Early years (1980–1983) Aztec Camera were formed in
East Kilbride in 1980 by
Roddy Frame and drummer David Mulholland after they had left the punk-inspired band Neutral Blue. Aztec Camera first appeared on a
Glasgow cassette-only compilation of local unsigned bands on the Pungent Records label, affiliated with the
Fumes fanzine run by Danny Easson and John Gilhooly. The band's first United Kingdom (UK)
single release was sold in a
7" format by
Postcard Records—a Glasgow-based
independent record label cofounded by
Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne—in 1981. The single featured the song "Just Like Gold" and a B-side entitled "We Could Send Letters"; an acoustic version of the latter song appeared on a
compilation album, entitled
C81, that was released on
cassette in 1981 through a partnership between
NME magazine and
Rough Trade Records. Frame, aged 16 years, met Collins for the first time during the Postcard period when the latter was 21 years old. A second single, also released in 1981, featured the songs "Mattress of Wire" and "Lost Outside the Tunnel". Following the two 7" releases with Postcard, the group signed with Rough Trade Records in the UK and
Sire Records in the United States (US) for their debut album. At this point, the band were officially a quartet: Roddy Frame (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Bernie Clark (piano, organ), Campbell Owens (bass) and Dave Ruffy (drums, percussion).
High Land, Hard Rain and breakthrough (1983–1984) Aztec Camera's debut album,
High Land, Hard Rain was produced by John Brand and Bernie Clarke for the Rough Trade record label. The album was released in April 1983 and was distributed in different formats on Domino Recording Co. Ltd. in the US (in addition to Sire); WEA and Celluloid in France; Nuevos Medios in Spain; Powderworks in
Australia; MVM Records in
Portugal; and WEA for a general European release. Frame later revealed that the song "
Oblivious" was consciously written as a
Top of the Pops-type
pop song and received a corresponding degree of popularity.—and secured Knopfler as the producer for Aztec Camera's second album,
Knife, which was released in 1984; Frame explained in 1988 that Knopfler was "professional" and efficient during the recording process. and the song "All I Need is Everything" received radio airplay subsequent to release. In a 2007 interview alongside Collins, Frame explained further: He's [Knopfler] a great guitarist. Mark Knopfler's recording techniques were great—you [Collins] would have liked him, 'cos that was ... then, it was quite a thing. 'Cos everyone was going digital, and going MIDI and all that, and his thing was all about using the right microphone. If you use the right microphone, then you don't have to use too much EQ and all that stuff, and it was all about that. Yeah, I kinda liked that—the right mic[rophone], the right amp[lifier], the right kind of board and stuff.
Love and line–up changes (1987–1990) At the time that the band's third album
Love (1987) was created, Frame was the only original member of the band involved with the project;
Love and future Aztec Camera albums were written and recorded by Frame under the "Aztec Camera" moniker, and
session musicians recorded with Frame on a track-by-track basis. Frame said in 2014 that the song has been "great" for him, but at the time of creating the album, the song was not "in keeping" with the rest of
Love. Frame revealed in a radio interview with the "Soho Social" program, presented by Dan Gray, that he considered "Somewhere in My Heart" an odd song and initially thought it would be best as a B-side. Frame concluded, "I can't pick them [the successful songs]." Frame was asked during a television interview, following the release of
Love, about the new sound of the album, and he referenced artists like
Anita Baker and
Luther Vandross. When asked if the album could be labelled "
Middle of the road (MOR)", Frame replied: "Call it what you like. I don't really mind." In a 1990 interview, recorded during a tour of Japan, Frame explained that he wrote "Good Morning Britain" in 45 minutes after a two- to three-hour conversation with Jones in the canteen of a London rehearsal studio that both
Big Audio Dynamite and Aztec Camera were using. In an August 2014 radio interview, Frame elaborated further, stating that at the time he wrote the song, Jones lived near his London home; Frame visited Jones after recording the song and said to the Clash guitarist, "You'll either sing on it, or you'll want to sue me", as Frame believed the song was so similar to Jones' previous work. Frame's interest in Sakamoto was elaborated upon in the same interview: I liked what he did when he was in the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and I also liked that album where he plays the music from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence on piano. That's where you realise that the atmosphere around his compositions is actually in the writing – it's got nothing to do with synthesisers. During the recording process, Frame's routine consisted of: working in the studio from the early afternoon until around 2am; a turkey sandwich at a deli off
Times Square ("because it was possible to get one at two in the morning, and for no other reason"); a cab-ride back to the
Mayflower Hotel, where he was staying; an hour of listening to
Shabba Ranks; and then bed.
Frestonia was released in 1995 and the Reprise Records label issued it in the US. "Sun" (1996) was the only one song from the album that was released as a single. ==Post break–up activities==