Never one to dwell too much on the past, London Suede lead singer Brett Anderson sometimes can't help himself. In 1992, the British glamour boys were on the receiving end of a full-on media blitzkrieg surrounding the release of its 1992 self-titled debut. But then, everything came crashing down in 1994 in the midst of a bitter battle between Anderson and his bandmate, Bernard Butler.

"We spent a year just touring and rehearsing and no one was watching us -- nobody gave a shit," remembers Anderson. But now, with all bad vibes pushed aside, the London Suede are back with their third release, "Coming Up," and this time around, they're having fun. It shows and people have noticed.

"Coming Up" is perfectly pop -- there's not a snag among its ten finely-crafted tales of escapism and beauty. It's classic London Suede in one sense, yet very unconventional in another. The record feels happy, which, according to ringleader Anderson, is due to the band almost slipping through the cracks during the last 18 months.

"I knew when we were finishing 'Dog Man Star' [August 1994], the next record had to be different. I didn't want to keep going down that road," says Anderson. "It wasn't much fun being in the London Suede during the last year of it ['Dog Man Star']. We got by on the fact that we thought we were making great records. But this time it just happened to be fun -- and it was like being 17 again, playing in someone's garage."

Between the finicky fans and the chew-'em-up-and-spit-'em-out mentality of the British press, 18 months is more than enough time to be completely forgotten in the U.K. But the London Suede has done exactly what they had to do: survive the loss of a key member -- guitarist and songwriter Butler; carry on and recruit his replacement -- the young, intensely shy and amazingly talented Richard Oakes; shake the dark, narcissistic tones that plagued the first two records; and make a beautiful pop album -- all before people stopped giving a damn. Thank you, boys. "Coming Up" is the recovery of the decade. Well, in Britain, anyway.

In early 1992 (before Suede became the London Suede in the States in response to an American country-singer's lawsuit), the band was on top of the world. They were proclaimed "Best New Band in Britain" while gracing the cover of "Melody Maker" -- one of the bibles of the British music scene -- 11 months before releasing their debut record.

Shortly after, "The Drowners," a slicing guitar gem of a pop song about incestuous sex and suicide, ascended to No. 1 on the U.K. indie charts and remained there for four straight weeks. Gigs followed that same year at the Brit Awards and "Top of the Pops" -- the pinnacle of success for any British band du moment -- along with two more chart-topping singles. But still, no record.

With pressures mounting and nearly a year after the "Melody Maker" proclamation (which, in 1992, was not quite as common as today when a new band is Knighted every month), the band finally released "Suede" which went on to become the biggest selling first effort since Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" in 1984. Suede was the pride of a nation. But somehow credited with the birth of Britpop ("Debited," leadsinger Brett Anderson laments in 1997), Suede never really fit in with the Beatle-esque melodies later appropriated by Blur and Oasis.

The band's ambiguous tales of sex, love and betrayal ("I want the style of a woman, the kiss of a man," from "Dog Man Star's" "Introducing the Band"), caught England off guard as the suburban-inspired tales of the English working class were on their way to the fore via Britpop. But Anderson is quick to reduce Britpop's influence as media invented bollocks rather than some sort of music revolution.

"I don't think musically we had anything to do with it," he says. "We were just the first band to receive that kind of attention. I've seen it happen to other people and it doesn't make any difference. If they are good, they will get through it and if they fuck up, they will get torn to pieces."

But Suede began to tatter during the recording of their sophomore effort. Butler, lead guitarist and prolific songwriter, stormed out of the sessions for "Dog Man Star" five months before its scheduled release (October '94) and subsequently, out of the most promising band Britain had produced since the Stone Roses. With a full-scale tour only months away, the scramble was on to find a replacement. But with the reality setting in that Anderson and Butler were Suede -- seeing that drummer Simon Gilbert and bassist Mat Osman were essentially disposable -- the real question was whether Suede could go on at all.

"I knew there was something about the band that was bigger than one of its members. I really wanted it to go on," Anderson recalls. "I had no idea whether we would be one off without Bernard or whether there were a lot of people out there like him. So it was a matter of finding someone who could write and play very well and completely fit in."

That someone was Richard Oakes. A timid 17-year-old Suede fan from Poole -- a small town on the southern coast of England -- whose first concert ever was the band he was about to join. Anderson and the band received nearly 600 audition tapes of Butler wannabes and replacement hopefuls, but Oakes' tape stood out from the lot. Once in the door for his audition, Oakes and the remaining members of Suede sensed the immediate chemistry.

"After a few hours, I just said, 'Scrap all auditions,'" recollects Anderson. "It didn't feel like an audition, literally, after 15 minutes. We just felt it. It's like why you fall in love with someone or why someone becomes a friend of yours within five minutes. It has nothing to do with their opinions or background, you just click. It's a chemical thing. "

There was one catch. In the past, Butler had provided the music, and Anderson the vocals -- a non-collaborative effort but a strong bond nonetheless -- and Anderson still needed to fill that void. Could someone, especially someone who had yet to finish college (the British equivalent of high school), and not likely to be well-traveled in the road of life, carry the songwriting burden of one of Britain's most sonorous outfits?

The answer: A resounding yes, and in a more cooperative fashion, as well. "Richard writes in a very direct way and has a real comfortable tone," says Anderson. "He doesn't have to show off so he always writes for the band rather than for the self."

All of sudden the band is having fun again, and with the addition of a fifth member, keyboardist Neil Codling (the band's best smoker, according to Anderson), they're tighter than ever. From "Coming Up"'s first single -- the adrenaline-rushed swarm of "Trash" -- to the revved-up lives of "The Beautiful Ones" and the romantically-tinged adolescent innocence of "The Chemistry Between Us," the London Suede has an all new feel to it.

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