Let Loose set for Wet Wet Wet reunion at Back 2 Festival

Lee Murray was – and still is - one third of Let Loose whose smash hit Crazy for You spent 16 weeks in the Top 40 and nine in the top ten, making it the eighth biggest selling single of the year.

But it peaked at No. 2 because Let Loose had the misfortune of running into Wet Wet Wet’s chart-topping juggernaut Love is All Around, which spent 15 weeks at No. 1 from June to September 30 years ago.

The paths of the two bands have not crossed since and their line-ups have changed – Lee only recalls meeting Wet Wet Wet’s former lead singer Marti Pellow once in the last 30 years - but they are set to be reunited when they both appear at the Back 2 Festival in Nottinghamshire next Friday.

It is a year since Let Loose reformed and the festival, which is being headlined by ‘the Wets’, Eternal and Bananarama over the bank holiday weekend, is one of several shows the 54-year-old and bandmates Rob Jeffrey and Matthew James Pateman are playing this summer.

• Let Loose star 'very happy' with reaction to boy band's reunion

What might have been for Lee and Let Loose 30 years ago (Image: MJP)

“We were thrilled to get it,” Lee said of being booked for the festival in Thorseby Park before he reflected on the events of 30 years ago.

“The irritating thing about it was - and we were really kind of gnashing our teeth about it - they were part of the same record company, we were label mates,” he said.

“When we first started the record company took us out with Marti. It was lovely, he was an incredibly charismatic guy. We’d go to restaurants with him and he’d talk about the good stuff and the bad stuff in the music industry but he could work the room like nothing else. You could imagine everyone in the restaurant was just fawning over him because he was such a big star – and still is.”

Let Loose performing (Image: Alistair Davis)

Love Is All Around owed much of its success to featuring in the box office smash Four Weddings And A Funeral – and Let Loose almost made it onto the film soundtrack as well.

“We recorded a song for that film,” Lee revealed. “There’s a section in it where there’s a couple of buskers in a church and they’re singing Can’t Smile Without You, the Barry Manilow song, and the record company said do you want to do that for the album? We said, yes, we’ll give it a go, so we did our own version and something happened. We’ve still got it kicking around but something happened and it didn’t end up on the album.

“Obviously the Wets did the main theme tune. We had no idea this thing was going to fly like it did and just have a life of its own.

Lee with bandmates Matthew James Pateman and Rob Jeffrey (Image: MJP)

“We went in the charts at No. 24 but back in the day if you were really lucky and connected with a record you could creep up the chart and that’s what happened.

“We were outselling the rest of the top ten, so on any other occasion if the Wets weren’t there we would have been No. 1, there’s no question. We were constantly being reminded of that and we were like ‘please don’t keep telling us this, it’s frustrating enough!’

“We would say to the record company ‘if you pull this record, we’ll go to No. 1’, but I think what they wanted to do was beat the Bryan Adams record for how long it would stay at No. 1 [(Everything I Do) I Do It For You was No. 1 for 16 weeks in 1991].

“We loved Marti, we loved the boys, they were fantastic and really encouraging to us but it was incredibly frustrating.”

Let Loose have appeared with Gaby Roslin on the radio (Image: MJP)

While Let Loose’s focus is on performing at the Back 2 Festival and their other shows, they are already planning for next year.

“We had ten or 12 this year from absolutely nothing,” Lee said as he reflected on the year since the group reformed with former Bad Boys Inc singer Matthew becoming the new third member.

“We were in the wilderness for a decade so our plan was to really work extremely hard to get our name back out there, perform the best we can, get people to come to gigs and remember us and next year having done all that ground work promoters will hopefully book us.

“We’ve done lots of radio. I’m on the BBC later on talking about the Back 2 Festival. We’ve done BBC Radio 2, Fearne Cotton has interviewed us for her show and Gaby Roslin. It’s been amazing.”