Saint Etienne (band)

History

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, childhood friends and former music journalists, ran a fanzine called Caff that became a record label by 1989. They originally planned for Saint Etienne to use various lead singers; their 1991 debut Foxbase Alpha features several vocalists, including Moira Lambert and Donna Savage. After working with Sarah Cracknell on "Nothing Can Stop Us", they made her the permanent vocalist, and she has written or co-written many songs.

The band was associated with the indie dance genre in the early 1990s, combining dance-pop sonic elements from the Second Summer of Love era with songwriting focused on romantic and introspective themes typical of British pop and rock. Their early work showed influences from 1960s soul, 1970s dub and rock, and 1980s dance music. The Times later wrote that they "deftly fused the grooviness of Swinging Sixties London with a post-acid house backbeat".

Their first two albums feature house music sounds like TR-909 drum patterns and Italo house piano riffs, mixed with found dialogue sampled from 1960s British realist cinema. In 1991, the band released two singles, "7 Ways to Love" and "He Is Cola", under the name Cola Boy with different singers, including future radio personality Janey Lee Grace; they explained the pen name by saying the tracks were "too cheesy for Saint Etienne. We'd have been finished overnight".

They later produced an updated electro-house version of "7 Ways to Love" for Japanese singer Nokko for her 1993 album I Will Catch U, in which she added lyrics in Japanese and English.