Boyd Steemson
Boyd Steemson was born in September 1959 and met Andrew Eldritch at St. John's College, Oxford University in 1977.
A matriculation photo showing both of them, though not side by side, can be viewed here...
Steemson became later the office manager with The Sisters of Mercy's record label Merciful Release,
where he rendered his services from the 1980s up to 1992.
Apparently, he was also the company secretary of Candelmaesse Limited,
the publishing house component of Merciful Release.
In 1986, Boyd Steemson added Andrew Eldritch as a co-writer for
the Sisterhood track Giving Ground for the according single.
Steemson is also known (and credited) for handling all business affairs of the band
concerning the production and release of The Sisters' album Vision Thing and possibly
functioned as the tour manager of the band as well.
James Ray remarked in his interview in 2003 with the inofficial Sisters Fanzine Glasperlenspiel:
Eldritch was contractually the manager of ‘The Performance’ but he gave his duties
to the inept Boyd Steemson who was to all intents & purposes the Merciful Release
spokesperson & had no abilities as a manager.
Occasionally, Boyd Steemson would appear in interviews about The Sisters of Mercy like for example here,
where he noted on the contributions of Patricia Morrison to the band:
“Patricia’s contribution wasn’t directly musical. [...] Which is not to say it wasn’t important, because the look,
the feel, the image, if you’re in a pop group, is very important. It was an intriguing relationship that had a lot of value
– probably more value than Andrew realised at first. And when he did realise it, I think that’s when he became uneasy
with Patricia. But her musical contributions were very minimal.”
In 1994, Boyd Steemson was involved on the management side in the release of the album XC-NN by Tim Bricheno's later band
of the same name and also managed their follow-up band Tin Star. See also Boyd Steemson's discography @discogs.
From 1997 on, Boyd Steemson has been working as a CEO with the UK radio station Total Rock
and has nowadays specialised in promoting newcomer bands.
