Will Sergeant is one of the most innovative and influential guitarists the world has ever seen. But after spending an afternoon in his company, we doubt he would agree with this description, or possibly even like it. Over a few cups of tea and a pint in his local, he reveals himself to have quite a self deprecating humour that glosses over his own track record, where he has played guitar with Echo and the Bunnymen for 45 years.
During that time, he has played on some of the best and most memorable records we here at Sun 13 can think of. From the early finding your feet brilliance of Pictures On My Wall to the epic brilliance of Heaven Up Here and Ocean Rain and beyond, and still playing sold out gigs at the country’s arenas.
To tie in with the second volume of Sergeant’s memoirs, the highly recommended Echo, which follows on from volume one, Bunnyman. Volume two focuses more on the Bunnymen’s story, their early successes and frustrations and is as compelling a book as we have ever read. Echo brings to life the turbulent times of the late ’70s/early ’80s, when the post punk rules were still being written and, for a moment, anything seemed possible.
The Bunnymen’s rise over the three years covered in this book is detailed with great recall. From local gigs in Liverpool to tours of America and Australia, taking in trips along the iron curtain and visits to obscure European clubs, the path the band took is laid out from Sergeant’s unique perspective and told with his unique wit. Seeing their ascent from within is fascinating and it possible to see that the band made it despite their actions rather than because of them.
Sun 13 were lucky enough to sit down with Will Sergeant and subject him to one of our 13 Questions features. Read on to find out more about voodoo hexes, French food and bottling David Bowie.
1. What have you been up to lately?
Will Sergeant: “I’ve been promoting the book, doing things like this. Twittering.”
Sun 13: You’re a twitterer are you?
WS: “I do Twitter, yeah. I think for me it’s a dead handy tool. There haven’t been any adverts for the book I don’t think. Maybe there is, it would be good if there are. So yeah, just this sort of thing. The Bunnymen Twitter account is good, there are a lot of people following that. “
2. When did you last get into an argument?
WS: “I can’t remember. I’ve had a confrontation recently, but I wasn’t arguing.”
3. When did you last consider quitting social media?
WS: “Well, my Instagram got hacked by someone in Nigeria. He kept phoning me up, I think it was going to be a kind of blackmail thing; ‘We’ll give you the password back if you give us some money’ or something like that. So I said ‘keep it’ and I just started up another one and I put a voodoo hex on them.”
S13: Did that work?
WS: “Well hopefully. They got in touch with me again and said ‘we just want to talk and we want to give you your password back’ and I just ignored it. I thought it’s too late mate, you’re hexed.”
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4. Who is the nicest celebrity you’ve ever met?
WS: “Richard Hawley is great. Is he a celebrity? Robert Plant was great and Bowie was great. I spilt my ale all over him. Electrafixion were playing gigs supporting him in France and he knocked on the dressing room door and I had a bottle of Duvel in my hand and Bowie was just stood there and I dropped my bottle and it went psssssshh and it splattered all over him. He had this purple jump suit on with no shoes and there was broken glass all over the floor. He just looked at it and scurried off down the corridor.
“I shut the door and I said to Mac, ‘Mac – I’ve just bottled David Bowie”’ and he was laughing his head off. The next day I saw Bowie again and I said, ‘Sorry for spilling ale all over you’ and he said, ‘I never noticed a thing, don’t worry about it.’, He was dead sound and all his crew said the same thing. And he signed 50 of my records.“
5. Can you recommend a new album?
WS: “I’ve just bought the Sun’s Signature album, well it’s quite long but I don’t think it’s an album. It’s Liz Fraser and Damon Reece.”
6. What’s your first memory?
WS: “My very first memory is probably having spaghetti on toast in a high chair in Mrs Brigson’s house. She lived over the road and her family were pretty…out there, a bit scary. There were a lot like that back in the day, there were various layers of violence.”
7. Can you cook?
WS: “Yeah.”
S13: What kind of stuff do you cook?
WS: “What do you want?”
S13: Are we talking Masterchef level of cooking here?
WS: “On occasion. I make my own bread and my own pasta. I was a trainee chef for five years. I enjoyed that at first but I suppose that sort of eroded away over the years. I do enjoy cooking for my family, but I never enjoy it as much as when they cook for me.
“I think that Britain has a reputation for having the worst food, and that’s bullshit. France has got the worst food, it’s just omelette and chips wherever you go. A Welsh rarebit is nicer than that. There must be nice restaurants there and they’ve invented loads of things, but when you’re on tour, you get better food in England, or Italy or Greece.”
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8. What’s the best night out you’ve ever had?
WS: “I don’t know. I don’t really go mad on the ale, I don’t get pissed. Generally when I’ve had three or four pints, I know I’ve had enough. But that’s equating being pissed with a good night out. It probably involved going for a meal.
“This is harder than picking my favourite record! I’ve had some good nights in here [Sergeant regularly joins a vinyl night at his local pup, Heaton’s Bridge]. Those nights are a good laugh. But I don’t want it to be seen as my thing, me and my mate just started bringing records in and it just grew naturally.
“I can’t make it all the time, sometimes I’m busy or on tour. Next week I’ll be away at Rough Trade East. I’m being interviewed by Bill Drummond.”
S13: He should know all the right questions to ask.
WS: “He won’t ask the right questions, he’ll ask some wacky questions. He won’t ask ‘what was your favourite gig’ or anything like that, the last time we did something like that he only asked me for questions; ‘what is a guitar’, ‘what is it used for’, ‘what would make you stop playing the guitar’ and… I can’t remember the last one, but they were mad questions.”
9. Vinyl, MP3 or streaming?
WS: “Vinyl. MP3s are quite handy to have on your phone and when I’m on tour I have my iPod and it has loads of records on it, but I only ever buy vinyl now. I’ve got thousands of CDs, but I don’t buy them anymore. I like the act of buying vinyl, the cover is better, you can actually read it. I like the act of putting it on a record player, the organic nature of it.
“And it still sounds great. It’s technology that’s nearly a hundred years old and it still sounds good.”
10. What’s your favourite decade for music?
WS: “Can I go across two decades? I’ll go ‘65 to ‘75.”
S13: All pre-punk?
WS: “Well ’67 was the summer of love, I could go then but there were a few groovy things before. I mean when was Revolver released? OK, let’s go ’67 to ’77.”
S13: There are a lot of changes in that ten years aren’t there?
WS: “Yeah. You’ve got all the Bowie stuff, The Doors, Led Zeppelin and then you go into the Pistols and The Damned. And Glam Rock, although I only ever really liked Roxy Music, Bowie and T-Rex, maybe a bit of Steve Harley.
“Yeah, I’m happy with that. ’67 to ’77.”
11. When did you last shout at the TV?
WS: “Well, I’m not really a nutter! Or at least not that sort of nutter.”
S13: All it takes to make me shout at the TV these days is to watch Prime Ministers Questions.
WS: “Well I don’t watch that shite. The only question I have for them is when are you fucking off?
“I suppose I only watch things that I want to watch. I’ve been watching Yellowjackets, which is alright, not as good as Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.”
12. What’s your favourite view?
WS: “I’ve seen Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park, that was amazing. I like America. I’ve been going there for a long time and I’ve got used to it.
“Also, the view out of my kitchen window, across the fields.”
Tunnel View13. Is there anything else you would like to add.
WS: “I’ve already said too much!”
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