Oxford 'characters' influenced Supergrass - Quinn

The original Supergrass line-up - Gaz Coombes, Quinn and Danny Goffey (left to right) - formed the band in 1993

In summer 1995, Supergrass were catapulted into Britpop’s elite with their debut album I Should Coco but just months before bassist Mick Quinn was working at Oxford’s Covered Market and getting the bus home.

Next May the band will reunite to perform the record in its entirety for the first time, 30 years after its release.

Quinn formed the band with lead singer and guitarist Gaz Coombes and drummer Danny Goffey in 1993, with keyboardist Rob Coombes - Gaz's older brother - joining later.

“We are all East Oxford lads," he told BBC Radio Oxford.

"We grew up in Wheatley – apart from Danny he’s a Forest Hill boy, so he’s a bit of an outsider.

“All those songs come from [Oxford]. I used to work in the Covered Market in cafes and we used to get the characters and that informed [seventh track on the album] Strange Ones, where you’d find people living outside conventional society and that always interested us.

“We all felt like outsiders ourselves. All these influences were there from Cowley Road and Oxford itself.”

Mick Quinn, who grew up in Wheatley, popped into Radio Oxford for a chat last week

At the end of Strange Ones, the bells from the city’s Carfax Tower ring out.

Quinn recorded them while standing underneath the landmark with Oxford-based producer Sam Williams.

“I caught the bus in, we recorded it and then I went home,” Quinn said.

“When I used to finish my shift at the end of the night, I used to have to catch the bus back out to Wheatley and that was the sound of the end of my shift and ‘the weekend starts here’.

“We used the recording on that track because that is was it was - it was the end of the nine to five.”

The bells from Carfax Tower can be heard at the end of Strange Ones and the start of Sitting Up Straight

I Should Coco has sold more than one million copies worldwide.

The band went on to release five more studio albums between 1997 and 2008, including In It For The Money and Life on Other Planets.

All of the band members have continued to perform as part of other projects.

Coombes released his fourth studio album, Turn the Car Around, in January 2023.

But all of their careers started in Oxford.

“We used to play the Elm Tree [in Cowley Road, now the Big Society pub] - that used to be our gig,” Quinn, who still lives in Oxford, added.

“A lot of [I Should Coco] is based in East Oxford. Obviously there’s stuff in Jericho, with the Jericho Tavern, but East Oxford was kind of our stomping ground and where we would go out drinking.”

The album was recorded at the Sawmills recording studio in Cornwall throughout 1994, with Williams producing.

“I just remember that being a beautiful summer," Quinn continued.

"We’d go out canoeing on the estuary and then just work all day on those tracks. It was very intense but really creative – we all had a say in it."

In their late teens or early 20s, Quinn said the band was not worried about the future but focussed on making the best record they could.

“We were really enjoying it and we were finding ways of pulling all these influences into the record.

"I don’t think we were looking at what would happen afterwards.

"There was no way you'd know it would take off or if people would be listening to it 30 years later but we just wanted to contain all of that excitement in there.

"I think we recorded Alright and knew that seemed like a really strong track.

"Even at demo stage, we thought that would connect with people. It’s got such a simple melody that you could feel the magic in it.”

Gaz Coombes, Goffey and Quinn apparently tried to hitchhike to Mars from Oxford in October 1994

The band will play it to audiences in Glasgow, Nottingham, Sheffield, Newcastle and Birmingham in May 2025.

Other shows will follow in Manchester, Cardiff, Leeds, London and Cornwall.

As to whether the band will return to Oxford, Quinn said there were “mitigating circumstances" that meant they might not be able to.

“I would love to myself but we will just have to see how it goes."

Rob Coombes (far left) - Gaz's older brother - was later added to the band's original line-up