Review: Nick Heyward – The Epic & Creation Years 1993-1998

Sean Hannam explores the new CD box set of 90s-era Nick Heyward and finds much to enjoy

After enjoying ‘80s hits with Haircut 100 and as a solo artist, singer-songwriter Nick Heyward started a new chapter of his career in the ‘90s – he signed to Epic, which was his third record label, in 1993, and released his fourth album, From Monday To Sunday.

As is clear from the rather unimaginative title of this new, 4CD, 76-track box set, The Epic & Creation Years 1993-1998, it focuses on the three albums he made for Epic and Creation, From Monday To Sunday (1993), Tangled (1995) and 1997’s The Apple Bed, but also adds demos of unreleased songs, B-sides and live versions.

Curated by the man himself, this compilation comes in seven-inch packaging and features a 24-page booklet, with a revealing interview with Heyward by Daryl Easlea, which sheds some light on how he feels about this period of his career.

“I was made for the ’90s – I loved all of it, right from the beginning with World Party’s Goodbye Jumbo, and Crowded House’s Woodface,” says Heyward.

“Things looked hopeful again for singer-songwriters after dance music seeming to dominate in the late 1980s. I really loved those albums – they were inspiring. I didn’t feel like the ’90s had much of a connection with the ’80s.”

He adds: “Terry Hall felt the same – he said it was just suddenly completely different. It was almost made for us, pop music and writing-wise. I never felt happier.”

First song, ‘He Doesn’t Love You Like I Do’ – the opener on From Monday To Sunday – sets the tone for a lot of what’s to follow. It’s a superb, jangly Beatlesy guitar tune.

Up next is the gorgeous and pastoral, psych-pop of ‘Kite’, which was inspired by a news report about a child going into prison in Turkey with his mum, who then died – the child flew his kite in the prison yard, and it was seen as symbolising freedom. With a touch of baroque, cello and its ‘Penny Lane’-style trumpet, ‘Kite’ was almost a hit – it got to number 44 in the UK singles chart. 

Heyward wasn’t afraid of hiding his love for the Beatles away – CD3, which is called Tangled Part 2, includes his EP of Fab Four covers, the playfully titled, A Hard Day’s Nick, which features faithful versions of ‘If I Needed Someone,’ ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘All My Loving,’ with future Oasis member, Andy Bell (Ride, Hurricane #1), on lead guitar – Bell also bass plays on Tangled.

Also on CD3, there’s a frantic live rendition of The Beatles’ ‘Dr. Robert’, from Revolver, which was recorded in concert at The Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado on 14 February, 1994 – another cover, from the same gig, Heyward’s take on The Jam’s ‘Sounds From The Street’, is also included – he introduces it as his “favourite Jam song”.

Neither of these tracks have been released before – they’re nice to have, although hardly essential, and don’t stray too far from the originals, but they show where Heyward’s head was at the time musically.

The bright and breezy ‘Caravan’, on From Monday To Sunday, even mentions Weller’s punk/mod three-piece in the lyrics: ‘Don’t you know she still loves to play The Jam?’

Whilst writing From Monday To Sunday, Heyward moved from a one-bedroom flat in London to a cottage in the commuter belt town of Surbiton, and, like Weller in The Jam, he started writing observational songs about life in suburbia – so we get Ray Davies-like tracks such as ‘Ordinary People’ and ‘Mr. Plain.’

From Monday To Sunday was initially partly recorded at Pete Townshend’s barge studio in Twickenham – the record ended up being made in Fulham at Shaw Sound and Lilley Yard – but, funnily enough, it’s the follow-up album, Tangled, some of which was recorded at Parkgate Studios in Battle, Sussex, that embraces Who-like power-pop – there’s even a song on it called ‘Can’t Explain’…

Tangled still looks to The Beatles for inspiration – the world-weary opener, ‘Kill Another Day’, references ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ in the lyric – ‘Another season goes – another secret tomorrow never ever knows’ – and has some Revolver-era backwards guitar, and the chiming ‘She Says She Knows’ borrows some of its chorus from ‘She Said She Said’ – but the album has a heavier and crunchier sound than From Monday To Sunday.

‘She’s Another Girl’ features a great, raw and slightly bluesy riff that brings to mind The La’s; the Tangled-era B-side, ‘Mr Shirt & Tie’, has a similar feel, and the Top 40 hit, ‘Rollerblade’, which name-checks The Smiths’ ‘Reel Around the Fountain’ and The Jesus and Mary Chain, is infectious and fuzzed-up, US-style college rock.

