It’s been a busy time for reformed ’80s indie-janglers The Loft. In 2025, they released their well-received debut album Everything Changes, Everything Stays The Same, more than 40 years after splitting up, and this year, they followed it up with another critically-acclaimed long-player, Badges.
Now they’re taking a well-deserved break to pursue other projects, and first out of the gate (or should that be up the hill and down the slope?) is guitarist Andy Strickland (The Caretaker Race, The Chesterfields), with his debut solo single, ‘Don’t Get Me Started’ – a classic piece of jangly and infectious, organ-laced, Pretenders-style guitar pop.
Released this month (November 6, on Precious Recordings of London), as a 7in vinyl single, with the jaunty, brass-led ‘Have-A-Go Henry’ on the B-side, the song was produced by Sean Read (Dexys, The Hanging Stars) and features Alan Gregg from The Mutton Birds and Polite Company on bass, Rob Parry (The Chesterfields) on drums, and Read on keys.
In an exclusive interview, Strickland, who lives on the Isle of Wight, which is where the video for the single was filmed, tells Say It With Garage Flowers about writing and recording his debut solo material and being inspired by Belle and Sebastian. He also reveals what’s likely to get him started…
Q&A
Let’s talk about your debut solo single, ‘Don’t Get Me Started.’ You co-wrote half of Badges, the album by The Loft which came out earlier this year, and on the band’s 2025 album Everything Changes, Everything Stays The Same, you co-wrote the track ‘Somersaults.’ So, did co-writing songs for The Loft give you more confidence to write some solo material?
Andy Strickland: Definitely. As you say, I did one co-write on that first Loft album, which was a bit Machiavellian [of me]. I’m not having a go at Pete [Astor – The Loft frontman], but he’d originally said, ‘Oh no – they need to be my songs…’, and then I sent him my idea for ‘Somersaults’ in amongst a load of other guitar things I was working on for his songs, just to see if he noticed. He rang me back the next day and said, ‘Fuck, I can’t stop singing that bloody tune you sent over. I think we should do something with that.’
So, that was good, but then when we finished touring that Loft album, Pete and I had loads of ideas between us, so, he came down to mine and we spent four or five days writing seven or eight songs between us, and it just worked really well.
So, that gave me confidence to keep doing it, and it exercised my songwriting muscle. I do believe that the more you do it, the better you get at it. So, I just carried on, and I had these other things that were knocking about, and so, after The Loft stopped touring, I thought, ‘Well, if I don’t do it now, I’m never going to do it.’
So, I booked a week at Sean Read’s place [Famous Times, in Hackney] and thought, ‘Well, that’s it now; I’ve got to finish some of these songs.’ We ended up doing three and chose a couple of them for the single.
‘When I wrote ‘Don’t Get Me Started’, I thought, “Oh, does that sound too much like ‘Back on the Chain Gang?” But it’s alright, I’ve got away with it’
‘Don’t Get Me Started’ has that classic jangly pop guitar sound that you’ve embraced throughout your music career, and it’s a song about the ups and downs of being in a relationship…
Yeah – the frustrations and the compromises… Having to sometimes zip your lip… The guitar sound is the stuff I really like doing, and I suppose it was an obvious thing for me to do really. I imagine a lot of people will think, ‘Oh – it’s a single by the bloke who plays guitar in The Loft…’ and they’ll have an idea of what that might sound like, so I didn’t want to disappoint them too much.
I think it has the feel of The Pretenders…
Definitely. When I wrote it, I thought, ‘Oh, does that sound too much like Back on the Chain Gang’ or something?’ But I then thought, ‘No, it’s alright, I’ve got away with it.’
Playing with you on the single you’ve got Alan Gregg from The Mutton Birds and Polite Company on bass, Rob Parry on drums and Sean Read on keys…
Yeah. I didn’t want to get Loft people involved, because I wanted it to be separate, but Alan was playing with The Loft on tour, and we were chatting in the van on the way to a gig, and I said, ‘Oh, yeah – I’ve booked a few days at Sean’s and I don’t know who I’m going to get…’
Alan said, ‘If you need a bass player, I’d love to do it.’ I was delighted because I was originally thinking I would have to do it myself. Rob played drums in The Chesterfields when I was in them.
