When Room Thirteen spoke to Ben from the Cooper Temple Clause ahead of the release of ‘Make This Your Own’, all seemed rosey in the CTC garden. Following a difficult time with previous label Sony BMG, where the band felt they were being pushed into trying to be something they weren’t, not to mention the loss of their bass player to the ranks of Dirty Pretty Things, a fresh start with Sanctuary Records and an album they were clearly proud of suggested 2007 was to be a big year for them.

Ben told us that the real strength of the new material was “the range of depth that we've managed to achieve. In terms of when we started this album we just wanted to get a better sense of melody evident in the whole album. After a lot of songwriting, homing our songwriting craft with Chris Hughes, when we just stripped it down to just an acoustic guitar and the vocals which we'd never done before, we'd always built layers upon layerf of sonic sound and then put lyrics and melodies on top, this album gives people a clearer indication of what we are as a band, Tom and Dan do some of the singing, it's not just me, and all five of us write collectively, lyrics and the music. I think that's what we're all immensely proud of.”

Read more here where he goes into detail about the label problems, the considerations of how to proceed a man short, his views on downloading music and why he loves Peter Crouch.

So cometh the hour, with ‘Waiting Games’ picking up good airplay from Kerrang and X FM,
the new album was with us.

It certainly didn’t sell by the bucket load, but how often can that be said for albums which are considered to be very strong.

Looking back it did seem odd that there was a lakc of festival announcements, Reading, V and T in the Park reveals came and went, and TCTC were nowhere to be seen, however they had been confirmed as one of the star attractions for the
Camden Crawl, joining Ash, Charlatans,The Damned, Travis and Amy Winehouse on the major slot schedule.

On the night a sign appeared on the door of the Underworld stating they’d withdrawn from the event, with a reason of exhaustion from four months on the road given. This seemed a strange one to sacrifice at the time, Camden Crawl is becoming a major launch pad for bands new and old to move to the next level. Soon after it was announced that Fisher had left.

"In the wake of this decision the rest of the boys agreed to call it a day and pursue other interests," he said. "Friendships are well and truly intact and the love very much remains within the camp."

He went on to thank the band's fans for what he describes as their "unswerving loyalty and dedication.”

Therefore it was actually
this London date in April which was their farewell to the Capital, not that we knew it at the time.

Had they stuck it out for Reading and Leeds, which surely they’d have been announced for eventually, we would have seen one of the albums of the year performed to become a major highlight of the summer. As it was, this nomination for Band of the Day as we look back at 2007, just about made it past Easter.

Post TCTC, Tom Bellamy has turned his hand fulltime to Djing, working alongside Eddy Temple-Morris under the name the Rhysmix.

You can see the other bands we've featured by
clicking here.