The Wedding Present’s David Gedge talks recent anniversary celebration ’40’, upcoming mini-album ‘Maxi’ and more
“40 was a lot of work to put together. Again, it’s typical of the Wedding Present really but it expanded. At first, I thought it was going to be a double LP but there are some quite long tracks on there. To the point where there are like 4 tracks on one side of vinyl. So, I was thinking ‘it’s going to be a triple this.’ It was the record label who said, ‘Why don’t you just go – 40 years! 40 tracks! 4 LPs?’. I thought ‘Yeah, that makes a certain amount of mathematical sense.’”
Celebrating their 40-year anniversary with a tour (Tickets here), a four-disc compilation and a critically acclaimed musical, the Wedding Present are as busy as ever. Run like a self-contained unit by their leader David Gedge (who I spoke to just before their Oxford gig) there’s plenty in store for Weddo fans including a new release in December, ongoing gigs and a Seamonsters thirty-fifth anniversary tour next year. The current tour sees them performing material in reverse chronological order from current stuff all the way back to the 1985 debut single Go Out and Get Em Boy.
The upcoming mini-album is called Maxi and is out on December 5th (Pre-order here). It’s six tracks based on a motoring theme and is a conceptual follow-on from the 1996 Wedding Present EP Mini. For David, with his mathematics degree and creative mind, the concept for this album made sense both numerically and artistically…
“We had done about half a dozen new songs, and we were kind of working towards the next album. Our albums seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. We did Going Going (2016) and that was a double album. Then we did 24 Songs in 2023 and that was a triple album. Then we’ve just done this 40 compilation which is a quadruple album. I was just thinking, ‘It’s getting bigger and bigger’ so I decided to go the other way and do a mini-LP this time. Then it just struck me that it’s actually thirty years since we did that 10-inch Mini EP. So, I thought that it would be a nod to that really. We kind of revisited the concept of the six-track motoring themed EP. It all seemed quite timely. We had six songs ready to go so it all seemed to make sense really. It’s one of those things that just happened.”
For me, the band seemed to be as strong as ever with a relatively new line up – at least in the grand scheme of Wedding Present history, anyway! Rachael Wood [Skunk Anansie, Sinead O’Connor] seems to be a major part of the current sound?
“The line-up is not really that new. Rachael was the stand in for our previous guitarist, Jon Stewart, who is also the guitarist with Sleeper. Sleeper is more his band than the Wedding Present are really. When he joined the Wedding Present Sleeper weren’t doing anything, so he was able to do it. But then, over the years, Sleeper have kind of reformed. He became less available for us really. He suggested Rachael and she started standing in. It’s funny because I was talking to Jon the other day and he was sort of saying ‘I think I’m Rachael’s stand in now!’ It’s gone the other way round because Rachael has done most of the gigs for the last few years.”
A two-week performance of the Wedding Present musical Reception: A New Musical finished in September. Created by Weddoes fan Matt Aston after seeing David perform his Wedding Present/Cinerama songs with an orchestra and staged by Slung Lo Theatre company in Holbeck it was a success with both critics and the Leeds audience. It wasn’t a jukebox musical but was a fully thought-out performance based on songs David wrote for the Wedding Present and Cinerama. Were there any plans to stage it in other parts of the country?
“It was initially for a two-week run. Matt wants to take it on a tour but it’s quite an expensive project because there’s a lot of people involved with it. I didn’t realise until I went to the first rehearsal and met them all but there were about 50 involved there. I’m used to four people in a band plus a sound engineer, backline technician, and a merchandise person. But they had choreographers, stage managers, lights, projections, sound, and there’s about 50 people there and so it’s quite an expensive thing. Matt is basically looking for funding from the Arts Council. If it gets that he can do a tour of the UK. I’m optimistic because apparently the two things you need to get funding are, firstly, good reviews- and we got loads of good reviews for it. Secondly, media attention- it was on the BBC News and covered in the Guardian. So, he’s hopeful that they can take it on tour. He’s also writing the sequel.”
What input did you have in the musical?
“I was kind of the artistic consultant. I think that’s what he called me. So, basically, I went to a few of the rehearsals and obviously it’s my songs, but Matt wrote the whole thing and directed it and designed it and everything. So, I just went and made a few comments. When he got lyrics wrong or something or where there was something I felt wasn’t quite working musically then I told him. When he first approached me he said ‘I wanna do a musical’ and he started telling me all about it and I said ‘I’m going to have to stop you there. Firstly I know nothing about this genre whatsoever and secondly I’m not even sure I like it really’. I’ve never really been into musicals. Matt said ‘Trust me. Your lyrics are perfect for it. They’re little stories about relationships and things and it lends itself perfectly to the format.’ That was a few years ago. It was before the pandemic actually. He’s been working on it ever since and it was really good. I went to a couple of performances. There were Wedding Present fans going in and saying ‘Yeah, I’m only here because it’s the Wedding Present. I’m not really sure.’ On the way out they were like ‘Wow! That was brilliant.’ It was really well done. There were really talented people involved, and a lot of work went into it. So, I hope he gets his funding, and he can do it.”
