With hindsight, Ewing's departure seems to be imprinted within the grooves of Infernal Love. Not only is he lower in the mix, his playing seems far less expressive, strangely muted, already disillusioned perhaps. Ewing quit the group during the Infernal Love tour, fearing that if he didn't he would "go mad". He then disappeared into obscurity, depriving the world of one its most exciting young drummers.
Incidentally, you can keep What's The Story, The Bends, and that Sparklehorse album with the clown on the front. The best album of 1995 (and second best album of the 90s) was Infernal Love. Dr Victkurt Cobainstein dealt with the unsettling success of his second album by doing too much heroin, hitching a lift on Captain Albini's expeditionary ship, pursuing his Nevermind monster to a mansion in the North Pole hoping to slay it with nothing but a borrowed shotgun and a copy of In Utero, before slipping tragically under the ice. Andy Cairns dealt with the unsettling success of his second album by taking lots of cocaine, shaving his head, investing in false moustaches, and making a bizarre goth-pop album in Peter Gabriel's recording studio. UK Top 40 Chart Archive, British Singles & Album Charts". everyHit.com . Retrieved 24 December 2008. The Irish are very good building myths. But the thing about the English is that they start building myths around things that don’t exist,” Cairns says. Turman, Katherine (17 April 1994). "Therapy? 'Troublegum,' A&M". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 13 June 2020.

The Irish are very good building myths. But the thing about the English is that they start building myths around things that don’t exist That’s the one thing it’s still the same subject matter but with a 20 year on perspective. During the time of Britpop people would say how can you still be angry when you are 30? and I would reply ‘how can you not?’ When I was as growing up people left home at 19 and married the girl down the road and then you see them again at 35 two timing their wives, an alcoholic and you wonder about all the great advice they gave you about the lyrics. There is still also a lot of literature that comes into the lyrics and also we just see what is around us and the frustration and how we fit into the world and how people fit in with eachother and that’s what drives the songs at the moment.’ I live in Cambridge. People play f**king Quidditch in Cambridge. It doesn’t exist. There’s this ridiculousness It used to be difficult for people from the North of the country. It was hard to be proud of where you were from without taking a certain side. You always had to straddle the middle of the fence. I’ve put Disquiet at number three because it’s the most fun I’ve had making a record since Troublegum. When we did Troublegum there was a really good feeling in the studio and everyone was getting on really well, and it was the same with this album. Plus, we’d written a bunch of songs that we knew were really good. We did the record with a friend of ours, Tom Dalgety, who’s worked with Royal Blood and Ghost. We’ve been friends with him for years and he’s never pushed himself on us or asked to produce one of our albums, he’s just always said ‘I’m around if you want.’ So it was great to finally work with him and the atmosphere in the studio was brilliant.

We had plenty of political songs. Potato Junkie was political [it references the Battle of the Boyne in the line, “How can I remember 1690?/I was born in 1965?”]. Church of Noise was political [being about a Romeo and Juliet romance across the sectarian boundaries]. But we couldn’t be as binary as bands can be today.”

If you go to a private school you wear a blazer and a hat, like Harry Potter. I live in Cambridge. People play f**king Quidditch in Cambridge. It doesn’t exist. There’s this ridiculousness.”This was 1994, the year of the first IRA ceasefire. Therapy’s golden age coincided with peace in the North and a more general sense that Irish music had cast off its restraints and was going somewhere (The Cranberries and the Divine Comedy would break through around the same time). Yet even amid the success, Cairns was careful to never take it all for granted or assume the purple patch would last forever. Nothing does – especially in music. One of the good things about it is it’s got songs on it that we still play live and they go down really well, so it’s good for that reason. But I think it didn’t have enough of its own identity after Crooked Timber. Crooked Timber was such a strong record that this one almost paled in its shadow when it came out. I’m still really proud of it though.” Therapy?’s ‘Troublegum’ is available on streaming services now, as well as in stores in a Deluxe 3CD Edition featuring B-sides and remixes, and on vinyl via a MusicOnVinyl repress.

