums up their ’90s heyday: “They were great times. I don’t think I’d do anything differently, really.”

[Note: This article originally appeared in Issue 72 of our print magazine, The ’90s Issue, which can be bought directly from us here. This is the article’s debut online.]

www.supergrass.com

Read our 2021 interview with Supergrass on In It For the Money.

Read our 2017 Artist Survey interview with Supergrass’ Gaz Coombes.

Read our 2018 interview with Gaz Coombes on World’s Strongest Man.

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