Heyward took another stroll down ‘Penny Lane’ for the anthemic ‘My Heavy Head’, from The Apple Bed – it’s got a Fab Four-esque string arrangement, echoey harmonies, and a jubilant trumpet solo by John Thirkell.

For The Apple Bed, Heyward found himself signed to Creation, as part of Sony Music, along with Beatles-loving label mates Oasis, so it’s no surprise that their influence loomed large on the record – the melancholy stadium rock ballad, ‘The Man You Used To Be’ could be his ‘Wonderwall,’ with Mellotron, piano and moody orchestration.

First single, ‘Today,’ is anthemic and noisy Britrock – with a wall of guitar, it sounds like it’s been chained to the mirror and the razor blade…

Speaking to SDE in an interview earlier this year, Heyward told us: “Being on Creation and the fact that Oasis was happening, and the influence of that… I got waylaid. When you get a Beatles influence and you put a Les Paul on it, it sounds like Oasis. In hindsight, I should’ve reined it in a bit.” Oh, well – don’t look back in anger… 

Ironically, it’s Blur that springs to mind on the previously unreleased demo ‘Some Holiday’ (on CD3) – a delightful and infectious, mid-paced, country-tinged song that was written after a US tour, but, sadly, didn’t find its way onto Tangled. Inspired by a holiday Heyward took with his keyboard player, Phil Taylor, who was pursuing a French woman that ended up becoming his girlfriend, it has some amusing and cheeky lyrics: ‘You were far too hasty / She’s so French and tasty…’ 

‘Fan Mail’ – another unreleased demo recorded in 1994, in preparation for the Tangled sessions – is a pleasant and jaunty instrumental with some nifty, wailing harmonica and jangly guitar. It reappears later, with vocals, as ‘Secrets’, which is a gem – a tuneful, intriguing and filmic song about someone fleeing to the coast to leave the past behind. In the sleeve notes interview, Heyward says that ahead of recording Tangled, he himself escaped to the coast, to write lyrics.

There’s a nice stripped-down and almost bluesy demo of ‘Carry On Loving’ from Tangled, while the never-before released demo, ‘She Washes Another Dish’, is a mournful and atmospheric, sparse guitar-led ballad about loneliness – you can imagine a more psychedelic, full-band version of it would’ve been stunning. 

Taken from the Tangled-era sessions, there’s a demo of a previously unreleased song called ‘I Don’t Feel Like It Anymore’, which is a nice-enough acoustic number that feels like it could’ve gone somewhere with a bit more work on it. Some of the lyrics are hard to make out, as the vocals are quiet, but the tune is pretty.

‘Mad About You’ is a 1992 demo recording of the song that became ‘Dear Miss Finland’ on The Apple Bed – it’s not as tight or focused as its successor, less mid-‘60s Beatles, and much rawer and rockier. 

The penultimate track on disc 4, ‘The End’ – not the Beatles song – was recorded after The Apple Bed sessions, and it first saw the light of day in 2011, when it was released on the Cherry Red expanded CD version of the album. It’s a moody and epic indie-rock song about the death of a relationship. 

As we’re talking about endings, after The Apple Bed, Heyward didn’t make another guitar pop album for 20 years –Woodland Echoes appeared in 2017.

Now, eight years later, he’s on a roll – a reformed Haircut 100 are releasing a new studio album, Boxing The Compass, in March 2026, and when SDE spoke to him in February of this year, he said he’d been writing songs for a solo album.

Heyward also had a co-write on this year’s Saint Etienne album, International – ‘The Go Betweens’, a duet with him and Sarah Cracknell, is soaring synth pop, with a lush and dreamy sound.

This box set is a reminder of why Heyward is one of England’s greatest and most underrated singer-songwriters, with a gift for killer choruses, warm and nostalgic guitar pop tunes and wry lyrics. 

If you don’t know these three ‘90s albums, then you’re in for a treat – this is a nice package – and if you’re already a fan of them, there’s enough unreleased material and extra tracks on here to justify you shelling out for this compilation – the asking price is around £35.

And, as if that’s not enough, From Monday To Sunday, Tangled and The Apple Bed are also available as new, separate coloured vinyl editions – in orange, blue and green, respectively. The latter two are making their vinyl debut, and the former is making its first appearance outside of a rare one-off pressing in the Netherlands. 

The LPs are released at the same time as the CD box set: November 28. What a fantastic day!

Review by Sean Hannam. The Epic & Creation Years 1993-1998 is released via Edsel on 28 November.

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