THIRTY years ago it was the only song on anyone’s lips and was glued to the top of the UK chart for four months.
Wet Wet Wet’s iconic cover of Love Is All Around made them the biggest group in the country and soundtracked 1994’s box office smash Four Weddings and a Funeral – directed by Richard Curtis and starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell.
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But for all of its commercial success, the group didn’t profit directly from its release at all.
Instead, a lucrative portion of the royalties made their way to the late Troggs frontman Reg Presley, who penned the song in the 60s.
In an exclusive interview with the Sun, bassist and founding member Graeme Clark, 58, and guitarist Graeme Duffin, 68, harboured no ill feelings and revealed the song’s success gave the group longevity and countless lucrative opportunities.
Clark earnestly says of the group’s biggest hit: “We’ve been dining out on that for a long time. Some bands hate that albatross, man, we embrace that albatross. You know what I mean?”
He laughs: “If we knew then what we know now things might have been different… no listen, it enabled us to renegotiate from a really privileged position of gathering all this money. So for the next couple of albums we would kind of, you know, we could basically name a price.
“So that’s what it did. We didn’t earn any money directly from it, but the repercussions and all the stuff that came off that, all the spin off, was just much more important than that. You know, much more potent than that one song.”
The duo recall how Presley dropped by a rehearsal after the song had begun to take off.
Duffin explains: “He was emotional about it, understandable after 27 years. He was like ‘wow, it’s all happening, it’s a huge hit’. He was a nice chap.”
Clark continues: “He was. Elvis Costello, I was reiterating that story to him because they were asking about that song, everyone talks about it, especially at that time.
“I was saying ‘Reg came up, we played the song and half way through I turned round and he was wiping his eyes’.
“And Elvis Costello said ‘he’s wiping his eyes because he cannae believe how much money he’s making. He’s crying with the sheer joy of the millions that are pouring into his bank account, man’ [laughs].
“I liked Reg, much as his eccentricity kinda overtook things from time to time, I liked him.”
It enabled us to renegotiate from a really privileged position of gathering all this money. So for the next couple of albums we would kind of, you know, we could basically name a price.
Graeme Clark, Wet Wet Wet
It could have all been very different had the band selected either two of the other songs they were offered for the film soundtrack: Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive and Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You.
Initially the band had wanted to record a James Bond theme but their label quickly made it clear that wouldn’t be possible.
However, they delivered Four Weddings, made on a modest budget of £3million, as an alternative option.
Fearing the Manilow tune was too cheesy, and Gaynor’s classic was a beast of its own, the group settled on the lesser known Troggs track, which Clark was only vaguely familiar with.
When it came time to begin work on it, they used some music they’d already written for the track’s instantly recognisable intro.
Clark says: “We always had a couple of songs on the go and had to wait until they fell from the sky.
“So the intro of that song was something that we had lying around and suddenly that gets put at the beginning of the song and sort of changes the key, and we sort of change the tempo, so very quickly Love Is All Around morphed into something more than what I’d heard, which sounded like a badly recorded 60’s song.
“Now I’m not downcrying that, it sounded like a million transistor radios all played at once. A lot of sixties record sound like that.
“By our time, technology had moved and we had our own studio. So I mean, I just thought, if we tune the guitars it’s going to sound a little better than the original.
“So we were adding something to it, you know, and I’ve always felt that if we do a cover hopefully, we can sort of try and add an element to that. Not drastically change it, but just add on dynamic or an element to that takes out of where it came from.
“When we finished we all sat around and thought, ‘wow, that will make a nice B-side somewhere, that will make a nice extra track’, you know.”
He continues: “Never ask the band what record they want to release, man, because they would be the most obscure album track.”
Making its mark
Signs kept appearing that they had something a bit special on their hands.
None more so than high praise from a usually reserved family member.
“I remember I played it to my my father-in-law,” Clark says. “And he said ‘I think that’s the best thing he’s ever done’, and he never pays me compliments, so I’ll be like, ‘Oh, man, this is going somewhere’.
When another person declared their love for Love Is All Around upon discovering what they were working on, Clark knew something different was happening.
Needless to say, the record was a phenomenon and to this day is still the third longest number one record in UK chart history behind Frankie Laine’s I Believe and Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It for You.
The promotion of the track, in the pre-Internet and streaming age, was another unique part of an unexpected ride.
The band were working on an album in Capri, Italy at the time and made multiple trips back and forth to the UK to perform on Top of the Pops.
Their record label noticed how many more units were being sold after an appearance on the programme and were determined to get the group on by any means necessary.
It resulted in the band being flown by chartered private jet on return trips to to ensure they were beamed to screens around the country.
Clark says: “It changed the rules for us a wee bit, you know. Things change quite dramatically after that, in lots and lots of different ways.”
More importantly than records sold and money made was the lasting impact on the lives of fans from all walks of life.
Clark says: “There were people… ‘I did my first year at university, and and your song was… and you know that was a brilliant summer for me’, you know, when you become the song of the summer and that seems to me much more so as we’re getting older, that nostalgia and heritage seems to have a powerful… much more so than when we were recording it. And when you know, in those early days of the 90s It seems to have garnered and gathered its own momentum.
“And it’s something really potent and powerful in people’s lives to think back on what they got married to, how they did their first year of university or, dare I say, how they sat at a piano as a 4 year old with this faint memory of family, you know.
“I mean, that is extremely important and it’s a privilege for us to be the conduits that made that happen.”
All you need is love
Nine years later Love Is All Around had a resurgence due to its association with rom-com Love Actually and its tongue in cheek cover titled Christmas Is All Around Us, sang by Bill Nighy.
Once again, the band didn’t benefit financially from its inclusion, though it acted as a reminder as to what had come before.
Duffin says: “All our arrangements, our parts, our creativity and nothing out of it. Didn’t get a penny. That’s my guitar parts [laughs].”
The band are celebrating 30 years since the release of their famous track this year and yesterday announced a UK tour beginning in January 2025.
Now fronted by former Liberty X singer and The Voice winner Kevin Simm following the departure of Marti Pellow in 2017, the two Graemes are feeling revitalised.
Clark says of the singer, who put out his first album with the band in 2021: “He’s got an old head on young shoulders, and it’s a joy, man. It’s a joy. Love, love, Kevin. I love his voice. I love what he brings and I love his Instagram, man, you know. I mean that you know that takes us a long way [laughs].”
And teasing what fans can expect from the live show, he says: “If you come and see Wet Wet Wet it’s a pretty specific thing you’re coming to see. You know.
“We have a specific kind of pretty much strong set list that we keep to and Love Is All Around will be in there.”
Wet Wet Wet’s 2025 UK Tour is on-sale from Friday 22nd March, tickets available from Ticketmaster.co.uk
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