Eg and Alice on ‘Indian’

Eg and Alice were a short-lived duo who released just one album on WEA Records in 1991 called 24 Years Of Hunger.

A cult classic, a hidden masterpiece, an undiscovered gem… call it what you will, but the album – which has never been reissued – was influenced by Eg White and Alice Temple’s love of Prince, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and Curtis Mayfield.

SDE Records’s forthcoming 2CD deluxe reissue of 24 Years Of Hunger features the original album and a disc of unreleased songs and demos. It has already garnered four star reviews in Mojo and Classic Pop and a 9/10 review in Uncut who called it a “impeccable” and a “deluxe 2CD set of elegant, earnest, impassioned pop”

The 2CD set comes in DVD-sized hardcover book packaging with 36 pages of lyrics and track-by-track commentary by Eg and Alice themselves. In this exclusive extract, the pair discuss the first single from the album, ‘Indian’:

Eg White: ‘Indian’ came out as the first single. We hadn’t thought it was an important tune at all and then Rob Dickins at Warners [Chairman of Warner Music UK] said, “that’s the tune that we can make hay out of. That’s the one”. I’d seen The Neville Brothers and was inspired by their song ‘My Blood’, imposing a narrative of being an outsider, almost accidentally. And I think that’s why we got signed to Warners. Lots of people did want to sign us at that point, probably four or five labels, but Warners had made all the records we love: Prince, that whole West Coast tradition. We thought, “thank you very much”.

Alice Temple: We also went with Warners because they were offering us the least amount of money and, luckily, Eg understood that the less money we took, the less money we owed because I didn’t understand at all – I just thought they gave you free money! I never thought about the business side of music, but Eg understood all that.

Eg White: We couldn’t get ‘Indian’ right. We did seven versions of it and the verses just got sadder and sadder. In the end, Rob told us to go substantially back. But when I hear it now, it sounds so bad. My mum [Lucy White] played strings on it; mum and Juliet [Davey], her then girlfriend, and later, her wife. “Jack Malloy”, is actually Mark Malloy, but he didn’t go up to anyone [as the lyric suggests]. It was a kind of a piss take. Franke Madrid sang the backing vocals on it. He’d done backing vocals for Brother Beyond. I got Franke back, and he just smashed it, again.

Alice Temple: The only live stuff we did, which I get cold shivers even thinking about now, was ‘Indian’ on [UK TV chat show] ‘Wogan’. You’ve got to remember that I had never sung live before in my life. ‘Indian’ was my least favorite song, and then suddenly we had to do ‘Wogan’, and it was me singing live to playback. I’ll never forget it – I was in the BBC, and I was in the bathroom the entire time. Meanwhile, Eg and the rest of the band, they’re all having a laugh, because all they have to do is mime and I’m shitting myself, knowing I’ve got to sing live on ‘Wogan’. I was in a permanent state of just sheer panic.

Alice is, I think, very happy that this ‘Wogan’ performance of ‘Indian’ does not appear to be on YouTube! So I have never seen it!

This special 2CD physical deluxe edition is limited to 1,000 units worldwide and is an SDE exclusive available only from the SDE shop. It’s very close to selling out, so don’t miss out. You can secure your copy using this link or the button below.

24 Years Of Hunger, the 35th anniversary 2CD deluxe edition, will be released on 10 April 2026 via SDE Records.

Tracklisting

24 Years of Hunger Eg and Alice / 2CD deluxe edition

• • CD 1: 24 Years of Hunger
    1. Rockets
    2. In A Cold Way
    3. Mystery man
    4. And I Have Seen Myself
    5. So High, So Low
    6. New Year’s Eve
    7. Indian
    8. Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me
    9. Crosstown
    10. IOU
    11. I Wish
  • CD 2: Lonely Road: Demos & Remixes
    1. Here Come The Rockets (Demo)*
    2. Highway (Demo 1)*†
    3. Lonely For Too Long (See What I Mean) (Demo)* †
    4. Indian (Demo)*
    5. Bobby & Holly
    6. Shadow (Demo)* †
    7. New Year’s Eve (Demo)*
    8. Lazy Woman
    9. Under My Spell (Demo)* †
    10. Running To America (Demo)* †
    11. Crazy Bastard (Demo)* †
    12. Teenage Cinema Problem (Demo)* †
    13. Highway (Demo 2)* †
    14. It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (7” Version)
    15. It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (Jesus Loves You Mix)
    16. It Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me (Ambient Mix)

    *Previously unreleased
    † Unheard song