The re-formed House of Love

In 1989 the House of Love had everything to play for. They had made a series of extraordinary records for Alan McGee's Creation label. The partnership between vocalist/lyricist Guy Chadwick and guitarist Terry Bickers was talked about in the same terms as Morrissey and Marr. But then they signed to the major label Fontana, and something seemed to go badly wrong. There were stories of Herculean drug abuse, and some reports suggested Bickers had either attempted suicide, or had a nervous breakdown. Things came to a head in a tour van in the West Country. In some kind of altered state - and fearing that his band had lost everything to big business - Bickers sat in the van setting fire to banknotes.

"My wife and I had had this massive row in this hotel and had kept everyone awake all night" he remembers. "Everyone was furious with me." Finally, Chadwick said to Bickers: "We've got to talk." After 10 minutes, the van pulled up at a service station. On the Tarmac, drummer Pete Evans took a swing at Bickers.

"That was it," says the guitarist. "I was punched out of the band. We were miles from home. I managed to get a lift from the road crew and was dropped unceremoniously at Bristol Temple Mead station. I remember sitting there thinking: 'Oh, shit!' "

Although the House of Love limped on for a couple of albums without Bickers, and had a few more hits, the magic was lost. McGee's next prodigies, Oasis, picked up the House of Love's walls of guitars and took everything much further.

Although all the attention was on what happened to Bickers, surprisingly it was Chadwick who spent years haunted by his band's lost potential. "I was very, very depressed and it was very hard to get out of bed," he says. "I was ill. After the group finished it was such a huge awakening. I just cracked up, and couldn't function for years."

Today, Chadwick and Bickers are in the National Film Theatre cafe in London, smiling and sipping fruit drinks and cups of tea. There are no signs of the acrimony that once saw Bickers brand Chadwick a "megalomaniac" and Chadwick insist in interviews that he had played "90% of the guitars on the records" (a claim he later retracted). However, they're soon arguing over exactly when they got back together.

"I wanted Terry to come back soon after he left," insists Chadwick.

"I don't remember being asked back, but it was a very long time ago," says Bickers with a laugh.

Chadwick grins. "Perhaps I didn't put it very well ... Neither of us were ever very good communicators."

That's true: both were introspectives who found it easier to articulate themselves in music. And perhaps to some extent they still are. Days Run Away, the first House of Love album to feature Bickers's transcendent guitar in 15 years, contains a song called Maybe You Know ("Things got out of hand"). As beautiful and heady as any of their oldies, it is virtually Chadwick's apology to his partner. "You always were a great storyteller," says the guitarist. The singer feigns surprise at this faint praise.

"Make sure you're recording this," he says.

They met in 1987. Chadwick - the son of a soldier - had spent his childhood being bounced from country to country. Bickers's father "wasn't on the scene from when I was 11 or 12". Both found refuge in music, Chadwick after picking up his uncle's classical guitar.

Chadwick's first "dreadful" band, the Kingdoms, had been signed and dropped by RCA, but when he saw Alan McGee's riotous signings the Jesus and Mary Chain, "something in me went 'Da-doinng!' " Fuelled by dreams of doing something similarly turbulent but with 1960s pop melodies, Chadwick found Bickers through an advertisement. The guitarist wasn't, however, Chadwick's first choice: "That was a speed dealer ... a complete nutter!" It was, he admits, the first signs of "dreadful judgment".

Ditching the "nutter" for Bickers and adding the rhythm section of Pete Evans and bassist Chris Groothuizen, the band played their first gigs at warehouse parties. Chadwick badgered McGee's Creation and when McGee's wife at the time, Yvonne, started playing their tape in the office the mogul took the bait. A few months later, the band's eponymous 1989 album was hailed an instant classic.

The band had always put pressure on themselves: "Every gig had to be 'The one'" remembers Bickers - but Chadwick struggled with the hyperbole. One journalist was so shocked to hear him describe the album as "all right" that he raged: "It's absolutely brilliant! What's wrong with you?"

Bickers had his own insecurities and was uncomfortable at being labelled a "guitar god". However, the stakes kept getting higher. In the late 1980s, Creation wasn't the powerful label that Oasis later joined. Taking Fontana's major money felt like the logical progression. It was, says Chadwick, taking responsibility, "a dreadful mistake".

Then, as now, the differences between being on an indie label and a major were enormous. Chadwick remembers the period like being "in quicksand". Their classic Creation singles such as Destroy the Heart and Shine On had been made cheaply and quickly, but now they were booked in with producer after producer and being given a drum-heavy, big sound they hated. The first Fontana single, Never, was released against the band's wishes. Bickers had been the sole (hushed) voice of protest against signing, and finding his fears realised, he withdrew into himself. He admits that his youthful self's "habitual dope smoking" and "not eating properly" contributed to manic depression. During the interview, the one thing that makes him uncomfortable questions about suicide attempts and nervous breakdowns. "I'd rather not talk about that," he says.

Meanwhile, Chadwick had entered his own tailspin. The decision to retain McGee as manager had proved disastrous (he was busy with Creation) and Chadwick ended up managing the group and facing increased pressure to pen hits. "We really needed guidance at that crucial point," he sighs. "Most groups just go nuts. It's like this huge trolley full of booze being placed in front of you. With a whiff of success, people change towards you. We were taking too many drugs, I was drinking ridiculously and that's the worst combination when things are going wrong."

More and more burdened, with things slipping away, Chadwick became a "monster. A nice monster, sometimes," he says, "but a monster none the less." Even before Bickers left, the great non-communicators had stopped talking to each other at all.

For years, they watched each other from afar. Bickers left his next band Levitation equally dramatically (announcing "We've lost it, haven't we?" on stage) and for some time was caricatured in the press as Bonkers Bickers, which Chadwick hated seeing. Chadwick - still one of life's born worriers - says that his own depression enabled him to understand what Bickers went through. Recovering with antidepressants but struggling to find the strength for solo projects, he missed his creative foil.

They first reconciled as friends before their old agent, Mick Griffiths, suggested they reform the group. When the pair first played in a room with old drummer Pete Evans in 2003 (bassist Groothuizen, now an architect, has been replaced by Matt Jury) the chemistry remained intact. They recently made their live return, unannounced, supporting a Japanese ska band, playing new songs alongside those from the hallowed first album. The drugs have long gone. Bickers, now 39, talks of "rediscovering the simple joys of making music".

Wherever Days Run Away takes them, the House of Love are a textbook example of what can go wrong when young bands are burdened by expectations. Chadwick has seen history repeat itself in the Stone Roses and, more recently, the Libertines, while Bickers suggests there should be some kind of "support network" for bands thrust into the spotlight. Both appreciate a second chance.

"The brilliant thing is that we've managed to get sort ourselves out," says Chadwick. "We were a really special group."

Bickers smiles warmly. "It's good to have another go. This time I won't be burning banknotes."

· Days Run Away is released on February 28 on Art and Industry. The single Love You Too Much is out on Monday. The House of Love play the ICA, London SW1 (020-7930 3647), this Thursday.