1. Brother Beyond - The Harder I Try

Brother Beyond
The Harder I Try

Parlophone R 6184
Released: 20 July 1988
Reached: #2

“My A&R man said to me once that the difference between a Number One record and a Number Two record was huge. It’s only now I realise why that is”. Thus speaks Nathan Moore, the eternally youthful lead singer of Brother Beyond. “When radio stations do their “on this day” feature, they’ll play whatever was number One twenty years ago, but not what was number Two…”

Brother Beyond have Phil Collins to blame for denying them their number One record. Despite selling 400,000 copies and being number One in the midweek charts right up until Friday afternoon, The Harder I Try ended up being outsold by a mere two hundred panel sales over the course of seven days and A Groovy Kind Of Love claimed the coveted number One position on 10 September 1988.

Brothers Dave and Eg White, Carl Fysh and singer Nathan Moore had worked tirelessly to no avail through 1986 and 1987 to launch their chart career. Despite some reasonable airplay and publicity their first four singles had failed to trouble the top 40 and they were in danger of being dropped by their record label.

In early 1988, the multi-million selling songwriting team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman decided to auction their services for charity. EMI won the auction (for the princely sum of £20,000) and asked the team to write a song for their band the Belle Stars.

Pete Waterman had met the Brother Beyond boys on several occasions (often in their local pub), and asked EMI if he could write a song for Brother Beyond instead of the all-girl band. The record company agreed and some weeks later The Harder I Try was born.

Just as the single came about, drummer and songwriter Eg White decided he was unhappy with the direction of the group and left to be replaced by the band’s live drummer Steve Alexander. Despite missing out on their success, White continued to write great music for the likes of Joss Stone, James Morrison, Adele and James Blunt and won a coveted Ivor Novello award in 2004 for writing Will Young’s chart-topping single Leave Right Now.

It took about three hours for Moore to record the vocals for the single under the careful eye of producer Mike Stock. A video shot in Milan involving Nathan sprinting around the old town (“…the director filmed each sequence about six times and so I basically spent my day running around the city!”) helped promote the single and on 30 July 1988 it began its slow climb up the charts, peaking at number Two for two weeks in September 1988.

Despite being written at the peak of their popularity, it’s by no means a standard S/A/W record. Waterman wanted the song to have a Motown feel, and by sampling the drum introduction of the Isley Brothers This Old Heart Of Mine they created a more soulful, crafted pop record. There is less of the standard PWL keyboard in evidence – indeed many people were surprised it was a S/A/W record at all. For what it’s worth, even though it wasn’t their biggest hit I think it is the finest record the threesome ever wrote.

Brother Beyond followed up this single with another S/A/W penned single, the number Six hit He Ain’t No Competition (Pete Waterman called this “their message to Matt Goss”) and the top 20 hit Be My Twin. They were also on the receiving end of one of the multitude of gaffes at the infamous 1989 Brit awards when Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood failed to announce their nomination in the “Best New Band” category.

Despite their success with the Hit Factory, guitarist David White was overheard by Waterman making disparaging remarks about the songwriters during an interview on Radio 1 and their relationship was effectively ended. When the Hit Factory decided to remake Do They Know It’s Christmas? in 1989, Brother Beyond were conspicuous by their absence, a disappointment compounded only by the invitation extended to their bitter rivals Bros to appear on the record.

Without the S/A/W input, their second album Trust barely made the top 75 and the band split soon after. Nathan achieved significant further success in continental Europe with his band Worlds Apart and despite an offer to reform for the ITV series Baby One More Time, the band have yet to appear together again. Shame, really, as The Harder I Try remains one of the most recognisable and loved singles of its time.