Photo: Sean Hannam
Recording at Sean’s was fun, but it was a really hot week… It was in the middle of July, when the World Cup was on, and London was scorching. It can get a bit warm in Sean’s place during a heatwave. I’ve booked another session there in January – it won’t be shorts weather then…
The B-side of the single, ‘Have-A-Go Henry’, is jaunty and brassy – Sean, who is in Dexys, plays trumpet and sax on it…
Yeah – I wrote it as a bit of a nod to Belle and Sebastian, who we [The Loft] played with at the Royal Albert Hall, in April.
I listened to quite a lot of their stuff, and I watched how Stuart [Murdoch] plays rhythm guitar – he’s got a particular way of playing. So, I sort of wrote a song based on my impression of them and how he played the guitar, and that’s how it came out.
When I was writing the song, it was obvious that it needed brass, and so I wrote the brass parts for Sean to play, and he tweaked them a bit. I had this idea of where they would be and what they would do for the song. I wasn’t sure whether he’d be up for doing it or not, because one of the lines is very Dexys, and I thought he might go, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that…’ but he was great and he was up for it, so it was excellent. It was good fun.
Lyrically, ‘Have-A-Go Henry’ is partly about a young guy trying to impress a girl he likes – it deals with adolescence and teenage emotions…
Definitely. I think it’s a little bit of a nod to some of the early Belle and Sebastian stuff, or an old Madness song… It’s supposed to be about an old man writing a song about a teenage relationship… It’s a bit weird, but I think it worked.
How was it playing the Royal Albert Hall with Belle and Sebastian?
It was incredibly exciting – a bit of a dream come true. I’ve watched so many gigs on videos and DVDs of people playing the Albert Hall and thought, ‘Bloody hell – that must be nice; imagine doing that…’
So, to get asked to do it… Everyone there was so professional and so supportive, as you would imagine. There was none of that, ‘You’re only the support band…’ We had our own little crew, and it was great.
Would you like to make a solo album?
Yeah, I would – if there’s interest. Well, these days you can do it anyway… but in terms of putting out some kind of vinyl… I’ll probably see if people like the single… The early signs are good. I’d like to do something because I think some of the songs that I’ve got in my back pocket are as good as, if not better than, these. It would be good to put a band together and do a few shows next year.
As a man known for his jangly ‘80s guitar sound, how did you feel about Johnny Marr auctioning off his guitars earlier this year?
I was a bit sad that I didn’t get up to London to have a look at them – that must’ve been nice… When you get to that sort of level, people give you stuff, don’t they, so you must end up with loads of them. I’ve got more guitars than I should have, so Johnny Marr must have had warehouses full of them.
There were some lovely guitars – they’re things of beauty, like classic cars, that you just like being around. Well done to Johnny for having a clear out and giving a load of money to charity. Good man.
‘I’ve got more guitars than I should have, so Johnny Marr must have had warehouses full of them’
As we’re coming up to the end of the year, what new music from 2026 have you been enjoying?
I’m an old man, so my memory’s not good when I think about what I was listening to six months ago, but recently I was listening to the new British Birds album [Murmurate, Oscillate], which is good. It’s got lots of different stuff on it – some of it sounds like XTC and some of it sounds like pop music.
I saw Mary in the Junkyard on telly a few weeks ago and I thought they were great. I’m always trying to find new stuff and to not just go back and listen to the same old things.
So, finally, as your solo single is called ‘Don’t Get Me Started’, what’s most likely to get you started these days?
Well, funnily enough, it’s band related… It’s the way some people approach being in a band. We’re not grumpy old bastards, but you know, sometimes you see people in [other] bands that you’re playing with, and they’ve got 300 pedals and they’re only playing for 20 mins… So, bringing along huge amounts of equipment for no reason, or wearing sunglasses on stage indoors, in a small venue.
One of the worst ones is support bands who come into the dressing room and put all their stuff on the seating, so there’s nowhere to sit down. If you’re in a band and you put all your coats and your guitars and your guitar cases on all the chairs, and there’s nowhere for me to sit down, I can get a bit cross. There should be a little handbook on it.
You could bring one out with the single…
Or I could put it on a T-shirt.
Yes, as a list printed on the back…
After this interview, I’ll get on to Nick Godfrey [who runs the label, Precious Recordings of London] to rush some out.
‘Don’t Get Me Started’ is released as a 7in single on November 6 via Precious Recordings of London.
- https://preciousrecordingsoflondon.bandcamp.com/
- https://www.instagram.com/preciousrecordingsoflondon/
