The one-time British indie pop star now teaches English classes and in February celebrates the 40th anniversary of her iconic group with a Spanish tour

When one thinks of The Primitives, what comes to mind are the opening chords of Crash, one of the most infectious pop songs of the 1980s. In Spain, the song inserted itself into a much later generation, due to a version recorded by El Canto del Loco in 2002. “From what I can remember of it, it was good, yeah,” recalls the group’s frontwoman Tracy Tracy (real name: Tracy Louise Cattell). “A lot of bands have covered it, and you know, for someone to take something and create it in a different way, it’s always a compliment,” she adds. She comes across as friendly and grateful on our video call, to which she connects from a room whose interior design and curtains look straight out of some 1970s British film.

The vocalist makes a face of mock surprise when it is suggested that, for some, The Primitives are one-hit wonders — but she does recognize that the group’s 1988 single made it possible to embrace fame in a way that defied the band’s original idea of itself. “It was all, obviously, very new to us, but it was very exciting, and I’ve got fond memories of it,” she says. “We were all very naive and everything that happened, every press release or interview or TV appearance was just like, dream time, really. I was a small girl wanting to sing, and doing those kind of things,” she remembers. She won’t reveal her age in the interview, though it’s easy to find out via the internet that she was born in 1967. She does clarify that the rumor she is Australian is completely false, and that she grew up in the British city of Coventry, where The Primitives were founded in 1985. Tracy joined the group after seeing an ad on a library announcement board from a band that was looking for a male singer. She showed up to audition anyway. “They stated some bands which I liked, the Velvet Underground, The Byrds, The Buzzcocks. And I was just about to move to London to go and try and find other musicians to be in a band, because I tried in Coventry and I wasn’t very successful. It was a last attempt, really, for me.” Shortly thereafter, she and her bandmates started earning a living from music.

It was a moment in which British indie pop was exploding, and there was an active scene made up of venues, record stores, music labels, magazines, fanzines and radio and TV programs. The Primitives came out at the same time as other cult favorites like The Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream, The Wedding Present, The Pastels and My Bloody Valentine (whose first singles were released on The Primitives’ own label, Lazy Recordings). Theirs was a minor, amateur sound, with short, noisy and rabidly melodic songs from the punk-pop genre. “It was very natural, very organic in those days,” Tracy says. “You formed a band with friends that you liked. It was very easy to get into bands at that stage. We were quite lucky with how we got to television from one of those singles, and then came the interest from the major record labels.” In fact, The Primitives achieved the most commercial success of any of the bands from their generation. “It was incredibly different from how it is now — everything is very manufactured now. It’s all guided by the internet,” Tracy adds. But she and her group offered a critique of the music that was popular during that entirely different era as well. When Crash hit the top of the British charts, it was joined by hits from the Stock Aitken Waterman machine like Kylie Minogue, Bros, and Rick Astley. “Obviously, there was a lot of manufactured stuff in the eighties going on,” says Tracy. “But we were an independent band. We started independently. When we did Top of the Pops, we stood out. It was very different, the kind of music that we were doing, to what was very commercially acceptable.”

It’s true that The Primitives caused quite a stir in the media with their image. They were led by an incredibly blonde woman, backed by three rough-looking men clad in leather jackets. A group called Transvision Vamp, led by Wendy James, had a similar esthetic at the time. The British press was quick to drum up a rivalry between the groups, a tactic of which Tracy has always been critical. “At the time, the ‘blonde movement’ was invented. There were journalists who were trying to battle us off against each other. I mean, I actually like Transvision Vamp, Wendy James, but I think she came into the music industry quite a different way, she was very commercial. I would have liked to have met her. Apparently, we have a friend in common and she’s aware of [The Pritmitives], and she likes it. I think a lot of the time, these things are created to get a reaction. You had the same thing in the sixties with the Beatles and the Stones, then Blur and Oasis. It’s unfortunate, really, because when there are females in bands, it’s a harder struggle. I just think more females should be stronger and do what they want to do. It’s hard not to pay attention to the press, especially at that time. I think it’s obviously quite different now,” she says. She affectionately recalls how, “there seemed to be more bands then with females in them: Talulah Gosh, The Shop Assistants. We would be traveling around the country and there were quite a few females — not as many as there should be, but yeah, it was a lot healthier then.” Tracy also rejects the idea that the band’s image was overly produced. “That was always a very natural thing. We always had independent values. We weren’t a band that was told, ‘Right, you’ve got to look this way, you’ve got to act this way.’ I can remember doing photo sessions and being told, go to the front and stick your bum out, or whatever. I always said ‘Come on, let’s have the rest of the band.’”

