Interview
Interview
The Wonder Stuff have no memory of headlining Reading festival
As the indie-rock legends load in for this year’s 40th anniversary tour, frontman Miles Hunt looks back at his live history
The enfant terrible of indie-rock is now its elder statesman. But Miles Hunt still can’t believe he’s heading out on an anniversary tour. “How the hell is it 40 years?” demands The Wonder Stuff frontman. “It’s entirely ridiculous. But I guess the fact that it doesn’t feel like 40 years means I’ve enjoyed it.”
The feeling is mutual. While Britpop is often cited as the mid-’90s flashpoint when these Isles got rocking, anyone who lived it knows there was a proto-movement of anarchic, anything-goes homegrown guitar bands – and none were bigger than The Wonder Stuff.
Whether banging your head with ‘Don’t Let Me Down Gently’, wrecking you with ballads like ‘Sleep Alone’, drafting comedian Vic Reeves to guest on No.1 hit ‘Dizzy’ or dropping bovine-themed oddity ‘The Size Of A Cow’, this Midlands collective shed their skin with every single. Expect to hear them all on this year’s UK tour with Inspiral Carpets – a lap of honour that promises to top even Hunt’s greatest moments on the stage.
The gig that made me want to play music
The first band I ever saw was Slade in ’77 at Birmingham Town Hall. I was only 11, so I had no idea what was going to happen. The lights go down and you can hear the electricity of the amplifiers. And it’s theatre seating, so all these hairy guys – who are at least ten years older than me – stand up and run to the front. And as their seats slam back, it sounds like a herd of buffalo, doof, doof, doof!
I’d only seen Slade on Top Of The Pops and their album sleeves. So to see them for the first time in the flesh was unbelievable. Noddy Holder’s voice was incredible. And Dave Hill, the flamboyant guitarist, had shaved all his hair off for that tour and had a great big silver hooped earring. He looked like he was from another planet.
It was a sensory overload. I thought of nothing else for months afterwards. I was sold on the whole notion of gigs and knew I’d definitely spend my life around this in some way.
The first
Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
We’d only formed The Wonder Stuff line-up 11 days before our first gig in March 1986. It was at a famous Black Country club called JB’s. I’d played gigs before, but I’d been the drummer in my previous band, so this was my first time as a singer and rhythm guitarist. In recent years, my dad has told me that he was dreading it, because he had no evidence that I could sing – but he came along anyway, and said he was pleasantly surprised.
If there was a recording of that gig now, I’d probably notice the mistakes. But to be honest, we were quite a frantic band when we started. There wasn’t a song over two minutes, and they were all very fast. There was no subtlety. So I think we pulled it off. We didn’t get anything thrown at us, anyway, and that was rare at JB’s, because it could be an unforgiving audience.
Becoming a frontman was a weird conundrum, because as a kid, I was painfully shy. But I chose a job which is basically saying: “Can everyone look and listen to me now, please?” I’ve reconciled the two things now. But in those early days, I created a sort of character to protect the shy me. So I was a bit of a gobshite, definitely very cocky. I would attack before anyone could attack me. But it served me well at the time.
The biggest
We headlined the Reading Festival in ’92, and I think it was about 50,000 capacity. I’m sure it’s doubled now. I still get anxiety before gigs, but now I know how to get it under control, which is basically breathing and stretching exercises, as opposed to – at that time – drinking as much beer as possible.
I have to admit, I was pretty drunk. I remember getting offstage, feeling really pleased with what we’d done. I walked into our Portakabin and my American manager and agent were in there with their jaws just hanging down: “What the f*ck was that?” Apparently my antics onstage had been a little embarrassing. Of course, I have no memory of it. I’ve since been told what I said onstage that day… and no, I’m not going to repeat it!
The smallest
When you can see the whites of people’s eyes, that’s more intimidating than seeing an audience as one mass. The smallest gig I’ve ever done was in Bielefeld, Germany. This was with my other band, Vent 414, the year after The Wonder Stuff split up in 1994. We pull into Bielefeld and I look at the tour manager, like, “Why are we here?” And he said, “Well, there’s an American army base nearby.”
So we soundcheck and when it gets to an hour past gig time, there’s still only us, our crew and the bar staff. So we’re like, “Let’s just pack up and move on to the next town”. But we had Billy Duffy from The Cult playing guitar with us and – being the ultimate professional – he said, “Well, hang on, all the gear’s set up, why don’t we rehearse?”
So we start playing. At which point – I kid you not – one guy with a dog came in and paid the ticket price. And as if that wasn’t humiliating enough, he left before we finished!
The best
There was one gig we did in ’91 at the Bescot Football Stadium in Walsall. The weather was absolutely atrocious. We couldn’t even put our backdrop up because it would just act as a sail and take the lighting rig down. It was torrential rain and all our radio packs failed – even Malc’s pedals went down because they got wet.
The whole set, our crew were running onstage, yanking out wires, plugging them back in and hoping it worked. It was just a battle against the elements. But the audience were so up for it. There was this big cloud of steam coming off 22,000 people and we knew there was no way we could stop. We had to fight every problem. And when we got offstage, we just sat in the dressing room going, “How we did get through that?!”
I still meet people who were in the audience that day. There was a guy in Gateshead the other night, when I was at the merch table. He said, “I was at Bescot, man”. It’s a look we all have. You don’t need to say any more than that. Like, “We survived Bescot Stadium…”
The worst
There was a very early one in 1987. This was the week we released our breakthrough single, ‘Unbearable’. We had management, and we’d got an agent to come up from London. The show was at a bar in Birmingham, but it was absolutely packed. And of course, we’re high as kites on the fact we’ve got a 12-inch single coming out.
I remember me, Malc [guitar] and Rob [bass] getting up onstage. We were quite drunk. So we’re looking around, and I asked over the microphone: “Has anyone seen our drummer?” To which, the whole audience just pointed at the bar, where Martin was holding two pints of beer – one in each hand – above his head: “Alright, Milo!”
The audience helped him climb onstage. He seemed alright. He clicked the four clicks that signal the beginning of ‘Red Berry Joy Town’. But before we’d got to the chorus, he fell off his drum stool, down the back of the stage. We were like, “OK, we need to sober up and make good on this”. Which we did. But when we got to the end, we were looking for our managers and the agent – and they’d all left halfway through the first song.
We got a phone call next morning: “That was horrendous and you should be ashamed of yourselves”. So from that day on the first thing out of the van when we arrived at a gig was a massive stainless steel tea urn.
The weirdest
In 1994, I received a letter from a 16-year-old kid who was a Wonder Stuff fan. He said he wanted to interview me for some exam he was doing. Over the years, I got to know him quite well. Sadly, just before the pandemic, he got terminal cancer. His mum emailed and said, “Sammy’s in the hospice and he’s not going to make it to the end of the week.”
I went to Derby the next day. The nurses in the Macmillan ward were fantastic, and one of them was just so over-the-top that he kept everybody in a better mood. As I left, he said, “Next time, bring your guitar”. Sammy was in and out of consciousness, but his mum asked him to write a little setlist. So I went back the next day and sat by the side of his bed. The only energy he’d got was to squeeze my hand to say he knew I was there. And I played him six songs. That’s the most unusual gig I’ve ever done. And I’m so glad I did, because it meant the world to the family, and I think it made a better person of me.
Vent 414 play Bristol, Southampton and Birmingham in May. Find dates and tickets here
