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Singer, Shirley Lee, explains who Spearmint are:

"I am Shirley Lee and I am part of a band called Spearmint. The band is definitely from London, even though only one of its members is. I suppose we are what you would call an "Indie" band. That is mainly because we release records on our own label and are therefore in control of what we do. I think we play Pop, and we try to give that as much of our own personality as possible. The music we play is really determined by what we think are the needs of each song.

Simon and I met in Our Price, a chain of UK record shops which have now disappeared. We both worked in the Lewisham branch in London. I had just moved down from Newcastle where I had started a band called Laverne & Shirley, with my friend Michael Bradshaw. Simon joined a London version of Laverne & Shirley. We had a vision of an Indie Soul collision, half Michael Jackson, half The Fall. But we fell into those music industry traps of trying to get deals and relying on other people rather than ourselves, and after a lot of bruises we split up. Our story is later chronicled in the Spearmint song "Sweeping The Nation".

Simon and I took the Indie part of what we were doing and formed Spearmint with Martin Talbot (another Our Price chum) on bass, and Ronan Larvor on drums. We got to know Ronan at Escapade rehearsal studios in Greenwich where we practiced. He was almost the resident drummer in that studio. Jim later arrived with an added bonus - he had trained in graphics and wanted to do the band’s artwork. So all our artwork over the years has come from within the band, which has been great.

At the time we decided to call ourselves Spearmint, the trend was to choose quite serious sounding “meaningful” names for bands. I wanted a name that was actually a little bit naff, something very light, with no implied depth. I also saw the music we would make as very Poppy, and at first listen, shallow. I loved the idea that we would make fizzing Pop songs that also had levels of meaning within them so that the listener who wanted to could dig deeper into the lyrics and music and get loads of listens out of it. That is why have done over the years with my favourite artists. I considered it genuinely subversive to make apparently mainstream Pop music which had a real independent attitude to it, and was also on our own label, so that nobody could interfere. Kind of like a big Pop Trojan Horse...

We have released quite a few records now, and I often get asked how many albums we have actually made - there seems to be confusion. My answer is that we have made four albums proper, plus two collections of b-sides and singles, as well as a Christmas mini-album, and an acoustic mini-album.

"A Week Away" was always intended to be our debut album. Right from when we started, I had a vision of this as our first album. Not that the songs were written; but I knew what the album was about and how it should feel. It took 3 years to make it exist. This was mainly because we didn't know what we were doing, we had to learn as we went along. Hence we approached it single by single, building the thing up bit by bit. The upshot of that was that the album features lots of singles, but that didn't seem to matter. The important thing was that we were constructing a perfect Pop album. It didn't matter if it ended up being our only ever album (I thought that was actually quite likely), it just had to be right.

The album has a concept, which is quite under-played. It is the same idea as “A Week Away” the song: that you have a limited amount of time on earth, you start out full of enthusiasm and energy, and then gradually realise that time is running out. In the song, it is quite a simple analogy of a week’s holiday - you live it to the full and make the best of it, but in the end Saturday comes round and it is over.

The album expands the same theme - it starts out full of fizz with the title song and "Isn't It Great To Be Alive" and "Sweeping The Nation", where literally anything can be achieved, and works its way through to sadness and loss of "You Are Still My Brother", "Making You Laugh" and finally "Saturday".

On Christmas Day 1998, our original bass player Martin Talbot died. Martin was in Africa for Christmas with his girlfriend Sue. On Christmas Day he was larking around listening to Led Zeppelin really loud, and miming air guitar to "Stairway To Heaven". He fell on his back to the floor grimacing to the solo - he died there and then. It turns out he had a heart condition - I think Martin knew this - some of the things he had said previously later made sense to me.

I feel very lucky to have known Martin - he was one of those rare, genuinely warm, uplifting, mature people. He also had a brilliant sense of humour and a ridiculous infectious laugh. Our friend Nigel Smith went to see Johnny Cash at The Royal Albert Hall in the late 90s. The gig was amazing, and after all the encores were done and the lights were up, and most people had filed out, there was still a loan voice shouting from across the venue "Johnny Cash! Johnny fucking Cash!". It turned out to be Martin. I always think of him when Johnny Cash is mentioned - "Johnny Cash! Johnny fucking Cash!". So we dedicated "A Week Away" to Martin. I miss him, but in many ways he is still around. "

Still echoing though popular culture, "A Week Away" featured, "A Trip Into Space" (which was reworked by David Morales to become his top five dance hit "Needin' U") "Sweeping The Nation" (featured on current Britpop collection "Common People"), and Indie disco favourite "We're Going Out".

Spearmint even get a mention in the current Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie "500 Days Of Summer", when the main characters bemoan how "nobody has even heard of Spearmint".

Spearmint member Andy Lewis is now also bass-player for Paul Weller.

The special edition features:
- fully remastered "A Week Away" album (including re-instated full-length single version of "A Trip Into Space") - Brand new seven song EP "Life In Reverse"
- four extra tracks
- twenty-four page booklet with lyrics and expanded artwork.

The release of the album is also accompanied by the publication of a book by US Image Comics, celebrating the songs of Spearmint and Shirley Lee. The book is 12" by 12" format, comprising graphic novellas inspired by 19 songs, including tracks from "A Week Away" such as "Sweeping The Nation", "It Won’t Be Long Now" and "A Trip Into Space".