The 1979 Era - 1
REMUS: Letting them use our song was signature after signature. But after everything was settled, we got back to writing. Well, James and Regulus did.
PETER: Things between James and Regulus were tense ever since Regulus said what he said. James didn’t bring it up, but everyone knew it bothered him.
REGULUS: I didn’t want to bring it up and make it a whole big deal. I figured that if it really bothered James, then he’d tell me.
JAMES: Of course I was still upset. I missed Lily, and Regulus rubbed it in my face when I was trying to help him. But I wasn’t going to bring it up. He needed to say sorry because he meant it, not because he wanted to keep the peace.
REGULUS: We were civil.
JAMES: Nobody knew we were upset with each other.
PETER: Everyone knew they were upset with each other. Poor Sirius was so stressed those days.
SIRIUS: I was so conflicted. Should I say something? Should I step in? I thought about it all the time. But as Remus told me, they were grown men. It was their problem.
PETER: [laughs] I believe his exact words were, “We only get involved when there’s blood.”
REMUS: Am I wrong?
JAMES: After we sealed the deal with Xeno, we realized we needed to get to work. We only had four songs for the new album, and we definitely needed a lot more than four.
REGULUS: We had four great songs, but we needed more. After the Junnipeg ordeal, we had “Wildest Dreams”, which James wrote about Lily. We had “I Know Places”, which I had written about John while we were happy and together. I also wrote “This Love” about John. “I Wish You Would” was the only song James and I had written together, and it was about John and Lily.
JAMES: “I Wish You Would” was the only song we had written together at the time, and it was about wishing someone would put effort in a relationship. And don’t get me wrong. It’s a good song. But…
The problem was that we were both writing about our most recent relationships, and while that can produce great material, it wasn’t what the band was all about. We couldn’t have an album full of sad songs.
REGULUS: James kept saying we couldn’t write sad songs, but then he knocked on my door with “Wonderland” scrawled on a napkin.
REMUS: What James and Reg didn’t see is that they could do sad and happy. Like put a happy beat on the ballad and we’re all happy. But they were always arguing, and at this point, we all knew it wasn’t about the music.
SIRIUS: Of course I thought the arguing was about the music! What else was I supposed to think?
JAMES: Regulus did not originally like “Wonderland”. I told him it was a good song, because it is, and he said we needed more happy, like I had said. But it was a good song! We wanted good music!
REGULUS: He was being a complete hypocrite, and that pissed me off. So I wrote what would be the chorus of “Is It Over Now?”.
JAMES: Regulus was really getting on my nerves, which as most people know, is a hard thing to do. But I was still really hurt by what he had said, and I was too stubborn to admit it. If I had just said something, then we would have saved everyone a lot of headaches.
I kept thinking to myself, “When will this be over? When will we be in the clear?”
And that line stuck to me. “Are we in the clear, yet?”
I wrote the entire song from start to finish. Of course, we’d later edit it, and a lot of what I originally wrote didn’t make it. But once I was done, I grabbed my guitar, marched to Regulus’s room, and played it for him.
REGULUS: I was in my pajamas trying to read a book when James stormed in like a madman, singing this angry but upbeat song that was so clearly about our arguing.
But it was so good. There were things I wanted to tweak, like the bridge. But I loved it.
When he finished playing it, his face was red and he was the angriest I had ever seen him. I remember closing my book, getting out of bed, and walking towards him.
And I said I was sorry for what I said.
JAMES: I sang what would become “Out Of The Woods”, and after I practically yelled at him, he got up in his little silk pajamas and apologized. And he meant it. I could tell. I said I was sorry too.
REGULUS: And we were good from then on.
REMUS: He said they were good? Yeah, in a sense. They stopped arguing, but there was still tension.
PETER: It seemed like everybody knew James and Regulus liked each other except for James and Regulus [pause] and Sirius.
JAMES: Did I know I liked Regulus? Not at the time, no.
I was still in love with Lily. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t think of Regulus a little differently. A little more… I don’t know.
But he wasn’t just a friend anymore. No. There was something else.
REGULUS: I was still reeling from everything John put me through, but James…
Look, James is a beautiful guy. Everyone knows that. Girls would scream his name and ask him to sign them and marry them and whatnot. We all know James is beautiful.
But in the moments it was just the two of us writing together… I kept thinking about how beautiful he was, and I would keep doing so until I fell asleep.
JAMES: I mean the way he looked at me sometimes… It was…
Even then, I knew it was bigger than both of us.