It always fascinates me, the kind of stuff that goes into releasing records, and because of our unusual situation we are always able to watch it very close up. So here's the story of I don't know as it was for the tiny group of people who cared most about it.

The build-up to a single always begins about six weeks in advance. Normally six weeks before a release you haven't got anything, but this time was unusual because we already had the 26th as the date for the Lottery. The release was scheduled for the 24th March so that it'd come out, you'd all see the Lottery and then rush out and buy it the next day.

The first problem was that we didn't want to put the single out as it had appeared the first time (partly because we wanted an incentive for the few who already had it to get it again, but mostly cos we didn't like it any more). We also wanted to edit the track a little so that it took a bit less long to get started (this is one of the things you learn when you try to get things played on the radio - they've got to be snappy). Neil, who was in charge of us at PolyGram suggested that a) we put a nice picture of us on the front and b) that we did two different CDs and c) that we put a nice poster of us in one of them. This presented us with two problems; a) what were we going to put on the second CD? and b) we didn't have any nice pictures of us. To simplify, the equation was something like this:

Question 1:
If new single=2(a+b) (where a = new material and b = nice picture) give values of a and b and show all working.

Answer:
a = Because we'd used all the master recordings we did at Chapel already and hadn't done any more, we decided to go through the huge pile of old recordings we'd done, and came across the 1994 Westside session which featured It'll be fine which we thought you'd be interested in (in the certain knowledge it wouldn't ever appear under any other circumstances) and the first version of Can't stop myself. The version on Harrison is so different from either this or the 7" version we thought it'd be nice for you to see it's development - it's the only song we've done three recordings of. Finally we thought of I think it's time because… well because we want you to get used to hearing demos because we've got thousands of them which will be great for CD2's for the rest of eternity. And the great thing about demos is that there's nothing to stop you recording them properly later.

We did consider splitting the original B-sides so that to get the new tracks you had to buy both CDs, but concluded we weren't that cruel.

b = It's really important when you're in the pop business to continually redefine your image; regularly go out with your stylist and PR manager to find clothes and hairstyles which say "Look! I am Today! I am Now! I am, in fact, Tomorrow Morning!". Then you should employ, every month, a top fashion photographer to do a two-day shoot with every month (colour, duotone, mono, heightened, bleached, inked, gloss, matt, inside, outside, location, studio, verite, topless, hardcore). That way you're never going to go "Oh shit, but the only pictures we've got are two years old and we all look like chimps" like we did. In the end we had to look through the album-cover shots, where we feasted our eyes on the walking-along-in-our-suits shot, certainly the best one we had. There were only two problems with this a) it was supposed to be the back cover of Harrison and b) we weren't sure we wanted to wear the suits for the rest of our lives.
Answer: a) Who cares? b) Tough shit.

A subsidiary problem was the video which was now not the same as the single version. One of the things we swiftly learnt the first time around is that they only ever show the first bit of your video which in this case was the not-as-good bit. We got Edgar to re-edit it with a bit more of the good bits at the beginning. We were also able to get rid of most of the really awful bits in the second verse (especially the bit where we all come out of the cupboard looking dreadful). While this was all being arranged, promotions queen Geri was hard at work courting the infamous Radio One. Readers of Helen Slayter's piece in ALAN 7 will be fully conversant with our trials at Radio One and why it is important. If you haven't read it you won't know.

Things were going very well; lots of the producers were saying "Yes please" and "that's the best thing I've heard all morning". She was doing OK with the television as well. Lots of people were going "how did you get the Lottery? You're going to be number one!" which shows how much they know.

The first time it went up for the playlist we went through the normal weekend of terrible anticipation before finding out that we weren't on it yet again. We decided to put the release back to the 31st March and try to get on it that week. As it happened, Geri spoke that day to the producer of Mark Radcliffe (a major fan) who, hearing that we weren't playlisted swore he'd get his boys to play it the next day.

So there I was on 11th March, in my bed at 7am sweating and listening to the show, thinking "it's amazing how many times someone says they're going to do something and then don't" when suddenly they were playing it. It sounded all right. Mostly it sounded like it had been played to millions of early morning people. I went back to sleep.

The rest of the week I worked my arse off doing ALAN 7 so as to send out before the Lottery. On Friday, Brian rang. "Are you awake?" he said. I was awake. "Well, I don't care if you are or not," he said "we got TFI". That was a bit funny. TFI's really the best thing you could ever get. And the Lottery as well… I told the others. We went wobbly.

The following Monday, just as me and Matt got back from delivering ALAN to the printers, Stephen phoned to ask if there was any news. "Get off the line!" I shouted "we'll hear any minute". "I already know," he sang "we got the C-list; hahahahahaha". So we had TFI, the Lottery and Radio One playlist. It was sunny out as well.

Tuesday we met for a rehearsal to prepare for TFI which was that Friday. It was a very excited rehearsal. We all played like fiends. We all grinned like loons. During a tea break Matt called Geri and we found out that TFI had put the Brand New Heavies on instead of us. The rest of the rehearsal wasn't so good.

On the way to Television Centre on the 26th we heard I don't know on the Jo Whiley show. That evening we did the Midweek Lottery wearing the suits. I don't know was released on 31st March and appeared in thousands of record stores around the country with "As seen on the National Lottery" stickers on them.

Nobody really knew what to expect; we didn't really know what effect the Lottery might have. We were averaging four plays a week on Radio One which was less than we had expected. On Wednesday we got the midweek chart position which was number 67.

Thursday we did This Morning without Richard and Judy. Matt unwisely told the nation we got a cheque for a hundred grand while we were busking one day. People believe this kind of thing.

This Morning was the last heavyweight thing we had for the campaign and we were all hoping hard that it and the weekend would take us up a few places. We'd all resigned ourselves to it not being in the Top 40 by then. But we wanted it to be number 41.

Finally on Sunday we heard our actual chart position which was 66. We were a bit gutted. Then we started to realise how much better that was than Valentine's Day. Leaping fifty places in the right direction is no bad thing, really.

Shortly afterwards we heard that PolyGram had put I don't know on Shine 8 which then sold a hundred thousand copies. Can't really take the credit for t hat, though.

Pop is a funny thing. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get loads of people to buy your stuff, however good it is. You need persistence and luck. But the greatest thing about it is there's no telling what's going to happen next. It's a very surprising business. For example, a few weeks ago we happened to get the Top 200 Chart for the week and discovered that I don't know by RUTH was at number 151, six weeks after it came out. Checking up on this, we found out that an average of 250 copies were still being sold every week with no promotion whatsoever. In fact, we've now sold twice as many copies as we did in the first week and it's still going!

Now all we've got to do is convince every single one of those people to buy Fear of flying on 21st July.