Community theatre on that scale is great, isn’t it?
“Yeah, and it’s called ‘immersive,’ so the audience were involved with it. It was done in this warehouse that was converted into a theatre. They were so talented as well. There were these people that were kind of actors/musicians/singers/dancers. They could do all those things. Sickeningly talented. You just think ‘Wow. I thought my job was hard’ but some of these people are amazing really.
“It’s weird for me. It sounds a bit vain, but I didn’t want my reputation to be tarnished (laughs) by something that wasn’t great. I took a chance on it really. But it WAS really really good.”
The recent anniversary celebration ’40’ is a great compilation.
“Thank you. 40 was a lot of work to put together. Again, it’s typical of the Wedding Present really but it expanded. At first, I thought it was going to be a double LP but there are some quite long tracks on there. To the point where there are like 4 tracks on one side of vinyl. So, I was thinking ‘It’s going to be a triple, this.’ It was Julie at the record label CLUE Records who said, ‘why don’t you just go – forty years! forty tracks! Four LPs?’. I thought ‘Yeah, that makes a certain amount of mathematical sense.’ So, we did that and that gave me the chance to basically select tracks from all our material. It sounds pretentious but I wanted to make it a journey through the Wedding Present rather than what are the most popular songs or whatever. I wanted it to flow as a piece of work rather than just a collection. I think the sleeve is amazing. The artist Hitch, Jonathan Hitchen, did a lot of our early sleeves. He did Seamonsters and Tommy and he did this one and I think he did a really good job.
“There’re many people I work with depending on the project and who has been involved before and who has time. I suppose Hitch has done more sleeves for us than anybody but he’s not always available. He didn’t do Bizarro because he was too busy at the time, and he didn’t do George Best because basically I did that. It’s just if he wants to do it and who has got the capacity to do it really.”
Have you any more book projects coming up?
“I don’t know if you know but I do have an autobiography called Tales from the Wedding Present. We’ve had two volumes released and we’re working on the third volume which is finished in terms of writing really. It’s a graphic novel and the artist hasn’t finished illustrating it yet. So, we did hope it would be out this year. Realistically, now, I don’t think it will be out until next year.”
What is the process like? Do you write the text and send it to the artist?
“I kind of co-write it with someone called Terry De Casto. She was a former bass player of the Wedding Present and Cinerama, and she had the idea of doing my autobiography years ago. It was one of those things we talked about, and she said she would do it from the angle of someone joining the group. She was in bands with me for 12 years, so she had quite a lot of stuff to talk about but it never really kind of gathered momentum. But then I used to have a friend called Lee Thacker who used to do cartoons for a fanzine back in the 1980s and I just said ‘If we just send you these stories that me and Terry have been working on do you want to do them in the graphic novel form?’ and he said ‘yeah I’d love to do that’. So, me and Terry kind of go backwards and forwards until we’ve got it in a position where we think it works. Then we kind of send it to Lee and he extrapolates that into his world of imagery and everything. It goes back and forth between us until everyone’s happy really. It’s a fascinating project. I love doing it. A lot of it is very conversational between me and Terry. Terry will ask me a question about Wedding Present history, and I’ll explain to her and then we send it to Lee. Then it comes back with the imagery and it’s like a film. You’re seeing yourself in a storyboard like a film or something. It’s really good fun. It’s one of my favourite things about being in the band to be honest with you.”
‘Maxi’ Track List
• Scream, If You Want To Go Faster
• Grand Prix
• Hot Wheels
• Two For The Road
• Interceptor
• Silver Shadow
❉ The Wedding Present – ‘Maxi’ EP released on 5 December 2025 via www.scopitones.co.uk. Pre-order here!
❉ For more information: www.theweddingpresent.co.uk | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
❉ Currently co-writing a book on Steven Wells, James Collingwood is based in West Yorkshire and has been writing for a number of years. He currently also writes for the Bradford Review magazine for which he has conducted more than 30 interviews and has covered music, film and theatre. Bluesky: jamescollingwood.bsky.social
Header image credit: David Gedge, Palm Springs Pool Back 2023 © Jessica McMillan. All images provided by Sonic PR.
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