Return to the Last Chance Saloon

In September 1996, the Bluetones released the stand-alone single "Marblehead Johnson" to help bridge the gap between albums,^[10] knowing they could not produce an entire album on their tour bus. Since they were busy throughout the year, it was "pretty much written in sound checks" while touring Japan.^[11]

In December 1996, the band had returned to London after touring their debut album, Expecting to Fly for the year. Whilst in his shared house in South Wimbledon, guitarist Adam Devlin sat on his bedroom floor with a Yamaha iX 4-track, recording parts of partially written songs and ideas for around two weeks. Little came out of that time period apart from "Sleazy Bed Track", "Tone Blooze" and the album's hidden track "A Women Gone Done Left Me" which actually was listed as its 4-track recording.^[11]

To help the band expand all of their new songs, A&M Records hired them a rehearsal facility in Bletchingley, Surrey, called The House In The Woods, for a few weeks. In the first session there, they came up with "Sleazy Bed Track", "Solomon Bites the Worm" and "Sky Will Fall."^[11]

Upon arrival to Rockfield Studios, the band had picked up their pace with writing songs. The last song they demoed there was "If...". After they left the studio, all songs were written although they still had not decided the names for each track.^[12]

Return to the Last Chance Saloon was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, Wales, in the summer and autumn of 1997.^[12] It was produced and mixed by Hugh Jones and was engineered by Phil Auty.

The band tried a different approach for the album compared to their 1996 debut, Expecting to Fly, aiming to break away from the jangly sound they were known for. The lead singer Mark Morriss said they wanted to prove themselves by making one big "ambitious" record although mentioned even at the time he thought the album was too long and that it could lose three songs. The record used Gretsch and Telecasters, using Vox AC30 amplifiers whereas Expecting to Fly used Rickenbackers and reverb techniques. The beginning of "The Jub-Jub Bird" samples a Bill Hicks song and the lyrics for "If..." are partly come from Glen Campbell's 1968 single "Wichita Lineman".^[13][14]

Commercially, Return to the Last Chance Saloon failed to repeat the same performance Expecting to Fly achieved,^[15] selling 100,000 copies in the UK as opposed to 300,000,^[16][17] although still entered the UK Top 10.^[7]

All tracks are written by Morriss, Devlin, Morriss, Chesters.^[18]

Personnel per booklet.^[18]

In March 2023, the band announced on Facebook an October tour of fifteen dates in England and one in Scotland, celebrating the twenty-fifth release anniversary of Return to the Last Chance Saloon by playing it in full for the first time.^[19][20]