Pulp (band)

Pulp are a British rock band formed in Sheffield in 1978. At their critical and commercial peak, the band consisted of Jarvis Cocker, Russell Senior, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, Steve Mackey and Mark Webber. The band's "kitchen sink drama" lyrics, coupled with its references to British culture, led to Cocker and Pulp becoming reluctant figureheads of the Britpop movement.
The band struggled to find success during the 1980s, but gained UK prominence in the mid-1990s first with His 'n' Hers, which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Its follow-up, Different Class, won the Mercury Prize, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and spawned four top ten singles, including the number two hits "Common People" and "Mis-Shapes/Sorted for E's & Wizz". The band's sixth album, This Is Hardcore, also debuted at number one in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. At their peak, Pulp headlined the Pyramid Stage of the Glastonbury Festival twice and were regarded among the Britpop "big four", along with Blur, Oasis and Suede.
The band released We Love Life in 2001 and then took a decade-long break, having sold more than 10 million records. Pulp reunited in 2011 to play multiple festivals and released "After You" in 2013, their first song in 12 years. The band reunited a second time in 2022 to tour once again, and later released their eighth album More in June 2025.

History

Early years: 1978–1983

Pulp were formed in 1978 at The City School in Sheffield by Jarvis Cocker, then 15 years old, and Peter Dalton, then 14. Cocker's original preference was to name the band after the film Pulp starring Michael Caine, though it was decided that this was too short. Instead, the two took inspiration from a copy of the Financial Times which listed the Arabicas coffee bean in its commodity index. Cocker and Dalton used this, with a slight spelling change, and the band became "Arabicus". Early rehearsals took place in Cocker's house and featured Cocker, Dalton and Dalton's younger brother Ian. After finally deciding on "Arabicus Pulp", a fixed line-up was then established: Cocker, Dalton and two friends of theirs, David "Fungus" Lockwood and Mark Swift. The band played their first public gig at Rotherham Arts Centre in July 1980. Later that year, Cocker met future member Russell Senior, who recognised Cocker from his charismatic sales techniques in his part-time job at the local fish market.
Pulp's musical style at this time was varied, approximately described as "a cross between ABBA and the Fall". A local fanzine also noted this eclecticism, describing them as sounding "as if they listen to the John Peel show every night in an endless quest for influences". Indeed, in October 1981, they gave a demo tape to Peel, who granted them a Peel Session. The session was a giant leap forward for the young band, who became well known on the local music scene as a result. The tracks recorded were in the typical Sheffield sound of the time : electronic new wave and post-punk. These tracks were released in 2006 on The Peel Sessions compilation.
Despite their exposure on national radio, success was not forthcoming and, apart from Cocker, most of the core line-up left for university. Soon, a new set of musicians were gathered: Simon Hinkler, David Hinkler, Wayne Furniss, Peter Boam, Gary Wilson, and Cocker's sister, Saskia. They managed to get enough local backing to record a mini-album in late 1982, entitled It, which was released in April 1983 by Red Rhino Records. This largely consisted of folkish, romantic pop songs influenced by Leonard Cohen and was a change of direction from the Peel Sessions two years earlier. The album was later released by Cherry Red Records.
Though It failed commercially and fame was still elusive, the band continued to seek commercial success even to the point of recording a single, "Everybody's Problem"/"There Was". The single demonstrated a style shift advised by Red Rhino's Tony Perrin who had convinced Cocker that he "could write commercial songs like Wham!". This approach also failed and the It lineup soon dissolved.

Fire Records era: 1983–1992

Around this time, Cocker had become involved in an experimental theatre/performance art company organised by Russell Senior; the two soon began writing and rehearsing music together, eventually enlisting fellow performance artist Magnus Doyle to play drums. As Senior recounted, this was for all intents and purposes a new project, related to Cocker's previous band in name only:

We had a discussion on what to call the new band, Jarvis didn't like the name of my previous psychobilly band the Nightmares, and I quite liked the name Pulp but didn't particularly want to be associated with it. We tried sticking a pin in a dictionary but all the names were rubbish and he persuaded me that keeping the name Pulp would bring a few people in, so it stuck.

