And the Welcome everyone to Soda Jerker on songwriting episode 238. I'm Simon here with Brian and joining us today

is an English singer and songwriter best known as lead vocalist for one of the most celebrated

British bands of the last three decades, Suede.

He joined us recently to discuss the band's triumphant ninth studio album,

Auto Fiction.

It's our great pleasure to welcome the splendid Brett Anderson to the show.

Brett was born in 1967 and grew up in Hayward Heath West Sussex.

His mother was an artist and dressmaker and his dad did a variety of jobs

and was a classical music obsessive which clashed somewhat with his young son's burgeoning love for the sex pistols.

As a teenager Brett became friends with bassist and fellow Haywood teeth native Matt Osman

and they started playing in bands together including infamously one called Jeff.

Our guest briefly attended the university in Manchester before moving back down south to London.

A student at University College in 1988, he and Matt formed an embryonic version of

Suede with Brett's then girlfriend, Justine Frischman, later of elastica fame.

Shortly afterwards, a 19-year-old Bernard Butler answered Brett's ad for a guitarist in an October 89 issue of

NMA and within a couple of years the period forged the formidable songwriting partnership.

They gagged around London using a drum machine in lieu of an actual drummer before recruiting Simon Gilbert in 1990.

By the time of Frishman's departure in early 1992, Swade had begun to generate a buzz in the

music press which reached such a crescendo that Brett appeared on the cover of

Melody Maker magazine without the band having released any music.

After issuing several singles they signed an album deal with nude records in conjunction with Sony in Autumn of 92.

Suede's self-titled full-length debut was released in 1993, topped the UK Album Chart and

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