Band gets signed 30 years after splitting up

Daniel Takes A Train had thought their hopes of stardom were up in 1988 after failing to get signed despite four years of gigging in London.

They even gatecrashed the 1987 Brit Awards and played football with Spandau Ballet, but never managed to make it beyond that.

After splitting up, the band’s lead singer, Paul Baker, started a career in recruitment and the group left its popstar dreams behind.

They later uploaded a video of one of their old songs to social media to share with friends and family.

But it was not just their friends who saw the video.

Berlin-based record label Firestation Records spotted it in March and liked what they saw, finally signing the band after three decades.

Baker, 58, told the Evening Standard: “We literally had these tracks that had been gathering dust in our bedrooms and lofts so we set this Facebook page up about a year-and-a-half ago.

“Then suddenly in March we got this message from this guy called Uwe in Germany saying, ‘I’ve heard this song I Don’t Want This Love and we’re doing a compilation album’.

“He said ‘We would like to put it on there’.

“Then I just thought we’ve got some really good songs so I said, ‘Can I send you a few more?’ and I sent him everything, 20 tracks in total, and they said they love them and want to use 17 of them and sign us up for an album.”

The album, Style, Charm and Commotion, is released on Friday, 3 August, with the band performing at The Troubadour in west London.

Baker added: “You couldn’t make it up.

“We tried really hard at the time. We played every stop on the Circle line at one point to try and get some publicity but it didn’t work out. Now the band has a proper legacy.”