With the eventual addition of bassist Peter "Manners" Mansell and occasional keyboardist/engineer Tim Allcard, this new incarnation of Pulp survived a number of ill-fated gigs before Allcard left to be replaced on keyboards by Doyle's sister Candida in 1984. At her first gig with the band, in a London pub, Pulp were scouted by their soon-to-be label, the fledgling indie Fire Records. Soon after signing, in November 1985, Cocker fell out of a window while trying to impress a girl with a Spider-Man impression and ended up in hospital, temporarily requiring the use of a wheelchair in which he appeared during concerts.
Fire released the singles "Little Girl", "Dogs Are Everywhere", and "They Suffocate at Night" before finally releasing the band's next LP Freaks, recorded in one week on a budget of £600 due to record label pressure. Cocker was irritated, and remarked that "the songs could've been done a lot better if we'd have had a bit more time...". The release of Freaks had been delayed for a year, in which time the band's lineup had largely destabilised, the most notable fluctuations being the departures of Mansell and both Doyles and the addition of drummer Nick Banks. With the album emerging to minimal label promotion and only moving a few hundred copies, and the initial Fire contract having wound down, Pulp recorded demos of newer, more pop-oriented material with Chakk's label FON in Sheffield. A single called "Death Comes To Town" was due to be released by FON in early 1988, but this relationship disintegrated and the release was cancelled. Pulp would play two notable gigs in Sheffield that year, including the high-concept "Day That Never Happened" show at The Leadmill in August; the same night of this event, however, Cocker informed Senior that he was leaving for London to study film, having been accepted to Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and had his fill of struggling to move the band's career forward.
Though Cocker's relocation and frustrated attitude seemed to spell a natural endpoint for Pulp, Senior encouraged him that the time had not yet come to disband. Banks, too, recalled that the situation was discouraging but not final:

Pulp was in bits. Scattered. But, we never sat down and said, "That's it, the end, see you later." There was still a dimly flickering ember under the rubble. There was still a desire to try and keep things going – somehow. We didn't know how this was going to happen, we just thought the songs we had were too vital to let die.

Steve Mackey, a fellow Sheffielder and supportive fan, was also studying in London by this time and was asked to join as a bass player. In 1989, Fire Records approached Cocker about re-signing Pulp, promising a £10,000 recording budget; still wary from their prior experience with the label, the band booked FON's studio and producer Alan Smyth once again in hopes that they could use Fire's studio advance without actually formalising a new deal. Under this arrangement, Pulp commenced work on what would ultimately become their next LP Separations. Upon completing the album, with no discernible interest from any other label, the band reluctantly agreed to re-sign with Fire Records. As with Freaks, the label would delay the release of Separations considerably, sitting on the album until 1992.
In the meantime, however, in 1991, the "My Legendary Girlfriend" 12-inch became NMEs single of the week. Stuart Maconie described it in his review as "a throbbing ferment of nightclub soul and teen opera". Another 1991 single, "Countdown," began to be mentioned in the mainstream press,Gallivan, Joseph. "Rock/gig guide". The Independent. 29 August 1991. and in October of that year, the band played its first overseas gig, a concert organised by French magazine Les Inrockuptibles. Frustrated by what they viewed as a still intractable situation with Fire, Pulp worked with their new manager Suzanne Catty to drum up interest from major-label A&Rs in London; an arrangement was reached for interested suitor Island Records to informally fund a few singles on Warp Records imprint Gift in order to bolster Pulp's indie profile while testing the commercial waters with a larger production budget. "O.U." was thus released by Gift in June 1992 ; when Island learned of the band's heretofore unrevealed contractual obligation to Fire Records, however, further funding was withheld for fear of legal action, causing Cocker to seek a £5,000 loan from his family in order to keep Gift's planned release of "Babies" on schedule for October. Amid the stress and ambiguity of this episode, the band severed ties with Catty and soon took on the services of Rough Trade's management arm, who would successfully negotiate Pulp's release from Fire to Island Records under condition of the smaller label receiving a portion of the band's future major-label earnings.
The band would later look back on its experiences with Fire Records as a disillusioning time, citing problems like poor promotion, lack of adequate distribution, and a failure to coordinate release schedules with Pulp's live activity; both Cocker and Senior confessed after the fact that the band agreed to the initial Fire deal because it "was the only offer on the table."
Upon his own reflection, Banks took a slightly more equivocal stance on the label situation during this period:

did put out Pulp records when nobody else wanted to. OK, they were often months and years after they were recorded and almost all of them garnered zero sales, airplay, or interest but they were the only people to invest any money in Pulp for a long time. It is very easy to see that Pulp could have floundered in the mid and late eighties due to lack of interest. Is a band even a band without being able to release music? At least with Fire something was coming out. Just.