The Waterboys founder Mike Scott has spoken of his pride at being called a "Scally band" ahead of the band's headline performance at the Salt and Tar festival in Liverpool tonight.
Scott, who hails from Edinburgh, said: "I love our connection to Liverpool. Love the city, love the music love the people. Always loved you. One man once told me that we were a real Scally band. This was back in 1989 and it's one of the proudest moments of my life."
How 'Whole of the Moon' became a Liverpool anthem
The band's 1985 song "Whole of the Moon" has become a favourite at Liverpool functions, often signalling the big finish of a party. Scott said the song's roots in Liverpool go deeper than cultural ties, with parts of it actually recorded in the city's famed Amazon studios.
The seeds of the song began in New York when Scott's then-girlfriend, Krista, asked him about songwriting. He wrote the song's iconic hook there and then: "I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the Moon."
In the 1980s, the epic sound of Prince had defined the zeitgeist. Scott was inspired by the Purple Rain singer's ambitious vision, which inspired a message he penned on the record's label: "For Prince, u saw the whole of the moon."
Recording at Amazon Studios
Speaking to the Guardian in 2020, Scott revealed that another music icon inspired the layered sound of the track. He said: "I recorded the piano and vocal live over the drum machine. The next things that went on were the trumpets. I wanted them to have the impact of the flugelhorns in Penny Lane by [The Beatles], like sunlight bursting through clouds."
It was in the Beatles' home city that Scott realised his band had crafted such a timeless anthem. He added: "The coup de grace was for the line: 'Came like a comet.' We put a firework noise from a sound effects disc through an echo machine, so Anto Thistlethwaite's fantastic sax solo erupts from the explosion. I'd laid down the groove on a drum machine, but it missed drum fills, so Chris Whitten drummed on the finished record on the day it was mixed in Liverpool's Amazon studios with Mick Glossop."
"By then I was thinking: 'The whole world's going to love this.'"
Amazon Studios' legacy in Liverpool's music scene
Amazon Studios, fronted by recording boss Jeremy Lewis, was based in Simonswood, Kirkby from the 70s and welcomed many soon-to-be famous artists through their doors when their careers were in their infancy. According to National Museums Liverpool, the studio was housed at a centre that used to give MOT tests to cars, meaning recordings would begin in the evening and carry on into the night.
On March 12, 1976, the ECHO reported how the eight-track studio had only released one single under their label so far, but that the business also did "a good deal of work for people who sell their own records and a fair amount of recording for Stag Music." By the 80s, Amazon Studios became more established and a go-to place for the local post-punk music scene.
Responsible for early recordings by bands such as Echo and the Bunnymen, the formation of Inevitable Records also gave Amazon the opportunity to record and release tracks by Merseyside bands such as China Crisis, It's Immaterial and Dead or Alive. Through the years, The Smiths and Black Sabbath also recorded there. The success of the studio eventually led to its expansion and the creation of Parr Street studios.