The Primitives will soon be celebrating the group’s 40thanniversary — though the number is a little deceiving, given that the band was inactive for nearly half the time. “I mean, we’ve been together since 1985, we’ve done a lot of things,” says Tracy. “But our record company at that point weren’t interested in us, and the press had changed towards us. In 1992, after three albums, we decided to call it a day, really,” she says. After the group disbanded, Tracy did PR for several clubs, and vocal work for groups that were more closely tied to dance music. She sold secondhand clothes and traveled extensively, spending long periods in countries like Argentina, Chile and Spain. She had studied fashion design during her college years, and never completely lost her connection to the industry. “That creative path was always there for me,” she says. “If I didn’t get into the singing, then I probably would have gone into fashion. In the early days, I always used to make everything that I wore, and my mom’s always saying to me, ‘You need to start making your clothes again.’” For years, she has lived between Coventry and Barcelona, where she gives private English classes to students who have no idea that she was a pop star who, 30 years ago, was rubbing elbows with Morrissey and Björk.

Shortly before recording their first album, “we were told by some connecting friend that Morrissey really liked the band, and then of course, he was wearing our t-shirt in a photo,” says Tracy. “He came to one of our concerts. I think we were all a bit in awe, and he was quite shy, we were quite shy.” It’s important to note that at that time, in 1986 and 1987, the frontman of The Smiths was a larger-than-life icon, nearly a god to young indie fans. “Obviously, I think it was helpful to a degree.” says the singer of Morrissey’s love for The Primitives. “Maybe The Smiths fans were curious about us, we may have stole some of them.” Another big moment was The Primitives’ U.S. tour with an up-and-coming Icelandic group called The Sugarcubes, led by a young Björk (who was just a year and a half older than Tracy). “I didn’t have a massive amount of contact with Bjork,” says The Primitives vocalist. “She pretty much kept herself to herself. But I love vintage shops, and I think she did as well. I used to bump into her in the shops. But the main character that we struck up a really good relationship with was Einar Orn, who was The Sugarcubes’ male singer. He was a really friendly guy. He used to come into our dressing room, and we had a ritual where we would drink a shot of sake and then go on stage. It was a good time!”

Though it may be hard to believe, The Primitives have never wanted to sink too deeply into nostalgia for that era. In 2009, they decided to get back together on a very sad occasion: the death of their first bass player, Steve Dullaghan. After reuniting at his funeral after not having seen each other for 17 years, they decided to start practicing again, and to do a handful of live gigs. Later, they recorded two new albums with the Spanish label Elefant Records: Echoes and Rhymes in 2012, and Spin-O-Rama in 2014, in addition to a multitude of singles and EPs that were compiled last year into Let’s Go Round Again: Second Wave Singles and Rarities, 2011-2025. “There’s no set schedule,” she says. “We’re really enjoying what we’re doing at the moment. We didn’t get back together to be on a rollercoaster, you know, doing this, doing that. Obviously, we got back together through sad circumstances, and we haven’t really had a plan. There’s no pressure to do this. Also, I feel as though it’s quite hard to get attention now, within the press. The first time around, we built a great fanbase, and I think if we didn’t have that, it would be a different story. It’s all at a nice, steady pace, and we’re enjoying what we’re doing. We’re older, and hopefully wiser. Right now, we’ve got the Spanish dates, Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona, which we’re really looking forward to,” she says.

The Primitives will perform on February 12 in Madrid (El Sol), on February 13 in Valencia (16 Toneladas), and on February 14 in Barcelona (Wolf).

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