The Mission - Carved in Sand
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
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Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 05.02.1990
He was born into a devout Mormon family in Winterbourne, a sleepy village north of Bristol. Looking back, he recalls that it was a pretty provincial, conservative village.
His parents wanted him to follow the family path and groomed him to become a Mormon missionary. Wayne Hussey, however, had completely different plans. He felt he had what it took to build a musical career, was deeply influenced by Marc Bolan, and dreamed of being part of a band in the vein of “Led Zeppelin”.
It did not take long before Hussey began taking his first steps toward a career that would eventually peak with the band “The Mission”, whose third album “Carved in Sand” was released on February 5, 1990.
At the age of 18, Hussey left his childhood village for Liverpool, where he immersed himself in the vibrant post-punk scene centered around the local “Eric’s Club”, a hub that attracted some of the era’s most exciting artists from bands such as “Teardrop Explodes” and “Echo & The Bunnymen”. Around this time, he also became a devoted supporter of the "Mighty Reds".
In Liverpool, Hussey met Pete Burns and soon became the guitarist in his band “Dead or Alive”. The partnership, however, was short-lived. The two did not see eye to eye, and after two years Hussey walked away.
The next stage of his career took him to Leeds in 1984, following an invitation to join Andrew Eldritch’s gothic rock outfit “Sisters of Mercy”, there he met Craig Adams, who would later become the bassist of “The Mission”. The two quickly became close friends. Hussey recalled that they've always got on pretty well like "two naughty little kids.”
Hussey contributed to both the writing and performances in “Sisters of Mercy”, but tensions between him and Eldritch steadily escalated. After a year and a half and one album, he left the band together with his new ally Craig Adams. In a bold move, the pair formed a new band under the name "The Sisterhood".
Eldritch was furious. Not only had they left, but now they seemed to be claiming his legacy as well. Legal threats followed, and after reconsidering, Hussey drew on his Mormon past and renamed the band “The Mission”, inspired by a Mormon missionary journal his parents had given him during his youth, when they still hoped to guide him toward their faith.
Hussey and Adams held auditions in Leeds and recruited drummer Mick Brown and Sheffield-born guitarist Simon Hinkler, formerly a collaborator of Jarvis Cocker in an early incarnation of “Pulp”.
The rapid growth of the band’s fanbase was partly rooted in the gothic scene, whose gravitational center at the time was Leeds. Their stormy, sensual sound, all-black attire, and self-identification as Eskimos or Missionaries immediately marked them as part of the gothic movement.
Hussey insisted that it wasn’t so much that they were part of a movement, It’s just that they found like-minded souls who were into the same kind of music, literature, films, lifestyle, and clothes.
The early years of “The Mission” were defined by two albums that made occasional chart impressions, but it was their live shows and scandals that truly cemented their reputation.
Hussey explained that America was like a candy land compared to Europe. All those things were easy to get, so of course they went for it. It was a crazy tour, lots of drugs, lots of madness. A big part of being in a band is that you can behave completely outrageously on tour. "You’ve got a license to be a total idiot.” He said referring to the band’s behavior-especially his own-on U.S. tours.
The consequences were swift, culminating in Hussey and Adams storming the stage wearing nothing but their underwear, screaming at the audience. Not long after, Adams was handcuffed by the Los Angeles police on the Sunset Strip, drunk and disoriented. He narrowly avoided arrest thanks to the diplomatic efforts of the band’s manager, Tony Perrin.
Something of the band’s aspiration toward “Led Zeppelin” was given a significant boost on their next album, “Children” (1988), produced by John Paul Jones. The album reached number two in the UK, and the band went on tour supporting Robert Plant.
Hussey, however, was unhappy with the heavy sound of “Children” and chose to reunite with producer Tim Palmer, who had worked on their debut.
He remembers the sessions for the new album as particularly tense. Cocaine had by then become a staple of his daily routine. Hussey explained that around that time they started making a bit of money, so our drugs of choice changed. “Whilst I was doing cocaine, Simon would be smoking spliff, so we would be in totally different head spaces. That became a problem.”
Producer Tim Palmer noticed that Hinkler was unusually quiet and increasingly marginalized in the studio. “In hindsight, if I’d been a little bit more sensitive to what was going on at the time I would probably have seen Simon was struggling,” Hussey later admitted.
During the first half of 1989, Hussey spent time writing new material in the mountains of South Wales before the band reconvened in April to begin recording “Carved in Sand”, with the “Eskimos” (the fan club) taking part in the song-selection process.
In early 1990, the album’s first single, “Butterfly on a Wheel”, was released. It narrowly missed the UK Top 10 and went on to become the song most closely associated with the band. Hussey wrote the song about the breakdown of the relationship between Julianne Regan, singer of “All About Eve”, and her bandmate Tim Bricheno. “All About Eve” and “The Mission” frequently collaborated, and Hussey felt helpless watching two people he cared deeply about emotionally tear each other apart, yet he did not dare intervene for fear of making things worse. The song’s title was inspired by a 1960s editorial by William Rees-Mogg, which questioned the severity of prison sentences imposed on members of “The Rolling Stones” for minor drug offenses.
The album’s opening track, “Amelia”, was inspired by a letter Hussey received from a fan in which she revealed details of abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father. Moved by the honesty and openness of her letter, he wrote “Amelia”—not her real name. Several years later, the same woman contacted him again to say how much the song meant to her and to share that she was doing well in life.
Other songs on the album include “Deliverance”, and “Into the Blue”, written as an environmental lament reflecting the state of the planet, underscored by lines such as “There’s a shuffling man with plastic on his head”. “Grapes of Wrath” draws its inspiration from themes of agricultural labor and life tied to the land.
During the band’s successful tour, a seemingly trivial argument between Hussey and Simon Hinkler—after a friend of Hinkler’s was not allowed onto the band’s tour bus—escalated into the final breaking point in their relationship. Hinkler left the band, a decision that would later be seen as a watershed moment for “The Mission” at a critical stage in their career. On the eve of the grunge explosion, the band would never again manage to recreate this level of success.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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