Like other musical icons of the 1980s, Lawrence Hayward has always insisted on being known simply by one name. Unlike Morrissey, Prince, or Madonna, however, the wider success Lawrence has craved for so long has always eluded him. Some of this is self-inflicted: Taking acid before going on stage at a make-or-break Felt gig and after freaking out (“why are you all looking at me?!?”), insisting the industry bigwigs in attendance all turn around and face the wall. And some down to his perennial bad luck: BBC radio playlisting his 1997 track Summer Smash only for the single to be immediately withdrawn when Princess Diana died in a car crash the day before it was released.
Evidence of Lawrence’s eccentricities – not letting visiting journalists use his toilet, firing a recording engineer for having the wrong shoelaces – can be observed in Paul Kelly’s 2011 film Lawrence of Belgravia and Times journalist Will Hodgkinson’s wonderful 2024 book Street Level Superstar. Yet much more than being a delightfully peculiar oddball, for those in the know, Lawrence is responsible for some of the most captivating and singular records of the past four decades.
After the chiming, elegant poeticism of Felt, who completed his mission statement of releasing ten albums in ten years then splitting up, Lawrence aimed for more mainstream success with Denim. Had the band’s retro glam nuggets arrived as Britpop stormed the charts two years later, Lawrence might now be enjoying the national treasure status of confessed fans Jarvis Cocker and Pulp. Instead, landing in the middle of the earnest howl of grunge, they were a resounding commercial flop. Undeterred, following periods of drug addiction and homelessness, Lawrence continues to release droll novelty pop missives from the margins of 21st-century Britain as Go-Kart Mozart/Mozart Estate. And while some of those who fell for the opulent majesty of Primitive Painters (Felt’s 1984 high-point featuring Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser) might not have been fully on board with a track like 1997’s chipmunk-like The New Potatoes, once you enter into Lawrence’s world, you tend to be in for life. While Lawrence awaits the pop stardom he is still holding out hope for, enjoy the work of one of music’s ultimate cult heroes…