But the people at RetarD records had big plans for the four from a Fingringhoe council estate, " I think they were well ahead of thier time over there at the label, they very much wanted to create a group similar to what EMI did with S-club juniors just a few years ago. Basically i reckon that we were just born at the wrong time. I sometimes wish we could be S-club juniors as they are now, lucky little scamps" [clive]. The group were signed up and immediately the A&R guys at RetarD pushed them as the next big thing. The group began their UK tour late june 1987 at the Unicorn shopping centre in Leeds. The show was a major disappointment. "We just didnt know what we were doing" recalls clive. "The label had tried to teach us all these dance moves and hand signals to this track that we'd had nothing to do with, but they had left it till the night before the first gig, we were awful"[steve].
The lads were promptly dropped from the label giving them their first experience of disappointment. "I just remember feeling such a failure that i wanted to curl up and die, which is an awful thing for 9 year old kid to be thinking......i just knew from then on i was gonna do all i could to make the band work"[clive]. With their new found drive, giraffes set about getting real instruments and learning how to play them. They begged borrowed and stole from their parents to get the money to but they simple kit they needed and finally in september 1989 they had set up a practise room in tommys garage."It was very basic, my drum kit was basically nicked from about 3 different schools in the area, as were the guitars and amps. The mikes and stuff we got from a bloke who lived down the road who ran a dodgy business from the back of his van" [ken].
Everything seemed to be going right for Giraffes until they met a gang from the estate called 'The Jitters'. " The jitters basicall ruined everything for us by getting us onto the hard drugs we are now on. We were shooting up by the time we were 12. We kept trying to learn our instruments but it aint easy when your comatozed in a puddle of your own vomit and faeces"[ken]. The lads quickly grew up, in and out of institutions through petty crime to feed their addiction. This greatly hindered their ability to learn their gievn instruments which leads us to the present. Still unable in the most part to play more than 5 chords and sing and play in time, the band have almost created a new genre in the hope that the press and the public will embrace them.