That's a typical muso attitude from a typical muso band. “I mean, if you're saying that, you just don't get it, do you? It's not how many fingers you use, it's about the atmosphere. I remember, whatsisface, the drummer of The Police – Stewart Copeland – reviewed our song The Killing Moon on the radio and he said, ‘I think it's about time they stopped playing one-finger guitar solos.' "It just seems like a weird idea," he says, "the idea that if you play a load of notes it makes the song better. The DIY ethics of punk have remained Sergeant's inspiration to this day. "It's a weird attitude to have, I suppose," says Will. They played it over and over for 15 minutes. Pattinson had never played any musical instrument before, they had a singer they'd never heard sing, and they only had one song: Monkeys. "I never heard Mac sing until we did our first gig. Then we rehearsed and Mac didn't even turn up." "I was winding them up about it so Will said, 'If you're so sure of yourself, why don't you go buy a bass and do it then?' So I bought a bass with three strings on it. "Will and Mac were supposed to be playing at Teardrop Explodes' first show, and their balls were really going," remembers Les Pattinson. Soon they were offered a support slot at Teardrop Explodes first gig. Having been told by Pete Wylie that Ian McCulloch could sing, Will approached him and invited Mac round to his house for a jam. All the dickheads got hold of it and made it all touristy." It's all very weird, 'cos that street, Matthew Street, has always been a part of what's going on in Liverpool. When the original Cavern got knocked down, they moved it over there. It was just a small shitty in-the-basement kinda vibe. "The Pistols, Television, Suicide, Iggy Pop, the Slits – they all played there. "Going to Eric's got me back into the guitar," says Will. Eric’s was where you’d find Julian Cope and his fledgling Teardrop Explodes, Pete Wylie of Wah!, Bill Drummond (future Bunnymen manager, and the man behind the KLF), David Balfe (future Food records exec) – all the city's punks, weirdos and dreamers. They tour to this day, with their most recent album of original material, Meteorites, released in 2014.Įcho and The Bunnymen were born out of Liverpool's post-punk scene and a basement club called Eric's. Evergreen was a top 10 album in the UK and the single Nothing Lasts Forever went to no.8 in the singles chart. Oasis might have had the Bunnymen’s working class swagger, but in Britpop’s wake a more thoughtful breed of bands had emerged and many of them – like The Verve, Radiohead and Coldplay – cited the Bunnymen as an influence. The Bunnymen’s 80s success had ended with that same decade – with McCulloch pursuing a solo career and Pete De Freitas dead from a motorcycle accident, aged 27.īy 1997, they had reunited for a new album, Evergreen. This interview with Will Sergeant (and Les Pattinson) was originally published in Total Guitar magazine in 1997. Plus, Mac was always putting his foot in it, just like Liam. “We were stubborn,” says Les Pattinson, “and it’s reflected in bands like Oasis. They didn't make many compromises in the 80s, and they briefly fell out of fashion. Acoustic flourishes, frenzied strumming, twanging riffs, chiming hooks, psychedelic craziness – Will Sergeant's guitar had the critics reaching for the thesaurus in an attempt to find another word for 'majestic'. Les Pattinson and Pete de Freitas were an explosive rhythm section and guitarist Will Sergeant could carve miracles out of the air. In Ian “Mac” McCulloch, they had a singer with a big voice, big hair and an even bigger mouth. They were what you got when you took a love of all those goth influences – Alice Cooper, Bowie, the Velvets, the Doors – and bolted them to big tunes and grandiose ambition. The Bunnymen were too melodic and romantic to ever be ‘goth’. And along the way they laid the path for The Verve, Coldplay and even Oasis. They had hits, things got mad, they split up. Their first gig was also the first time the band heard their singer actually sing. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)Įcho and The Bunnymen: when they first got together they couldn’t really play. Pictured are guitarist Will Sergeant (left) and singer Ian McCulloch. British band Echo and the Bunnymen perform onstage at Tuts nightclub, Chicago, Illinois, April 11, 1981.
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