Any Trouble are a British rock band, originating from Crewe, England, best known for their early 1980s recordings.
In 1980, Melody Maker stated that Any Trouble were "the most exciting new rock 'n' roll group since the Pretenders".
Early days
Any Trouble's founding members Clive Gregson (guitar), Tom Jackson (vocals) and Chris Parks (guitar) met at Crewe and Alsager Teacher Training College in 1974. Soon after, Mel Harley (drums) and Phil Barnes (bass) completed the line up.
Initially Any Trouble were a covers band, playing anything they liked, including songs by Bob Dylan, The Band and a selection of American rock and roll numbers. With the advent of punk rock and then new wave, Clive Gregson realised they needed a change of material and started taking songwriting seriously. He explained in a 1999 interview, "We were like a human jukebox and it was obvious to me then if we wanted to get anywhere we needed original songs. I started to take it a bit more seriously then".
After vocalist Tom Jackson left, the band was fronted by rhythm guitarist and songwriter Clive Gregson. The remaining four were the first Any Trouble line-up to record, initially releasing the Gregson composition "Yesterday's Love" as an indie single in 1979. This was picked up by some radio stations and was played by BBC Radio 1 DJs John Peel, Andy Peebles and others in the UK.
Signed to Stiff Records
Airplay for Any Trouble's debut indie single "Yesterday's Love" led to interest from major record labels including WEA, Chrysalis, EMI and Stiff. Any Trouble selected Stiff "because they were our kind of people".
Their first release on the Stiff label, Where Are All the Nice Girls? was perhaps their most successful. The album was produced by John Wood (Fairport Convention etc.) and the band gained significant visibility after featuring on a Melody Maker front cover and in a gushing article by Allan Jones. In some ways the band's career never recovered from this early rush of success and Gregson's singing was unfairly compared to that of Elvis Costello and Ian Dury.
The band's second album Wheels in Motion, with Martin Hughes replacing Mel Harley on drums, was produced by Mike Howlett; it would be the last recorded on the Stiff label in Any Trouble's original incarnation.
Despite frequent touring and the release of Wheels in Motion, Any Trouble's record sales failed to grow. The band were dropped by Stiff during a 1983 US tour supporting Ian Hunter, with their manager arranging for them to open for Molly Hatchet to help keep them afloat. At that point Clive Gregson "pulled my plug... threw in the towel... we straggled back to NYC, where our van was robbed whilst we were in the Stiff offices trying to wrestle return tickets to the UK out of the office manager". The band flew back to the UK on standby tickets.
Move to EMI America and break-up
After returning from their US tour without a recording contract Any Trouble took a long break, after which Clive Gregson returned to making demos. He had a meeting with subsequent manager Ray Williams who persuaded him Any Trouble had a sufficient following to justify its revival. Gregson re-formed the band and, on the strength of the demos, Williams secured a contract with Gery Gersh at EMI America.
Any Trouble's new line-up included Andy Ebsworth on drums and Steve Gurl on keyboards, with original members Clive Gregson and Phil Barnes. The sessions started promisingly enough with Val Garay (The Motels) as producer but Garay left after contract negotiations broke down. David Kershenbaum (best known for producing Joe Jackson and, later, Tracy Chapman) was brought on board to produce the band's eponymous third album Any Trouble but they were unhappy with the synthesizer-heavy sound of the final mix. While they toured the UK to support the album there were no funds available from the record company for a US tour; the album failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic.