Bunnyman

Echo and the Bunnymen were one of the iconic bands of my adolescent years, and remain one of the greatest bands ever to emerge from Liverpool - or, indeed, anywhere else.

They were certainly one of the things that gave Liverpool its cool cachet when I first moved up here as a callow adolescent. I’m still here 37 years later, and I still love the place. I still love Echo and the Bunnymen too. And I was lucky enough to say all of the above to Will Sergeant tonight.

Will is the Bunnymen’s genius guitarist, and co-creator of some of the most beautiful music of my lifetime.

He was at The British Music Experience tonight to talk about his excellent new memoir, ‘Bunnyman’, which details his early years, difficult family life and school days, discovery of music, clothes and art, and the artistic crucible that was Liverpool’s legendary club Eric’s in the late ‘70s, just as punk was evolving into post-punk. The latter part of the book focuses on the almost accidental formation of the Bunnymen, and their first year or so of existence, gigging and recording - what he refers to as ‘the drum machine period’. It ends as they meet, and have their first rehearsal with, Pete de Freitas - the drummer who would complete their ‘classic’ line-up, alongside Will, Les Pattinson, and Ian McCulloch. I recommend the book highly to discerning music lovers everywhere. He’s now working on the second instalment, which I’m looking forward to very much.

Thanks to Will for allowing me to take this picture. He seemed to be genuinely interested in my camera too, which was nice.

Today’s song is ‘Seven Seas’ by Echo and the Bunnymen, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbYxP11rbSM chosen because I love the video, which features Will sporting perhaps the greatest bowl cut of all time (as well as an excellent fish costume!). He still has a luxuriant head of hair, but the fish costume was nowhere in sight!