It will be good fun when we set out round the UK. It’s the 20th anniversary of Troublegum tour which will be great to revisit and then loads of festivals and tons of shows later in year with the new album which we are working on right now.’ The lyrics came to him as he was watching the BBC Proms – an annual orgy of flag-waving that typically concludes with a rendition of William Blake’s Jerusalem and its pledge to “build Jerusalem” in “England’s green and pleasant land”. Cairns rolls his eyes. We have quite inquisitive minds and we are not cool. When we first went to Wiiija Records, the label boss Gary walker would take us out and he would be embarrassed because we would go and say hello to these bands and he would say ‘please don’t say hello to that band!” In London you had to have a respectful distance and you were not meant to blow your cool.’ Acharya, Kiran (7 February 2019). " Troublegum At 25: An Oral History Of The Therapy? Classic". Kerrang! . Retrieved 15 July 2022.I grew up as someone who wasn’t exactly pin-up material, with weight and confidence issues, plus I had all this stuff I was carrying with me from Northern Ireland, the religious divide,” says Andy. “All that was in there.” People will watch old football hooligan videos and think, ‘that must have been amazing’. For a band like us, that lived through it – there was a reason we weren’t direct. When Therapy? came along, I was at probably the lowest point of my life. I only say this here so that you can understand why I have such strong feelings about the album that others may not share. It was a six month period that I muddled my way through not exclusively because of this album, but with the help of this album being a majority shareholder nonetheless. Every emotion I was feeling in my life at that time was mirrored in Andy Cairns music, lyrics and vocals on this album. However, Troublegum doesn’t remind me of that time at all, nor does it make me maudlin or upset because of it. Certainly it is still the best tonic to put on when I get down, or get angry. It does still draw out any anger I have in me when that is needed. What it does do is make me smile, because this is one of my magic talismans; an album I can put on at any time and draw from it the good feelings or power or inspiration or whatever it is I need, just from listening to it. The opening salvo still never fails to deliver. Part of its charm is that there is no pause between songs. Each keeps coming straight after the previous song has finishing, or segues into it. It’s like one big long live set, with no pause for talking, just get into the next song. From the very beginning you are left in little doubt as to the direction that the album is taking. “Knives” comes at you wielding those glittering blades with anger and those crazy eyes. The vocals scream, the drums hammer and the guitars are guttural. There’s plenty of crazy in this song, and it is all the better for it. The alternative punk version of the angst-ballad comes next with “Screamager”, jauntily bopping away while Andy explains his taunts and echoes throughout. The catchy and simple chorus and fast paced punk guitar adds to the flavour. The segue into the hard core guitar riff of “Hellbelly” is then accompanied by the heavy hitting drums and ripping bass riff that crushes throughout the song. I love this song (but then again I love them all). The slightest of pauses leads into “Stop It You’re Killing Me” which continues in the same vein of what has come before. It’s hard hitting musically and lyrically, another great song to sing along with, especially when you are feeling aggressive. From here the wangling guitar riff opens into “Nowhere”, once again at a great pace that gives you everything whether you are at the gig or at home in the lounge room. This period of five songs to open the album is the equal of any other album I know. It’s non-stop, it gives you no time to rest, and it is adrenaline-inducing fun.

People thought Troublegum had come out of nowhere, but all we’d known was hard work,” says Andy. “We had done two world tours that year, so we’d put in the legwork.”

Tears For Fears

We were given our first gigs by a DIY not-for-profit punk organisation called War Zone in Belfast. You would do your own posters, they would photocopy them in their office, and then you'd go around town and pin them up on telegraph poles. I was doing the poster in Fyfe’s bedroom, using a Letraset. which was a sheet of transfers that looked like typeset. We started doing it on an A4 piece of paper, and realised we’d started far too far to the left. Fyfe went, ‘That looks really odd, there’s a big gap.’ In 1993, Northern Irish three-piece Therapy? were touring their major-label debut album Nurse to ferocious crowds in the USA and Europe, but they couldn’t have predicted the success that was yet to come. Troublegum, their 1994 follow-up, would sell more than a million copies and produce the hit singles Screamager, Nowhere, Turn, and Die Laughing, songs which still elate fans to this day.