A Boy Like Me: A Tommy Scott Quiz

Answer: The Australians

Amazingly, Tommy is one of the few notable Scouse musicians of the '80s/'90s who was NOT involved with Big in Japan! The band were called the Australians, and Jill played bass. Another member was guitarist Paul Hemmings, who would later go on to play with the La's. One of their songs, 'The Girl Who Loved Her Man Enough to Kill Him', was featured on a compilation called 'Hit the North'. Tommy has stated that he would like to include it in a Space set.

He and Franny also played together in another band, Hello Sunset, and Franny had a habit of leaving the stage, going to the bar and buying a drink during a set.

Answer: Jamie Murphy

Jamie Murphy, who would later go on to play guitar with Space and sing the odd lead vocal, also played guitar in the Substitutes; still in his teens, he turned up to rehearsals in school uniform. Tommy admitted afterwards that the Substitutes were the result of him jumping on a bandwagon, at a time when other bands were trying to make mod music, and that Space's first single 'If It's Real' was along those lines. Tommy, Jamie and drummer Jamie Island later formed Space.

Answer: A dog

To be precise, the dog is a Jack Russell terrier named Judy, and she was Tommy's pet dog. If you watch the video, you can see the members of Space gathered around the crime scene, with Tommy holding Judy. She also appears in the 'Neighbourhood' video, being carried by the Big Butch Queen and wearing a tutu, and is thanked in the credits on 'Spiders'. Tommy has always had pet dogs, especially Jack Russells; another of his pet JRTs, Huey, gets a mention in the credits on Space's 2021 album 'Music for Pleasure, Music for Pain'.

Answer: He lost his voice.

Space's 1997 tour of the USA was a disaster and had to be cancelled after Tommy lost his voice onstage as a result of stress. Jamie was absent after having a nervous breakdown and had been replaced by Joel, a saxophone player from another local band, at short notice, and Tommy stated afterwards that he had been overcompensating and singing more loudly than usual as a result of Jamie not being there.

He lost his voice while singing 'Mister Psycho' and Franny had to finish the song. Tommy was subsequently unable to sing for two months, despite having a variety of treatments.

Answer: Avenging Angels

Tommy wrote 'Avenging Angels' following the death of his father and stated in interviews that it was about the spirits of dead loved ones watching over those they left behind. 'Bad Days', another song on the album, is also about the death of Tommy's father and his wife's parents, and Tommy cried while recording it. Tommy's father was a big fan of Frank Sinatra, and 'Female of the Species', Space's signature song, was Tommy's attempt at writing a song his father would like.

Answer: A lion

The video for 'Suburban Rock 'n' Roll' was set in a cartoonish, Toytown-esque world with Wendy houses and Tommy being pursued by a man in a lion suit, who turns out to be none other than Tommy himself. The video also features Franny's sons, Ellis and Christian, Leon's daughters, Eireann and Libby, and Tommy's daughter Sophie, all of whom had their faces painted red.

The band also posted a behind-the-scenes look at the video on their YouTube channel. 'Suburban Rock 'n' Roll' was the only song from the album to have a video featuring the band; '20 Million Miles from Earth' had an animated video featuring photographs of the band, while 'Zombies' had no video at all.

Answer: Tommy Scott and the Red Scare

The Drellas were named after actor Robert 'Ondine' Olivo's nickname for Andy Warhol, 'Drella' (a portmanteau of 'Dracula' and 'Cinderella'). Lou Reed and John Cale also wrote an album of songs entitled 'Songs for Drella' after Warhol's death. Several songs by the Drellas, such as 'Anthony's Brainwaves' and 'Happy Clowns' (aka 'Gone in an Instant') were later repurposed for Space's first post-reunion album 'Attack of the Mutant 50ft Kebab'. Following some line-up changes, the Drellas became Tommy Scott and the Red Scare, who performed 'Neighbourhood' as part of their set. Tommy had initially refused to play Space songs after the split, but eventually changed his mind.

The reunited line-up of Space in 2011 consisted of Tommy, Franny, Jamie, Ryan, Phil and Allan; Jamie left in 2012, and Ryan left in 2013.

Answer: The Thomas Scott Quintet

Although 'Marionette' is essentially a Tommy Scott solo album, Tommy released it under the name of the Thomas Scott Quintet. The album was produced by Phil Hartley and Paul Hemmings, both of whom played on it, along with Lightning Seeds drummer Chris Sharrock and backing vocalists Emily Portman and Kate Milner.

Hemmings also played guitar with Tommy at several of his solo gigs, as well as doing the odd gig with Space, and it was he who suggested doing a solo album to Tommy. According to an interview with Tommy and Hemmings, Sharrock recorded his drum parts without even having heard the songs beforehand!

Answer: Treasure Chest

'Treasure Chest' was the only single to be released from the album, and Tommy had performed it at solo gigs previously before releasing the album, along with 'Shadowland', 'End of the World' and 'Rituals of a Girl Called Nightingale' (which is my favourite song on the album, incidentally). One song, 'Johnny Thug', was sadly only on the tape version of the album.

Some of the songs on 'Marionette' had been written relatively recently to the album's release, while others had been on the back burner for years; Tommy stated that it had taken him twenty years to write the album. During the COVID crisis of 2020, Tommy also began work on a second solo album.

Answer: Hell No

'Hell No' was the first album to be released from 'Music for Pleasure, Music for Pain' in 2021 and was accompanied by a video of Space in an American car, wearing Hunter S Thompson-inspired Hawaiian shirts. Tommy would introduce the song at gigs by explaining about how it was inspired by his parents nagging him to get a proper job.

Another song on the album, 'The Dysfunctional Brother of Action Man', was inspired by Tommy's childhood, and his older brother's obsession with working out. By contrast to 'Give Me Your Future', its synthpop predecessor, 'Music for Pleasure, Music for Pain' was more hip-hop influenced, with shorter songs, and was also the first Space album to feature a parental advisory sticker due to the large amount of swearing in the lyrics!