MILES HUNT: THE WONDER STUFF, INFLUENCES AND MIDLANDS MEMORIES
To celebrate the release of the first volume of The Wonder Stuff diaries Lead ‘Stuffie’ Miles Hunt walks us through his influences and Midlands memories…
Early Midlands musical influences….
That’s easy… my uncle Bill was the keyboard player in a late line up of The Move, he was then a founding member of The Electric Light Orchestra, but then accompanied Roy Wood when he split from ELO to form Wizzard. Consequently Wizzard was a very big deal in our house. Of course, this being around ’72 to 75, Slade were omnipresent. They were blowing down doors with every single release during those years, so they were absolutely unavoidable, but knowing that they were from just up the road from where we lived was a major bonus.
Punk Rock and New Wave cleared the decks shortly after that and that gave us the likes of The Killjoys, Suburban Studs, The Au Pairs, Fashion, and Dexy’s. I was massively into the reggae bands of The Midlands too, Steel Pulse still are one of my all time favourite bands, Weapon of Peace knew how to lay it down too and the the first couple of UB40 albums were a huge sense of pride for the area. From just down the road in Coventry came the Two Tone explosion around that time, every direction we looked in, there was amazing music, great songwriters and singers coming at us.
It was quite the scene…
Hurst Street in Birmingham city centre was the place to spend our weekend nights out, The Australian Bar, or The Ozzy Bar as it was better known, brought in all sorts. Some of the guys that were part of the second wave of Punk bands, like Discharge, GBH and Drongos For Europe would be in there, a bunch of Skinheads from another pub up the street called The Crown would usually swing by and the high spirited young transvestites, amazingly costumed, would be around before a night of clubbing. It was quite the scene.
The Powerhouse, just up the street from The Ozzy Bar, was the club of choice in the early to mid ’80’s, that’s where I first heard the likes of Bauhaus and The Psychedelic Furs. The Tin Can Club, run by a man that would latterly become The Wonder Stuff’s manager, Les Johnson, was a strip joint that doubled as a live venue on the nights that Les promoted there, I used to play drums in my brother’s band back then and was lucky enough to support Flesh For LuLu there.
We don’t take ourselves overly seriously, it’s part of our charm…
I would put it down to our self deprecating sense of humour, it runs deep, particularly through the character of the Black Country residents. We don’t take ourselves overly seriously, it’s part of our charm. But I think when it comes to national media we have done ourselves a disservice. Maybe they think as we don’t take ourselves too seriously, why should they? Bands from Liverpool or Manchester have always had a swaggering confidence and are happy to tell you that they are The Greatest Bands In The World, as they should, but you wouldn’t hear that from Noddy Holder, why would he bother? It’s not who we are.
I can stand back now and admire our determination and optimism…
Some of the old friends I stay in touch with still live in Stourbridge and in more recent years I’ve made great friendships with people I didn’t know back in the 80’s. I still visit there regularly and it still has a of couple great boozers. I think fondly of the days that I was living there, ’85 to ’87, I can stand back now and admire our determination and optimism.
You wanna grow yer’ hair back and start playing again mate, TV is for wankers”…
Paul Weller encouraged me to get back into music when The Wonder stuff spilt up 1st time around He said “You wanna grow yer hair back and start playing again mate, TV is for wankers”. I have nothing but respect for Paul, but the manner in which he told me to get back into writing and playing, as I was indeed presenting radio and TV at the time, was a little patronising. In saying that, he was absolutely spot on and I should perhaps have acted on his advice a little sooner than I did!
I learnt how not to write my first book…
Y’know, I never have found another writer that does it for me in quite the same way that Bukowski did. Not that I hung on his every word and there definitely are a couple of his books that I really don’t like, but his output was huge. I’ve absolutely loved the three volumes of Simon Grey’s ‘Smoking Diaries’, they’re worth looking into. This year I read a lot of music biographies. There a a few good ones, but most of them follow the same blueprint and consequently I find a little boring. I guess, with my research, I learnt how NOT to write my first book.
Miles Hunt ‘The Wonder Stuff Diaries 86-89 ‘ is available now. Go buy it!
